Reneged, Renegaded

I might have renegaded but I haven't reneged on my commitment!

Reneged: Failed to carry out promises or commitment; to disown; to renounce.

Renegaded: One who rejects a religion, cause, allegiance, or group for another; a deserter; an outlaw; a rebel.

Source: The Free Dictionary.

Reporting Reported Speech

I think I've found what I had wanted to find, thanks to English Grammar Secrects:

"...when we are reporting something that was said in the past but is still true, it is not obligatory to make the tense 'more in the past'. The choice is up to the speaker. For example:

"The train doesn't stop here."

He said the train doesn't stop here.
He said the train didn't stop here.

"I like Sarah."

She said she likes Sarah.
She said she liked Sarah.

The keyword is "not obligatory", meaning we can write in both ways.

Number, Majority, Total

Ok, this is weird. The article the and a can either make a noun singular or plural. So, while the total, the majority, the number are singulars; a number, a total, a majority, are plurals.

Another thing, in what situation should a noun be plural or singluar the qualifier "any"?

One general rules, when it's in the negative, it's plural, i.e it didn't show any irregularities. But also depends on whether you are refering to one or more subjects after the word "any".

More Reading...

Here's a list of English grammar resources which I plan to read over the weekend:

1. 100 worst grammar mistakes

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a definite answer on how to safely shift between tenses in a sentence and in an essay/article. I understand that the tense must be consistent in a sentence, e.g. "I knew I'm wrong" is wrong while "I knew I was wrong" is right.

But what about this phrase, "He said the museum will be completed in two years"? Shouldn't it be written, "He said the museum would be completed in two years?" Tell me, tell me, because I don't know.

I've asked a friend, whose command of English is better than mine, and all he could tell me was "both sentences can also".

How To Clean Copy

Here's a a course, which I'm sure will be a great resources, on how to clean your copy but I haven't register. I'll do it this week.

Summer Institute for Midcareer Copy Editors is another great copy editing resources.

Claiming That Racial Tensions Have Increased...

Pembangkang mendakwa bahawa ketegangan kaum meningkat. I wouldn't know how to translate this without changing the structure of the sentence, all because of the inability to utilise the word "mount".

The sentence can be translated without changing the structure, like this: "The oppositions claims that racial tensions have mounted".

Moving Beyond "Enhance, Uplift And Improve"

It's time to welcome the word "bloster bolster" into the oft-used enhance, uplift and improve.

And by the way, you don't shift the tense unnecessarily, I was told. But I think there must be an exception to this rule. I think the ability to weave in and out of the past, present and future tenses, is an art in itself that needs perfections.

The only guide I hold on in as far as tense is concerned is this, "It's okay to move from past to present but it's not okay to move back into the past in the same sentence". I don't know if this is true.

Perhaps I may come to this issue in the course of reading The Element of Style By William Strunk and E B White.

Gambling And Betting

... are two different things. Gambling is not only about betting but betting is definitely gambling. Therefore you can't gamble on the election results, but you can bet on it!

I Can Prove To You That Ducks Were Once Chickens

It happened very, very long time ago in the era of The Big Bang. The animal on earth saw the asteroid coming but it was the chickens who knew what actually was going on.

As the giant asteroid approached the earth, they shouted, "The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling!"

Many of the terrified animal managed to take cover under some rocks, except for the dinasours because they were too big to be taking refuge under the rocks, and some chickens, that were still in the open because they moved too slowly.

In the final moment, as the giant asteroid slammed the earth, the only thing that they could manage was to duck.

And duck they became until today.

Hopelessly Confused By The Article "The"

I'm having a big problem understanding how to properly apply the article "the" before an abbreviation.

For instance, under what circumstances do I need to use the article "the" in an abbreviation.

And what about the name of electoral constituency. Should I write "in the Perai parliamentary seat" or will "Perai parliamentary seat" suffice?

Perhaps, I should start getting to know more about the article "the", starting from the basic. Maybe I can start doing so at the Online Writing Lab or OWL. By the way, in this case, do I need to say "the Online Writing Lab"?

The Acrimony That Comes With Being Dropped

...seems more intense than ever before. Definitions of acrimony on the Web:

bitterness: a rough and bitter manner
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Acrimony was a Welsh stoner metal band who were active during the 1990s. Although the band never achieved mainstream success, during its career it received much critical acclaim and developed a cult following in the British underground metal scene.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrimony

Source: Google

Are You Still Learning?

I do. I learn all the time. Right now I'm reading "The Element of Style" by William Strunk Jr and EB White. It's an old book, revised many times by White, Strunk's trusted disciple. Mine is the fourth edition.

And I must admit I'm a Strunkian convert although I'm not yet a good devotee. Here's the principle of Strunkian, in 59 words:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

But as much as I admire the wisdom of Stunk, I won't do one thing and that is to write Charles's friend or Burns's poem. I think I'll stick with Charles' friend and Burns' poem.

Does It Matter Whether Or Not I'm Right And You're Wrong?

No it doesn't. The only things that matters here is whether or not the or not should be there in the first place!

I've been trying to find a solution to this problem of how to correctly put two conflicting scenarios where one is the alternate to the other, in one sentence. Can I actually use "whether or not" and get away with it without suffering any repercussions from the grammar police?

Somehow it doesn't feel right to say whether or not I'm right. It sounds gramatically correct with whether I'm right or not but still it's mouthful. Then I just realise that it sounds even better with the plain whether I'm right. I'm not sure if I'm right though.

Apparently, the or not issue has been discussed and debated all this while. Columbia Journalism Review has a brief but very informative article on this issue.

It says, among other things, that, "At times, though, balance, euphony and even logic demand `or not' or something else to specify the alternative outcome."

But even then, from now on, I shall try no to use or not after the word whether if that is possible.

One more thing, can I say whether I'm right or otherwise instead? Hmmm... I guess not. Imagine having to write whether or otherwise I'm right... Ah, Shakespeare is turning in his grave again!

The Last English Train Has Left When I Arrived

The last English train had already left when I arrived as village boy at the door of the country's education system.

So I'd just hopped in on the bandwagon of the new education policy and embraced the systems, not knowing whether I should have questioned them or whether I had missed something important.

When I was in Form One, my seniors of three years still had their lessons taught in English, except for Bahasa Malaysia, that is. They had their mathematics, science, history, geography, even arts and literature in English.

I could still remember them talking to each other very fluently in English. Some with British accent.

Somehow, somewhere, sometime in the past, the Malaysian government decided to do away with English as the medium of instruction. When I started Primary One, the medium of instruction had already been switch to Bahasa Malaysia and the English system was all but gone for a couple of years already.

Ah, I had missed the last English train. Things could be different if only they had delayed the train's departure just so that I could hop in and join the ride. Things could have been different today.

Things could not have been this hard. I could have been a man of letters already!

Online English Learning Resource

I can safely say now that I've improved a lot since I started to seriously learn English three years ago, albeit on a self-taught basis. The Internet has been an invaluabe resource in my quest to at least be comfortable with the language if mastering it prove to be too difficult.

The Internet, the greatest invention of our times, not only provided me with reference on the way certain words and phrases live in their natural habitats, but also housed what seemingly an inexaustible English learning resource.

Askoxford.com one of the websites I came across recently which I found to be extremely useful.

By the way, do you know the answer to this question: The city of Siena, in the Tuscany region of Italy, has two horse races each summer that clatter through the city streets. On what dates do the races take place?

If you do, then head over to Askoxford.com quiz and answer the question correctly. You could win a copy of Oxford Beginner's Bilingual Dictionary! Closing date is on Feb 17.

Ah, Experties, Privelege -- What Was I Thinking?

Sometimes it was not because you don't know the spelling of certain words. For instance, I know exactly how to spell expertise and privilege, but somehow misspellings as embarrassing as experties and privelege can still creep into a copy.

It's okay -- at least, it's okay -- if the copies are for your own consumption. But what if they are sent out to your company's subscribers? Imagine having to pay for a service that contain kindergarten errors! Ah, you'd be disgracing to the whole organisation!

Perhaps it's a wise thing not to take for granted that you have check everything before sending out a copy. Here's what I'm going to do each time I work on a copy after those two embarrassing incidents -- check every word, check every sentence from top to bottom and then check again after corrections are made. Then repeat the process 10 times.

Entertain even the slighest doubt that you might have gotton things wrong. Here are some of the most commonly misspelled words according to Paul Brians:

absence, abundance, accessible, accidentally, acclaim, accommodate, accomplish, accordion, accumulate, achievement, acquaintance, across, address, advertisement, aggravate, alleged, amend, amendment, annual, apparent, appearance, argument, atheist, athletics, attendance, auxiliary, balloon, barbecue, barbiturate, bargain, basically, beggar, beginning, believe, biscuit, bouillon, boundary, Britain, Buddha, business, calendar, camouflage, cantaloupe, category, cemetery, chagrined, challenge, characteristic, changing, chief, cigarette, climbed, collectible, colonel, colossal, column, coming, committee, commitment, comparative, competent, completely, concede, conceive, condemn, condescend, conscientious, consciousness, consistent, continuous, controlled, convenient, coolly, corollary, correlate, correspondence, counselor, courteous, courtesy, criticize, deceive, defendant...

Click on the Paul Brians' link for the complete list.

Free Translation Service For Bed Engish Readers

I provide Malay-English and English-Malay translation. Although my English is not top-notch yet, I'm a competent Malay language writer, so translating English documents into Malay will not be a problem.

It's the other way around that can prove to be a problem. But I'm learning; and eventhough I may have to take more time to translate Malay documents into English, I should be able to deliver to job, provided the subjects are not too complicated.

I can't do rocket science translation though, whether in English or in Malay. This also applies to complex articles for medical journals or legal documents. Other than that, I'm yours. Signed, sealed and delivered. I'm yours.

If you feel I can be of any service to you, feel free to contact me at jaxonsblog at gmail.com. I'm providing this service as part of my learning process, so it will be free-of-charge for documents of up to 600 words per 24-hour day.

Here's the deal. I'll take one translation job per day but if you have a long article, say 2,000 words, I can still translate it for free but I'm going to need some days to do it. That will work out to be around four days.

But what if I receive translation requests from many people at the same time? If that is the case, I'll still be sticking to my schedule of one job per day. So it will be on first-come first-serve basis. I will try as far as possible to accomodate every request though.

Is there a catch? Yes, but it's not binding. It's only that if you find my service to be of any commercial use, then we can of course work out something. A deal of sort that is not too straining for both sides.

Translation: Pemulihan Cara Kerja/Terapi Cara Kerja

I was searching high and low the other day for the correct translation of the Malay phrase pemulihan cara kerja which is also known as terapi cara kerja. If you translate it literally you will end up with work methods rehabilitation or work methods therapy or the closest will be, work rehabilitation or work therapy.

Basically it's about efforts to rehabilitate the disabled so that they can either work or resume working after a period of disability.

Then the word just came in. It's occupational theraphy or occupational rehabilitation. I managed to find the correct translation after Google-ing the Malaysian Health Ministry's website.

When I keyed in the phrase "cara kerja therapy" in the search function, it came back with a list of jobs and one of them is Occupational Therapist, if I was not mistaken. Then I Google again the term occupational therapy just to double check and bingo! It's the right translation.

English And Patriotism

I'd be going for an English copy-editing class in about 30 minutes, so here's a quick post of a story from the Malaysian national news agency, Bernama, about speaking in English and patriotism.

You know, in Malaysia, there is this whole issues of English being the language of our former colonial master, the British. Here's the news:

Using English Doesn't Make One Less Patriotic, Says Raja Zarith

BANGI, Jan 8 (Bernama) -- Having a good mastery of the English language does not make a Malaysian pro-British or less patriotic, says the wife of the Tunku Mahkota of Johor, Raja Zarith Sofia.

Rather, she said, fluency in English and a good and strong command of it as a language was necessary in the 21st century, whether in daily life, at social gatherings or at work.

"It has nothing to do with being pro-English or pro-British, or with glorifying our British colonial past.

"It has nothing to do with us being any less nationalistic or patriotic," she said when delivering her lecture entitled "Going Global: The Use of the English Language in 21st Century Malaysia" at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia here today.

Raja Zarith Sofia said she chose to speak on the topic as she felt it was an important and timely issue.

"Last year, we celebrated our 50th year of Independence after having been a British colony since the 19th century." [Source: "Using English Doesn't Make One Less Patriotic".]

Hmmm... I agree with her completely. I mean, since when knowing less English was an act of patriotism?

Belajar Bahasa Inggeris Melalui Blog

Percaya atau tidak, sebahagian daripada penambahbaikan dalam penguasaaan Bahasa Inggeris, yang telah saya capai sejak beberapa bulan kebelakangan ini, adalah hasil daripada minat saya menulis dalam blog.

Blog memberi saya ruang untuk melatih-tubi penggunaan Bahasa Inggeris, yang walaupun pada ketika ini masih lagi boleh dikatakan lemah, tetapi telah menunjukkan perkembangan yang memberangsangkan.

Menulis dalam blog juga memaksa saya memerah otak untuk meluahkan apa sebenarnya yang ingin saya perkatakan.

Bahasa Inggeris memanglah bukan satu bahasa yang mudah untuk dipelajari. Sememangnya setiap bahasa asing akan sukar untuk dikuasai kecuali kita berkali-kali menggunakannya dalam sehari.

Baca sebanyak-banyak

Kita perlu membaca supaya kita akan berjumpa perkataan baru dan dengan itu otak kita akan disedarkan dengan kewujudan perkataan itu, dan bagaimana perkataan baru itu berfungsi dan hidup di kalangan perkataan lain dalam satu ayat.

Membaca membolehkan kita menemui perkataan baru dalam habitat semulajadinya -- iaitu antara perkataan dalam satu struktur ayat.

Jangan lepaskan peluang untuk menulis dalam Bahasa Inggeris

Selepas membaca seluas-luasnya, seseorang yang ingin menguasai Bahasa Inggeris perlu menulis sebanyak-banyaknya.

Tetapi pada kebanyakan orang, persekitaran kerjanya tidak memerlukan dia menulis dalam Bahasa Inggeris setiap hari. Oleh itu peluang untuk menulis dalam Bahasa Inggeris hampir tidak ada.

Di sinilah blog dapat mengisi ruang kosong itu. Blog, atas sifatnya sebagai laman web yang perlu dikemaskini secara berkala dalam tempoh dua atau tiga kali seminggu, akan "memaksa" seseorang itu menulis. Jika tidak blognya akan mati dan layu.

Bertutur sebanyak-banyaknya dalam Bahasa Inggeris

Bertutur dalam Bahasa Inggeris merupakan satu lagi cara untuk memperdalamkan penguasaan dalam bahasa ini.

Di Malaysia bagaimanapun, kita tidak ada ruang yang banyak untuk bertutur dalam bahasa asing ini. Jika adapun, Bahasa Inggeris yang kita pertuturkan hanyalah Bahasa Inggeris rojak atau apa yang dikenali sebagai manglish.

Malangnya ramai orang tahu cara untuk belajar Bahasa Inggeris secara percuma -- tulis, baca dan tutur -- tapi ramai yang hanya menggoyangkan kaki tanpa berbuat apa-apa untuk memperbaiki penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris mereka.

Sambil itu mereka terus mempersalahkan langkah kerajaan kerana menggantikan Bahasa Inggeris sebagai bahasa pengantar dengan Bahasa Melayu pada suatu ketika dahulu.

Barangkali ungkapan "malangnya" tidaklah tepat untuk menggambarkan sikap yang sebegini. Barangkali ungkapan yang paling tepat ialah "padan muka".