Grammar: Singular They

Singular "They"

Following the question I asked you guys in the Learning Psychology: Afraid of Speaking in English? entry, I have decided to post the answer here on a separate entry.

From the title, I guess you have already found the answer you want, but how do we actually use it?

Take a look at the following examples:

1. "That's always your way, Maim—always sailing in to help somebody before they're hurt." — Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
   
2. "Arise; one knocks. / ... / Hark, how they knock!" — Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

From the above examples, you can see that the word "they" only refers to one person, but we use this to convey the point that:

a) you don't know what the person's gender is.

b) if doesn't matter what the person's gender is.

c) you don't want the readers to know what the person's gender is.

d) you don't want to use generic "he" to confuse others that the person is a male figure because of a) or c).

So, next time, if you are facing the problem of using he/she/it, you can use "they".

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

Picture resources:
http://i40.tinypic.com/707vab.png

Animals and Environment: Do Sharks Deserve to Die for Their Fins?

I LOVE SHARKS

Recently, I bumped into a video of my favourite animal since I was young, a video that showed something that I never would have thought about but appeared to be true, that sharks can really be trained just like dogs, dolphins and seals, that they can even perform tricks for human!!!!

How bizarre (meaning "very strange and unusual") is that!!!!

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/shark-week-training-a-shark.html

I have transcribed the script of the movie clips here for everybody to read:

********************************************************************

"At Chicago's John G. Shredd Aquarium, scientists have opened their revolutionary classroom, a training program used on dolphins and whales has been adapted for an unlikely subject.

It started about 3 years ago, when I first started aquarium's shark school new exhibits, and we began training them behind the scenes in our holding facilities.

For the first time, Shedd placed all shark species in one big tank to avoid feeding frenzy of wild breed, each specie now answers to its own dinner bell.

All the sharks are given auditory call, and then you put their shape in the water. We do our colour contrast to make sure that if they don't see colour necessary but they do see the contrast so they understand that's their shape. And as they approach the shape, we feed them food on the end of tongs as a positive reinforcement.

The training does more than reduce competition, it shatters stereotype.

The idea that these sharks are man-eaters that don't think is definitely starting to change. These animals are very intelligent, they respond to so many different things and they can learn and they understand when they are doing something right.

A star pupil named 'Seamour' not only responds to touch, he performs like a trained seal.

My favourite is looking for Zebra sharks. They are the most responsive to the training, they are sort of like puppy dogs, they love to have their noses rubbed, they loved to be rubbed on their bellies, it just have been so enlightening and very rewarding to see a shark do something that ...you know you normally see a dolphin do. I enjoy every day coming in and seeing these guys just knock my socks off. They amaze me every day."

********************************************************************

I have loved sharks all my life. I despise the eating of shark fins and I never eat it myself. In fact, sharks being at the top of the food chain, carry so much mercury that anyone who eats sharks is prone to mercury poisoning. After watching the movie clip, I understand that sharks are indeed way more clever than we thought. If sharks can do what dogs can do, and we are eating them, doesn't that make you feel like eating dogs?

Looking up on the internet and you can easily find cruel photos of many shark massacres. Like the photo above, the sharks are killed with their fins removed, also known as "finning", while they were still alive and then thrown back into the sea when they eventually died agonizingly of blood loss and suffocation. Have you ever put salt on your wounds? Guess how the sharks feel in the salty sea water?

According to an article on Encyclopedia Britannica -- Advocacy for Animals, "about 73 million sharks are killed each year in this (finning) fashion.

Sharks are not always man-eaters. They are in fact monitors and monitresses of the sea. They helped to clean up injured fish and sea animals thus maintaining the ocean's eco balance. Just like too many sea stars will do very bad harm to mussels and beautiful corals, thus some sharks consume these sea stars to keep the balance.

The tiger sharks are famous for their unbiased appetite, that they eat anything they come across, and it is not hard to find tin-cans, boots, car license plates, plastics, etc. inside their bodies. Who throws all these into the ocean? Man does. Who cleans them up with their body? The tiger sharks do. Who is doing more for the environment? I think you have the answers.

Let me introduce some sharks I like to you next time. Till then, please go to this WWF website for further reading and take a look at the leaflet they published.

Please love the sharks. Will you?

Vocabulary:

revolutionary -- completely new and having a great effect

frenzy -- uncontrolled and excited behaviour

shatter -- to end something

stereotype -- a fixed idea that people have, especially one that is wrong

knock sb's socks off -- to surprise sb very much

despise -- to dislike sb or sth very much, to hate sth or sb
be prone to -- tending to suffer from sth

agonizing -- causing extreme pain

suffocation -- death due to lack of oxygen

Resources:

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/shark-week-training-a-shark.html

http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2007/08/man-bites-shark/

http://www.wwf.org.hk/eng/conservation/seafood/sharkfin/

http://www.wwf.org.hk/eng/pdf/conservation/footprint/seafood/sharkfin-e.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbz1Caiq1Ys

picture sources:

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/zebrashark/zebrashark3.jpg

http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/wp-content/uploads/sharks.jpg

http://www.elasmodiver.com/Sharkive%20images/Dead%20Tiger%20Shark%20020.jpg

Learning Psychology: Afraid of Speaking in English?

Occasionally, I do get some emails from my diligent ex-students sharing their problems with me and asking for advice, and of course, I can’t welcome more. It is a great signs of improvement and the first step is always the hardest to make, especially asking someone how to do something. Today I have selected a case that maybe some of you are also facing now, and I will then offer you some mental training to help you overcome this problem.

I have this student who felt more comfortable chatting through email rather than face to face or over the phone. Like many working for foreign companies, English is an essential part of their daily work. The problem was, the more they have to use, the more fearful they grew due to the lack of self-confidence, and so they did whatever necessary to avoid the communication with the foreigners.

Most of the time, a lot of the problems are created not by the foreigners, but by oneself. It is obvious to me. Why? Maybe you can ask the person working immediately beside you, ask them if they have the same problem as you do. It is not hard to find someone who does not share your fear despite working in the same environment. And why is this the case? Because trouble is a feeling generated by your brain, by your mind, and not by others.

If you are having the problem mentioned above, first of all, ask yourself,
“Can you not eat but feel full? Can you not drink but feel not thirsty? Can you not work hard and become rich?”

I think you would say "no". Then can you not try but speak good English? Often, you just have to bravely and boldly face the problem because you just cannot escape from it.

If you ask me which is the most important in learning English, I will say, "Passion, Confidence, Practice". If you don't have Passion, meaning your love for English; Confidence comes second, because with confidence, at least you would be active in speaking; Practice comes third, because without Passion and Confidence, Practice will ensure enough training.

What do you think about yourself? Which of these three do you have?

Since the problem comes from your mind, you must ask your mind to fix it. Try putting yourself in a dangerous situation. Man fights back at the very last moment.

Tell yourself, if you don't speak English to those foreigners, you will definitely lose your job. There is no more time for ‘later’. Would you try your very best to speak now?

Or, if you don't speak English, you can never get to earn a single dollar more because you will never get a promotion. There are so many others who can speak better than you and thus your job is not secure. If you want to prevent all these from happening, would you open up yourself and try more?

Many others are taking actions while you are still feeling miserable, and time doesn’t wait for anybody.

Remember, your character decides your destiny, so start now!

“Your future starts today, not tomorrow.” – Pope John Paul II

Picture source:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCWXLkARsDxNIycIaQjb5wEXdO-wrG8N6IjwLMgYmUc6ZjVZUBaopHudYRWENFidJmTuXMQK6J3e7zGtZ1K7qZlCpzmiLnZadmVR_Wv-pAsEEEc60OIR_n-otKu-Jeepm_AtjzMO0CMsQX/s400/EnglishSpoken.jpg

Question:

Why did I use "they" when I am talking about 1 student only?

English For Young Learners: The Student Standard Website

Hi there! My dear blog chasers!I suppose that many of you from my classes know that I give theStandard.com.hk huge credit for their free English news service and the appropriateness of their level of English used. However, just as I thought that was about all for the website, I realized that I was only half way through my feast of knowledge!For those of you who have children in primary and secondary school, you have got to check this part of the Student Standard out!

http://www.student.thestandard.com.hk/student/index.asp 

Here you can find listening and reading practices for your children relating to the latest news, so you can kill “three” birds with one stone!

There is also the VIEWPOINT section which you can read what some of the students have to say about the new articles from the previous issues, thus your children will get to know the English level of some other children and hopefully motivate them to learn better English after seeing what others can write.

The VOCABULARY section will allow you to revise some of the words that appeared in certain selected article. It comes with meanings and you can even listen to the pronunciation of the word by the click of a button!The Goodies page is more or less another linking page to the previous one, but a bit more colourful, and it also comes with the a selected article on Liberal Studies. Why not getting your children to learn a bit about the politics of Hong Kong? That should give them more ideas as to what social responsibility is!

http://www.student.thestandard.com.hk/goodies/index.asp

Here is one example of the listen and read from the goodies page.

http://www.student.thestandard.com.hk/goodies/lr_content_vpdf.asp?id=777

You will realize that the pace is slow for the speaker and it is suitable for children even at a young age. It is advisable that you can read it with your children instead of letting them practise on their own so that you can provide them with a bit more information of the topic. It also enhances your bond with your children and you both can learn English together (trust me, there are things you can learn from there too), why not?Enjoy the fun of learning!

Happy Friday!

Picture resources:

http://www.student.thestandard.com.hk/goodies/image/front_r1_c2.jpg

Science & Environment: How Sea Shells Clean Water

Oyster Shell Mountains
Image by Ari Brown

Recently, I read a news article from Discovery News and it unveiled the magic that unwanted seashells can actually help us clean up the heavy metal in the water and thus partially solving the aftereffect of the human pollution to waters.

I wonder if the government knows anything about this.

In brief, the chemical that made up the seashells, aragonite (a form of calcium carbonate CaCO3), can swap out the calcium for the heavy metal pollutants and locking them into solid form, thus not floating around in the water anymore.

I was both totally stunned and impressed by the art of work by the nature. That to me, it seems like every problem has a potential method or remedy to solve the problem. I would like to believe that there are cures for every environmental problem in this world, and it is up to us to find it and apply it.

Tuna killing, is it worth it?
Image from The Guardian

Do you like to eat salmon?I like it, especially from Japanese sushi restaurants, but do you know that most of the deep water fish that we eat nowadays are polluted by heavy metals such as Mercury (Hg)?

Mercury, according to Wikipedia, has a tendency to concentrate in the body of fish and shellfish often in the form of methylmercury, which is highly toxic. Species of fish that are high in the food chain, meaning bigger and eats smaller fish, such as shark, swordfish and albacore tuna, contains higher concentration of mercury than others. So, anybody still wants to eat sharkfins or swordfish in Japanese restaurants?

According to the above news article, "said McLean, heavy metals have accumulated in the environment and animals, which are more likely than humans to feed off plants and insects, remain at risk."

Another article on Medical News Today dated on 04th June 2008, said that the level of Mercury of the salmon in the wild "was three times higher than the farmed salmon".

A high dose of mercury exposure or consumption can cause Mercury poisoning. Toxic effects include damage to the brain, kidney, and lungs. Mercury poisoning can result in several diseases, including acrodynia (in children characterized by pain and pink discoloration of the hands and feet.), Hunter-Russell syndrome, and Minamata disease (symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms.).

I wish that this mercury problem can be solved with natural means, but so far, there is none. So take care of yourself and mind the food that you eat. Think about the danger before consuming.

Resources:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/27/shells-metals-water.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/12/wildlife-heavy-metals.html

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/109789.php

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

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrodynia#Acrodynia

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

Question Page: Post your questions here!

Dear all blog-readers,

As suggested by Adky, I am starting this entry and you can throw all kinds of questions to ask question regarding English or anything else you would like to know, and I will try my best to give you the answers or guidance as comments of this entry, or new entries in the future to share with everybody. You can always recover this page from the labels list on the right side of the blog.

Thank you to Adky for this great idea!

So, what are you waiting for? Bring it on!

Cheers!
Locky


Picture resources:
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_160/11832104448c6TFI.jpg