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I am an English language teacher and translator, resident in Barcelona, Spain. To read more about my professional activities, click here. Information about my books A Guide to English Language Usage (GELU) and Great English Mistakes (GEM), and about how and where to buy them, is on the Lavengro Books web site. Click here for a sample of GELU and here for a sample of GEM.

Every English fact at your fingertips ... [A Guide to English Language Usage for non-native speakers] is a more than handy reference tool for all involved in imparting linguistic knowledge on a regular basis. In the author’s alphabetically arranged detailed content one can only admire the spirit of Dr Johnson … it will help out when dealing with potentially awkward customers, or those keen to try out a new teacher. (ELGazette, January 2009)

Comments

[Translate English Indonesian]

Nice Blog Harvey !

[Ronnie]

I was going to say elsewhere, Peter, that June and I sometimes lose our cards but have no trouble with our banks, and then I found myself enjoying your fifteen pages of verbal errors. May I make just three suggestions?

"All" can be a noun.
"Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all, that glisters, gold."

The "southern cone" is becoming more familiar to some of us as the Anglican diocese which shelters the more conservative US episcopalians.

Petit fours, I think, are usually served after dinner with the coffee in places where I cannot afford to eat.

And, in your list of contents, what is "ligth"?

I am trying to help a young Polish friend with her English and find the greatest difficulty her firm belief that rules should be unexceptionable.

[Peter Harvey]

Ronnie,

Thanks for the comments.

All can indeed be a noun but here I am addressing the Spanish problem of using all when English has to have an every**** form. In the examples that you have seen it would be incorrect to put All were happy or I told all (meaning everybody). In the third example that I give everything is the usual usage; You have all you need is restrictive and implies ... so I won't give you any more; this is more obvious in sentences such as All I can say is..., where it means The only thing... But the point is that Spaniards use the relevant form of todo in such sentences, so they tend to make the mistakes that I have mentioned. You will find more about this in GELU, which you kindly bought.

I have never heard of the southern cone in English, so thank you for telling me about it.

Petits fours might be called an aperitivo in Spanish and be served with cava at a celebration. I had some for the launch party of GELU.

Ligth is a common Spanish spelling mistake as in Coca Cola ligth, nigth club, etc.

There are always exceptions to rules, at least in language. But students naturally seek them to make learning easier.

[Marc]

Dear Blogger,

We have received 473 nominations for the top 100 language blog 2009 competition. For each category, we have admitted 100 blogs into the voting phase. You are amongst the 100 blogs in the 'Language Technology' category, congratulations!

As stated before, 50% of the final score will be based on user voting. You can promote your blog with the following voting button on your page. Simply add the code to a blog post (similar to embedding a YouTube video) so that your readers can vote for you directly.

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The voting phase starts today and ends July 28. Winners will be announced July 30.

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Kind regards,
Marc
on behalf of the bab.la and Lexiophiles team
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