Grammar: Subjunctive Mood

Subjunctive Mood

After writing the article Sports: Are "Ronaldos" always good at football? I was surprised that only one of you left comment to try, so I thought I should write a separate entry to answer my own question in case some of you miss out the comment Jan made.


"The subjunctive is a special kind of present tense which has no "s" in the 3rd person singular form . It is sometimes used in that-clauses in a formal style, especially in US English, after words which express the idea that something is important or desirable (eg. suggest, recommend, ask, insist, vital, essential, important, advice). The same forms are used in both present and past sentences."

• The kid demanded his mother do as he said.
• The saleslady recommended Amy check out the prices before buying.
  

Do is not used in negative subjunctives. Note the word order.

• Pete insisted his girlfriend not attend her ex-boyfriend's birthday party.
• The students suggested their teacher go and die.
  

Be has special subjuntive forms: I be, you be, etc.

• It is important that Locky be paid before his money runs low.
• It is vital that his students be pushed hard when it comes to doing homework.
  

Subjuntives are also use in certain fixed phrases.

• God save the King/Queen!
• God bless you.
• If we have to pay $2000 for the tax, then so be it. (= we can't do anything to change it)

"Most subjunctives structures are formal and unusual in British English. In that-clauses, British people usually prefer should+infinitive, or ordinary present and past tenses."

• It is advised that employees should stay at home and not go to work if they wake up late in the morning. (or employee stay)
• But Paul felt that it was also advised that he should receive extra pay for his 8-hour-per-day, painstaking researches on adult websites. (or he received)

Resources:
p.566 Practical English Usage by Michael Swan -- international student's Edition --Oxford.

IPA: Type IPA online

Just a short note. For those of you who want to type IPA on the blog, here's a good website that will allow you to type, copy and then paste.

http://ipa.typeit.org/

Environment & Investment: Fossil Fuels -- Party Over?

Fossil Fuels -- Party Over?

After writing an entry on Hydrogen Fuel, I suddenly felt very interested in learning what would be the next stock of the decade. Oil and Coal have definitely been the major, indispensible energy source, but the world is pushing towards the age of clean and renewable energy at a much faster pace than we have expected, so if we can foresee the trend, we might be able to get on the next train of big money.


While looking into the Discovery News, I was surprised to see a slideshow titled "7 Signs the Fossil Party is Over". Economics? My taste! And so I read on and find something really interesting.




First of all, the Hubbert Peak Theory caught my sight. The picture you see above was a graph showing the original 1956 prediction of world petroleum production rates. If everything follows that Hubbert's Curve like all those examples found in the webpage below, as the supply of the oil, natural gas, coal, metals copper and water reach(ed) their peaks and began to fall, and the global economy began to recover very very slowly, the prices of these resources will have to go up. Of course, there are other questions we cannot answer too, like

1. how fast will the global economy recover?
2. will the demand for these resources really increase with the recovery?
3. will the demand increase greater than the supply?
4. will there suddenly be a lot of major discoveries of the resources?
5. as the fossil fuels began to lose demand to the renewable energy, will the fossil fuel be phased out faster than the increase in demand?
6. Prices of the resources are also affected by the people's ability to pay, will the prices increase so great that people are not able to pay for the products and thus the companies don't actually benefit from the price gains?

I guess only time can tell, but we can make reasonable guess with enough data and statistics in order to increase our chances of thinking at the right side.


Keep reading and learning!




Resources:
http://dsc.discovery.com/earth/wide-angle/fossil-fuels.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/05/11/peak-coal-energy.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/earth/slideshows/peak-oil.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory

Idioms: Grey (with the Simpsons)

As a follow-up post of the previous Vocabulary: Parallel Import / Grey Product, I would like to share the idioms of the word Grey with you.

Why grey?

Apart from the colour itself, such as "grey hair", "grey sky", "grey clouds", "grey shirt", it also shows the mood that it creates. Let's read what Homer and Bart have to say about a new they saw on TV:

Homer: "Overbite Ton(y)'s court case is looking grey, so grey (when a situation is not looking good)!"

Homer: "It's the same court day after day, it's so grey (something is dull and boring)!"

Bart: "But the newspaper today describe Nina and Tony's relationship as one of an empress and a eunuch/ˈjuːnək/, that's not grey, that's new!"

Homer: "He's a éminence grise (someone without an official position who has power or influence over rulers or people who make decisions) for sure! A person with a mouse's grey matter (slang. a person's intelligence) can see that! Or Should I say, even Ned can see that!! Ha ha!!"

Bart: "Poor Nina, hard-earned grey pound (the money which all old people as a group have available to spend) is now the eunuch to spend."

Homer: "Na, there are still shades of grey (chances of uncertainty). Even if the law has a lot of grey areas (a situation which is not clear or where the rules are not known), I'm sure that JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED!! AND THE MONEY WILL GO INTO MY ACCOUNT AND I CAN BUY BEER, BEER AND MORE BEER!!! WHOOOOWHOOOO!!!!!!"

Bart: "Mum~~! Time to lock the fridge!"

Resources:

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=83026&sid=24098974&con_type=3&d_str=20090604&sear_year=2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunuch

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/results.asp?searchword=grey&x=0&y=0&=

Picture resources:

http://bitstream.soundandvisionmag.com/.a/6a00df3521c6368834010536f8c6a1970c-320wi

Sports: Are "Ronaldos" always good at football?

Are "Ronaldos" always good at football? This is the question I have always been asking.
First, you have the famous R9, one of my favourite football players of all time, who could dribble pass the entire court of opponent players and score incredible goals.

See below:

Then came Ronaldinho, which means "small Ronaldo", who could (can?) do all sorts of magical moves and even volley the ball to hit the crossbar every time! (Many people think this is fake, but I'm quite sure it is real. There is something called the crossbar challenege ever since this video came out, and many other footballers have taken this challenge, and it is not all so special to see them hitting the crossbar often with the ball)

Then of course, came the handsome, super skillful and now-even-richer Cristiano Ronaldo, aka CR7, who got his name Ronaldo because then-US president Ronald Reagan was his father's favourite actor, "rewriting the history of football" with the record-breaking transfer fee of 80 million pounds from Manchester United to Real Madrid (record-breaking does not including the night with Paris Hilton, even though Paris's friend did say "(Paris Hilton) thinks he is sexy and exotic, and loves his body. And she loves men with accents. She says it's like an aphrodisiac.") .
Vocab time:
aphrodisiac noun[C], adj
something, usually a drug or food, which is believed to cause sexual desire in people

So, are they all so good at football because they are all named "Ronaldo"?

Maybe, maybe not, according to Wikipedia, the listed "Ronaldos" are mostly footballers with great success.

But the interesting thing is, what happens after great success? Take a look:

Ronaldo had sex with a transvestite:

Vocab time:
transvestite noun[C]
a person, especially a man, who wears the clothes of the opposite sex, often for sexual pleasure



Partying Ronaldinho:


Milan would consider Ronaldinho transfer request : quoting "Ronalinho has struggled since his move to Serie A from Barcelona in July and has only managed the bench recently".

Ronaldinho left out of Brazil squad : quoting "Off-form Ronaldinho was left out of Brazil's squad on Thursday for next month's World Cup qualifiers and the Confederations Cup."


Vocab time:
Off-form adj
oppose to On-form, meaning not to be in a good condition


All these "Ronaldos" have a common interest, PARTYING, now that CR7 is still on-form and we still manage to see world-class football skills, what will his future be? What will he become?

As a fan of his football skills, I hope he will do well. As no fan of his clubbing skills, I advise he focus on his career.

Maybe learn from Kaka, he is famous for being a Brazilian who does not party and for his model-husband role.

Question:

Why did I use "I advise he focus on his career" and not "I advise he focuses on his career"?

Picture resources:

http://www.seethecup.com/footballers/kaka-is-a-daddy-see-the-picture-of-kakas-baby/

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n50/pimpin_krystal/cristiano_ronaldo_pepe_07.jpg?t=1246103047

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e317/puma7/picture_cristiano_ronaldo_306.jpg

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronaldo_(disambiguation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronaldinho#Biography_and_personal_life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristiano_Ronaldo#Early_life
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=654700&cc=4716
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2476901/Ronaldo-scores-with-Paris-Hilton-in-LA-night-club.html
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=646543&sec=transfers&cc=4716
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=648373&sec=worldcup2010&cc=4716
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kak%C3%A1#Personal_life
http://www.seethecup.com/footballers/kaka-is-a-daddy-see-the-picture-of-kakas-baby/

Vocabulary: Suffix "-en"

I'm sure you all have the concept of what Prefixes and Suffixes are in English. Today I would like to stress on one particular suffix "-en" as it is not only widely used, it is also easy for us to remember and understand.


Suffix "-en" appears in many different words, one of the most widely used is in the Past participles:
seen, given, taken, bitten...


but the type I want to discuss is the type to do with the concept "make it + adj/noun". I like this one because I can easily write a formula:

Verb = adjective/noun + "en"

For example:
awaken = to cause sb to wake up
brighten = to cause sth to become brighter
broaden = to cause sth / sb's mind to become more broad
cheapen = to cause sth to become cheaper
coarsen = to cause sth to become coarser
dampen = to cause sth to become damper
darken = to cause sth to become darker
deepen = to cause sth to become deeper
fatten = to cause sth / sb to become fatter
flatten = to cause sth to become more flat
freshen = to cause sth to become more fresh
gladden = to cause sth /sb to become more glad
harden = to cause sth to become harder
hasten = to cause sth / sb to become faster
heighten = to cause sth /sb to become higher
lengthen = to cause sth to become longer
lessen = to cause sth to become lesser
lighten = to cause sth to become lesser / lighter
loosen = to cause sth to become looser
moisten = to cause sth to become more moist
neaten = to cause sth to become neater
quicken = to cause sth to become quicker
quieten = to cause sth to become quieter / calmer
ripen = to cause sth to become ripe
roughen = to cause sth to become rougher
sharpen = to cause sth to become sharper
shorten = to cause sth to become shorter
sicken = to cause sth to become sick / ill
slacken = to cause sth to become more loose and not tight
soften = to cause sth to become softer
steepen = to cause sth to become steeper
stiffen = to cause sth to become stiffer
straighten = to cause sth to become straighter
strengthen = to cause sth to become stronger
sweeten = to cause sth to become sweeter
thicken = to cause sth to become thicker
tighten = to cause sth to become tighter
toughen = to cause sth to become tougher
waken = to cause sth to become awake
weaken = to cause sth to become weaker
widen = to cause sth to become wider
worsen = to cause sth to become worse



Recources:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/k-lee7/www/kesl/writ/inversion_sv.pdf

http://www.blogger.com/'http://books.google.com/books?id=

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081221145319AAsLD8M

http://www.wordbyletter.com/suffixes/words_finishing_with_en.php