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Viewing Several Unusual Facts and Rules of the English LanguageSeveral Unusual Facts and Rules of the English Language
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By C.Y. Lack English is one of the world's most complex languages. There are many grammar rules and within each rule, there are many exceptions. Most of us are not really aware of or bothered by such rules and their exceptions when writing in English. However, it is beneficial to get to know these exceptions as much as possible so that it enhances our understanding of English grammar. Some of these unusual rules and exceptions are discussed below. 1. Let's start with an interesting sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." If you are not sure what is so unusual about that, then it may surprise you that the sentence contains every single letter in the English alphabet. 2. A word beginning with the letter "Q" is followed by the letter "u". 3. The word "Do" is used to emphasize an action. For example, instead of writing, "I go there." You can write, "I do go there." 4. Did you know that the article "the" has many exceptions? For example, it is not used before names of any country except the Netherlands and the US. 5. Other articles with exceptions are "a" and "an". Their usage is dependent on the phonetics of the noun before which they are placed. For instance, "a" is used before the word "user" while "an" is used before the word "honest". 6. Did you know that the full stop or dot (.) is not required when you write the abbreviation "Dr" in British English? This happens when the abbreviation ends with the same letter as the word itself. So, it's "Dr" for "Doctor" but "Prof." for "Professor". Many people are unaware of this. American English always includes the full stop after all title abbreviations. 7. When relationship is written before a name as in "He is Uncle Sam." Then it is written with a capital letter. However, if it is written after that, then a lower case letter is used. For example, "He is Sam, my uncle." 8. Finally, do you know of any word that does not contain any vowel? Go ahead, try to guess. Well, if you guess "try" then you are right. There are also other words like "fry" and "my" which usually end in the letter "y". About the Author: C.Y. Lack is an experienced educator who has been teaching English and mathematics for more than 15 years. His mission in life is to try to improve the English standards of students in Singapore. He is currently working with a few English language schools in Singapore. For more information, please visit his website, Learn English Singapore. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com |
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