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References on English usage strongly criticize the phrase as "ugly" [2] and "Janus-faced". [4] William Strunk, Jr., and E.B. White, in their classic The Elements of Style–recognized by Time one of the 100 best and most influential non-fiction books written in English since 1923, [6] say and/or is "A device, or shortcut, that damages a sentence and often leads to confusion or ambiguity". [3]
When we speak of English as a foreign language (EFL), we are referring to the role of English for learners in a country where English is not spoken by the majority (what Braj Kachru calls the expanding circle). English as a second language (ESL) refers to the role of English for learners in an English-speaking country, i.e. usually immigrants ...
The first published English grammar was a Pamphlet for Grammar of 1586, written by William Bullokar with the stated goal of demonstrating that English was just as rule-based as Latin. Bullokar's grammar was faithfully modeled on William Lily's Latin grammar, Rudimenta Grammatices (1534), used in English schools at that time, having been ...
Syntactic pleonasm occurs when the grammar of a language makes certain function words optional. [citation needed] For example, consider the following English sentences: "I know you're coming." "I know that you're coming." In this construction, the conjunction that is optional when joining a sentence to a verb phrase with know.
The abbreviation e.g. stands for the Latin exempli gratiā "for example", and should be used when the example(s) given are just one or a few of many. The abbreviation i.e. stands for the Latin id est "that is", and is used to give the only example(s) or to otherwise qualify the statement just made.
For example, if one language is related to another but has simplified its grammar, the speakers of the original language may understand the simplified language, but not vice versa. To illustrate, Dutch speakers tend to find it easier to understand Afrikaans as a result of Afrikaans's simplified grammar.
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), first published by Longman in 1978, [1] is an advanced learner's dictionary, providing definitions using a restricted vocabulary, helping non-native English speakers understand meanings easily. It is available in four configurations:
Frame semantics is a theory of linguistic meaning developed by Charles J. Fillmore [1] that extends his earlier case grammar. It relates linguistic semantics to encyclopedic knowledge. The basic idea is that one cannot understand the meaning of a single word without access to all the essential knowledge that relates to that word.