A.A.A.D.D. [tenses and time]

Here is one of those e-mails that friends circulate around to each other. It's quite funny and as I get older I notice that I seem to be suffering from this, too!

But for learning English, once you stop laughing, here is your task. There are lots of actions and lots of verbs. The verbs are used in different tenses because some actions are done before others or after others. Find the special tenses (e.g. I will be looking) used to make the order clear. [I put some in red to start you off.]

AAADD- KNOW THE SYMPTOMS.....

Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder. Somehow I feel better, even though I have it!!

Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests itself:

I decide to water my garden.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I head towards the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I picked up from the post man earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. [no future tense after conjunctions such as 'before']

I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the recycling box under the table, and notice that the recycling box is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the recycling first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the postbox when I take out the recycling paper anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my cheque book off the table, And notice that there is only one cheque left.

My extra cheques are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the cup of coffee I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my cheques, but first I need to push the coffee aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The coffee is getting cold, and I decide to make another cup.

As I head toward the kitchen with the cold coffee, a vase of flowers on the worktop catches my eye - the flowers need water.

I put the coffee on the worktop and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I put the glasses back down on the worktop, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote control. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realise that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I put the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

The car isn't washed.

The bills aren't paid.

There is a cold cup of coffee sitting on the counter.

The flowers don't have enough water.

There is still only 1 cheque in my cheque book.

I can't find the remote.

I can't find my glasses.

And I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all damn day, and I'm really tired.

I realise this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

Do me a favour. Forward this message to everyone you know, Because I don't remember who the hell I've sent it to.

Don't laugh - if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!!

A wonderful talk about dictionaries

As language learners, you need your dictionaries. With today's blog post I want to inspire you to use your dictionary in a much better way. So here is a question:

Is your dictionary like a police officer? Do you just want it to tell you if words are 'right or wrong'?

In fact, a language is a very human thing and humans are not 'black and white'. There are no absolutely 'wrong' words - there are words that you use in the wrong place, perhaps. But these words might be 'right' in another situation or if you are talking to another person - CONTEXT is the key. A good dictionary should help you find more words that are similar to the one you look up. So you can use the best word for your context.

This morning I watched a talk from the TED series - this is a great series of talks from experts in many fields.

The talk was from a woman who is one of the editors of a top American dictionary. She says she is not a 'traffic cop' - directing the bad words out of the dictionary. She is more like a 'fisherwoman' - fishing in the huge ocean of words to find the ones she hasn't seen yet.

I have linked the talk below. If she talks too fast for you and you can't understand everything, then go to this page and you will find the transcript of the talk. Print it out and then you can read it while you are listening.

Fight the Fog - Tips for Advanced Students

Although this document is written for translators at the European Union, it is written in an informal style and is quite easy to understand. So it's very very useful for any advanced students who want to improve their English and make sure that people reading their documents don't fall asleep!!

http://ec.europa.eu/translation/writing/clear_writing/fight_the_fog_en.pdf