If a supply of something sells out, there is no more of that thing to buy. If a shop sells out of something, it sells all its stocks of it, so that there is no longer any left for people to buy. In the US it is used as “sellout“. Very simmilar si: sell off: The company is selling off the less profitable parts of its business. “sell […]
Continue Reading“Dunno” meaning
Dunno is used in written English to represent an informal way of saying ‘don’t know‘. Examples: I dunno, maybe he was just trying to ensure the job was well done. His friend asked, “What happened?” to which Mr Kennedy replied “dunno, must have been [too many] and run out of air”. Instead of talking about, ohhh, I dunno, fixing our damaged public health infrastructure, or putting people back to work, Trump produced a veritable cornucopia of […]
Continue ReadingIDIOMS: Donkey’s years
Years and years. A very long time. And that’s basically it! It is believed that this expression originated from “donkey’s ears” in the early 20th century and referred to the considerable length of the animal’s ears, on top of that donkeys are believed to live a long time. Ears rhymes with years and there you […]
Continue ReadingFell a Tree
ne look at the title, and you may say: “Hey, that’s incorrect!” Yesterday, a friend of mine saw an advertisement that read: “A termite can fell a tree“, and criticised that it’s grammatically wrong to say “can fell“. She said that it should be “can fall“. I disagreed with her. Here’s the reason: “fell” can […]
Continue Reading“interested” vs. “interesting”
Try and guess if these two sentences mean the same. “You look so interested.” “You look so interesting.” They’re not. interested (adj.) – wanting to give attention to something or someone interesting (adj.) – keeps your interest Examples: Many men are interested in getting to know Paula. You go ahead with you plan; I’m not interested. Many men find Paula interesting, so they try […]
Continue ReadingYou’re Very Fierce
I remember a long time ago, in secondary school, I constructed the following sentence: My teacher is very fierce. My teacher corrected me and said, it should be “strict” instead of “fierce“. Is that so? At that time, I accepted her explanation as she’s more learned than I was. Today, I believe there is a […]
Continue ReadingNothing to Do?
In spoken English – or any other languages – the message that you convey may easily be misintepreted, resulting in confusion and argument. Here’s an example: Compare You have nothing to do… There’s nothing you can do… This is the question: “What can I do to help you?” – so how would you respond? Response #1 causes […]
Continue Reading“learned” vs. “learnt”
Is there a difference? Yes and No. learn (v.) learned (adj.) If the word “learn” is used as a verb, then there is no difference at all in the meaning and usage of the words “learned” and “learnt“ in its past form. I honestly don’t know why the spelling is inconsistent. It’s not really true to say that one […]
Continue ReadingThe Problematic “e”
If you’re a chess (not chest) player, you’ll know that the pawn is the smallest piece on the chess board. It is considered a “weak” piece as it could move only one step at a time – forward only – unlike the bishop, queen or rook that could glide across the board – backward and […]
Continue ReadingNever got one
I’m not writing a grammar post today. It’s more on two unique languages called Manglish (Malaysian English) and Singlish (Singaporean English). never got one These are three very common words and very widely used. In Malaysia and Singapore, due to interference of their own vernacular languages, some tend to use them incorrectly, and not knowing […]
Continue Reading