EXAMPLE

July 2000: Listen and Learn

The English language is an arsenal of weapons. If you are going to brandish them without checking to see whether or not they are loaded, you must expect to have them explode in your face from time to time.

–Stephen Fry

How does one gain an understanding of good usage; that is, how the parts of speech in written language express ideas and idioms?

  1. Learn the grammar of your native language and of English.

  2. Study, compare and contrast how different structures are used in each language to describe the same ideas.

  3. LISTEN when you read the language you want to learn.

Original

Revised

There, he is put under cruel tortures.

There, he is cruelly tortured.

At last he decided to take a breath for awhile.

At last he decided to take a break for awhile.

Show me it!

Show it to me!

A young man approached and made a photograph.

A young man approached and took a photograph.

The next day she awaked up early.

The next day she awakened early.

He hugged him fatherly.

He hugged him in a fatherly way.

Things had just got square.

Things seemed just right.

Petar wouldn’t forget to give the sheet to anyone from the Castaldi’s family.

Petar wouldn’t forget to give the sheet to anyone from the Castaldi family.

They went out and no one of them turned back.

They went out and not one of them turned back.

She wore a flowered many colored dress

She wore a multi-colored, flowered dress

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