21 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2024
    1. ◆ a row of ugly, squat houses *一排低矮難看的房子My edit:一排醜陋的違建;一排難看的違建 ★ squat houses 是「違建」,不是低矮的房子。

      蘇老師在此改掉錯誤理解 squat house 為「低矮的房子」,稱正解為「違建」,但我有不同看法如下。

      一、如果原例句中在ugly之後真如蘇老師所引述有一個逗號,那麼逗號後的squat根據文法必然是不折不扣的形容詞,意思就是低矮難看。經查,劍橋英英高階學習詞典的確在意爲「低矮難看」的形容詞squat詞項下給了這個例子,所以原翻譯「一排低矮難看的房子」是正確無誤的。

      二、假設我們看到的例子,ugly後沒有逗號:

      a row of ugly squat houses

      問題就來了,這樣寫,squat house視爲一個複合名詞(名詞+名詞)的機會更大,這裡名詞squat源自動詞squat(非法占用房屋)的意思,而squat house意思就是:被人非法占用的房屋。

      然而,理解為「違建」則是錯的。違建是建築物本身違法興建起來,但 squat house 本身除非特例,否則當爲合法的建築,只是恰被非法占用、占住,尤其在貧民區裡經常有遊民非法占用空置建築的情形。

      例如,以下找到某書中的 squat house 實際用例:有個人非法占住某間 squat house,被警察趕出。

      Blogpost

      結論:a row of ugly, squat houses 的確是「一排低矮難看的房子」,文法上不允許把「squat house」理解為「被占用的房子」,如果更進一步,不僅無視文法且誤解「squat」而誤解爲房子本身「違建」,那就該反省自己是否真的理解這句英文了!

  2. Jan 2024
    1. 建築的拱窗高大漆黑,窗旁石磚等距排列,延伸到牆邊。

      Tall dark arched windows, framed with stone bricks, punctuated the front wall, equidistant from each other.

      這裡,punctuate 是句子的及物動詞,動詞的主詞是拱窗,不是石磚。

      是拱窗點綴前牆,不是石磚延伸到牆。 是拱窗彼此間等距,不是石磚等距排列。

      如要描述石磚,punctuated 會寫成 punctuating。

  3. Nov 2023
    1. 剛剛 在 一英英字典裡 看到 這個例句, 我很是納悶.We're dealing wiht decades of bad decisions that are coming back to roost now.一般來說, 若我要翻譯, 看到of我會由後往前翻, 但這裡的 decades of bad decisions 若這樣翻, 會很奇怪. 所以 來請教大家.

      這應該是填鴨式教育(rote learning)的遺害吧?看到「of」就自動由後往前翻,分明就是不問理由,只被教導要這樣做、這樣解題,我彷彿可以聽到某某國中英語老師或某補習班名師如此耳提面命:

      看到 A of B,意思就是 (屬於)B 的 A B 要先翻出來 不要問爲什麼,老師是教你如何秒殺 OF 介系詞。

      This is a doozy of an example of rote learning. 這是最棒的一個填鴨式教育的範例。

  4. Oct 2023
    1. In this book, grammar refers to the manner in which the language functions, the ways that the blocks of speech and writing are put together. Usage refers to using specific words in a manner that will be thought of as either acceptable or unacceptable. The question of whether or not to split an infinitive is a consideration of grammar; the question of whether one should use literally in a nonliteral sense is one of usage."
  5. Mar 2023
    1. "Built in to" appears when you use the phrasal verb "build in" followed by an infinitive, but that is not what you are trying to do in your sentence.There's an electronic switch built in to stop all data transfers.
  6. Jan 2023
    1. Nice try, but it's still full of exceptions. To make the above jingle accurate, it'd need to be something like: I before e, except after c Or when sounded as 'a' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh' Unless the 'c' is part of a 'sh' sound as in 'glacier' Or it appears in comparatives and superlatives like 'fancier' And also except when the vowels are sounded as 'e' as in 'seize' Or 'i' as in 'height' Or also in '-ing' inflections ending in '-e' as in 'cueing' Or in compound words as in 'albeit' Or occasionally in technical words with strong etymological links to their parent languages as in 'cuneiform' Or in other numerous and random exceptions such as 'science', 'forfeit', and 'weird'.
  7. Nov 2022
  8. Sep 2022
  9. Jul 2021
    1. En dashes, which are about the width of an upper-case N, are often mistaken for hyphens. But, traditionally, en dashes function as a kind of super hyphen. They’re meant to give you a little extra glue when you have a compound modifier that includes a multi-word element that can’t easily be hyphenated. For example, the phrase Elvis Presley–style dance moves uses an en dash because Elvis-Presley-style dance moves is awkward; “Elvis Presley” isn’t a compound modifier, so hyphenating it looks odd. But, keep in mind, not all readers will notice en dashes or understand what they mean. Sometimes, it’s better to simply reword the phrase. Elvis Presley–style dance moves or: dance moves like Elvis Presley’s pre–World War II buildings or: buildings constructed before World War II En dashes are also used to show ranges of numbers, such as times, page numbers, or scores (I’ll schedule you from 4:30–5:00). But, outside of formal printed publications, this type of en dash is commonly replaced with a simple hyphen.
  10. Nov 2020
    1. The easy way to tell if you need who or whom is to substitute it for he or him and see which one makes sense.

      Yep, that's the trick that I use too :)

  11. Aug 2020
    1. Lie: I felt sick, so I lay down.Here’s where it can get a bit tricky. The past tense of lie is lay, but not because there is any overlap between the two verbs. So when you say, “I lay down for a nap,” you’re actually using the verb lie, not lay, despite the way it sounds.
  12. May 2020
  13. Feb 2020
    1. as

      "as" is not necessary here. This is very minor mistake but since you are doing excellent job I am going to point out any mistake I find to contribute the project towards perfection.

  14. Oct 2018
    1. It was the schoolteacher and writer Anne Fisher whose English primer of 1745 began the notion that it's somehow bad to use they in the plural and that he stands for both men and women.
  15. Dec 2015
  16. Nov 2015
    1. In a delightful book, Founding Grammars: How Early America’s War Over Words Shaped Today’s Language (St Martin’s Press, 309 pages, $27.99), Rosemarie Ostler traces an arc that keeps repeating itself: A writer offers advice about language, his followers and schoolteachers convert the advice into dogma, and the public plumps for easy-to-follow rules, however bogus, over nuances and judgments.