Language Lovers Unite!

Language Lovers Unite! Language Lovers Unite! Language Lovers Unite! By Maeve Maddox Kathryn McCary has asked for a post on when to use a and when to use an. Her request was prompted by the following passage she read in a piece of professionally produced corporate publicity: Since the HLB is a secured lender, all of our credit products require collateral to maintain our positions [sic] as a accessible and cost effective source of credit for members. Says Kathryn, HLB is the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, part of a system of banks chartered by the Federal Government in 1932you would think they could hire writers who know REALLY BASIC English usage rules! This post is not going to explain the uses of a and an. Youll find no fewer than four posts on the indefinite article in the DWT archives: Give Me an A Using A and An Before Words When to Use an A Historic or An Historic Event? The kindest thing we can say about the lapse in the bank copy is that it may have been a simple typo. It happens to the most conscientious writers. We proof an article twenty times, and as soon as the piece is published, the dratted error leaps out at us. But lets say that it wasnt a typo. Lets say that the writer didnt see anything amiss with writing a accessible. Thats not a reflection on the writers professional education so much as an indictment of U. S. elementary education. Its not just professional writers who should know really basic English usage rules like when to use a and when to use an. Any English speaker educated in an English-speaking country should have a form of basic standard usage down by the age of 13. As much of the content of this blog reflects, many high school and college graduates manage to get by without mastering the basics. So, whats to be done, other than to tear our hair? I think that a possible answer is for language lovers to put their money where their mouths are. Improvement in the teaching of basic English skills is not to be hoped for from the current flurry of education reform. The emphasis is all on math, science, and computer skills. Thanks to the ubiquitous computer keyboard, handwriting has already become a despised skill. Spelling instruction is on the way out because spellcheck programs are seen by many as a substitute for knowledge of the English sound code. Something that might help delay or reverse the decline of basic literacy skills would be a grassroots movement spearheaded by language lovers: people who respond to blogs like this one, and language zealots who go around painting out unnecessary apostrophes and correcting misspelled words on signs. Language lovers could get together on a local level and sponsor contests for handwriting, basic grammar, and spelling. (And by spelling, I dont mean the kind of oral exhibition that rewards overachievers for their ability to memorize words few people use. I mean competitions in which children write down words like February and definite from dictation.) Local groups and individuals could organize contests for children ages 6-13 through youth clubs and county fairs. Aspiring novelists could be recruited to sponsor contests in which children demonstrate an acquaintance with books. After all, theres not much point in writing books if the audience for literature continues to dwindle. Prize money could be minimal, anything from a dollar to $25. Who knows, if such contests got started at a local level, a corporation might come along to offer a national contest with big bucks in prize money. A 13-year-old Brooklyn girl just won $50,000 from a manufacturer of mobile phones for her ability to text quickly and accurately. Perhaps the answer to declining literacy skills lies outside the classroom. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Royal Order of Adjectives 20 Words Meaning "Being or Existing in the Past"Nominalized Verbs

Indricotherium (Paraceratherium) - Facts and Figures

Indricotherium (Paraceratherium) - Facts and Figures Name: Indricotherium (Greek for Indric beast); pronounced INN-drik-oh-THEE-ree-um; also known as Paraceratherium Habitat: Plains of Asia Historical Epoch: Oligocene (33-23 million years ago) Size and Weight: About 40 feet long and 15-20 tons Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; slender legs; long neck    About Indricotherium (Paraceratherium) Ever since its scattered, oversized remains were discovered in the early 20th century, Indricotherium has occasioned controversy among paleontologists, who have named this giant mammal not once, but three timesIndricotherium, Paraceratherium and Baluchitherium have all been in common usage, with the first two currently battling it out for supremacy. (For the record, Paraceratherium seems to have won the race among paleontologists, but Indricotherium is still preferred by the general publicand may yet wind up being assigned to a separate, but similar, genus.) Whatever you choose to call it, Indricotherium was, hands-down, the largest terrestrial mammal that ever lived, approaching the size of the giant sauropod dinosaurs that preceded it by over a hundred million years. An ancestor of the modern rhinoceros, the 15-to-20-ton Indricotherium had a relatively long neck (though nothing approaching what youd see on a Diplodocus or Brachiosaurus) and surprisingly thin legs with three-toed feet, which years ago used to be portrayed as elephant-like stumps. The fossil evidence is lacking, but this huge herbivore probably possessed a prehensile upper lipnot quite a trunk, but an appendage flexible enough to allow it to grab and tear the tall leaves of trees. To date, fossils of Indricotherium have only been found in the central and eastern parts of Eurasia, but its possible that this gigantic mammal also stomped across the plains of western Europe and (conceivably) other continents as well during the Oligocene epoch. Classified as a hyrocodont mammal, one of its closest relatives was the much smaller (only about 500 pound) Hyracodon, a distant North American anecstor of the modern rhinoceros.