In the last couple of years I’ve started hearing the phrase “based off of” instead of the seemingly more logical “based on”. Perhaps this upstart conveys greater dynamism, like some kind of springboard. (I’ve only heard it from Americans.) I tried searching Google Ngram to see how long it has been around but Ngram didn’t…… Continue reading What is this, like, based on?
Tag: Usage
Enter until 15 July
I recently saw an invitation to enter a competition until 15 July. This reminded me of an error that many German speakers make when they speak English. They often use use until when they mean by. German speakers make this error because German has one single preposition bis covering 2 different meanings that English expresses…… Continue reading Enter until 15 July
Saying how likely something is
IFRS standards use too many different terms to describe how likely it is that an event will occur. That is a clear conclusion of KASB Research Report No. 39 / AASB Research Report No. 2 Accounting Judgements on Terms of Likelihood in IFRS: Korea and Australia, issued in 2016 by the Korea Accounting Standards Board…… Continue reading Saying how likely something is
When is a continuous race not continuous?
The Catford Hill Climb is ‘the oldest continuously run bike race in the world’. This statement appeared recently in the Saturday Quiz in The Times. The adverbs continuously and continually are often confused, as are their related adjectives (continuous and continual). This confusion is often the subject of comment in style guides. Background The…… Continue reading When is a continuous race not continuous?
Identity is not equivalence
I caught this odd verbiage in a leader article in The Times last week (7 June 2020). It was commenting on the outcome of the vote by Conservative members of Parliament on a motion of no confidence in party leader (and Prime Minister), Boris Johnson. It said that the people supporting the motion were 148…… Continue reading Identity is not equivalence
Are all pre-bookings just bookings?
Some commentators hate hearing people say that they ‘pre-booked’ something, for example, a taxi or a ticket. These commentators argue that the prefix pre- is redundant. In their view, the word book already necessarily includes the meaning that the action occurred in advance. Is the prefix pre- always redundant? I agree that the prefix is…… Continue reading Are all pre-bookings just bookings?
‘Similar to’ in starting a sentence
Over the last 10 years or so, I have seen more and more sentences starting with the phrase Similar to. These sentences often say something like: Similar to A, B does X. Here is a slightly abbreviated version of a recent example I saw in The Times [of London]. Similar to much of myalgic encephalomyelitis…… Continue reading ‘Similar to’ in starting a sentence
Doing work and playing roles in Italian
Several constructions in Italian use the verb fare (‘do’, ‘make’). Two of these constructions look very similar on the surface but syntactically they behave in very different ways. A short book Fare: Elementi di sintassi, by Nunzio La Fauci and Ignazio M Mirto (2003) analyses them. Here are 2 examples: (1) Adamo fa il medicoAdam…… Continue reading Doing work and playing roles in Italian
Giving and receiving in Japanese
Japanese has several different words for giving and receiving. Which word is used depends on various factors: whether the giver is the speaker or is another personwhether the other person has higher status than the speakerwhether the speaker views the action as giving or as receiving In the rest of this post, I use speaker…… Continue reading Giving and receiving in Japanese
German and English Academic Usage and academic translation
I have just started reading German and English Academic Usage and Academic Translation (2021), by Dirk Siepmann. This starts with an exercise of translating a short passage of German academic text. It is only one paragraph, though quite a long one: Seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre hat Michel Espagne sukzessive das Themenfeld des interkulturellen Transfers…… Continue reading German and English Academic Usage and academic translation