I can not refrain myself from expressing that your videos are superb and for those of us who feel the English language as second nature, your concepts come like mana from Heaven. In my eyes this video has been the best achieved of your remarkable capacity of histrionics to gather the attention of your audience. A real teacher. Chapeau!
Regarding "cannon", this has a counterpart in military expressions like "foot" and "horse". If I need to say that a certain unit has 200 men (infantry) and 50 knights, the English expression is that the unit has "200 foot and 50 horse". One can also say "the battle was won by the foot", for what I gather, meaning "the infantry".
I'm a non-native English speaker. That's why I'm here to learn the Seven *Insane Grammar Rules* from the *Dark Side* of the English Language. I'm Indonesian. 🇮🇩 I speak Indonesian also known as Bahasa Indonesia. 🇮🇩 Notwithstanding the different language of my native language, Indonesian, I learnt English inasmuch as I would like to comprehend the English grammar rules. The difficulties of those seven insane English grammar rules notwithstanding, I'm still learning one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world. Greetings from Indonesia. 🇮🇩
you prolly dont care at all but does someone know of a tool to get back into an Instagram account..? I was stupid forgot the login password. I love any assistance you can offer me!
The plural ending -a originally comes from Greek. For example, the Greek word criterion, plural: criteria. In addition, the ending -is which becomes -es in the plural is also from Greek, such as analysis - analyses, crisis - crises. We do have a plethora of endings in our grammar! An interesting case of a plural in English that I would like to point out is appendix - appendices, a word derived from Latin. Once more, you've done an excellent video! Greetings from Greece.
The plurals of animals is one of those holdovers from Old English, where (a certain class of) neuter nouns had the same plural forms as their singular forms. Deer is an example, neuter in Old English (and originally meaning "any animal"), with an identical plural form. Most nouns lost this pattern. For example, the plural of house should have been house, but it regularized into houses. Old English differentiated the plural by the article: þæt hus (the house), þa hus (the houses). For whatever reason, the pattern seemed to remain exclusively to animals. Perhaps as the breakdown of grammatical gender happened, the collective memory of why some nouns have identical singular-plural patterns had forgotten this nonsense about the neuter gender and maybe thought it was just the animals that conformed to that pattern. Interestingly, "fish" was not neuter historically and never conformed to that pattern. Old English se fisc, þa fiscas. Fish and fishes. Again, the collective memory theory, people had forgotten that the fish was masculine and simply assumed that animals followed that pattern of identical forms in the plural. Thus fish and fish.
"Animal" is "dier" and 'Tier' in Dutch and German (with "ie" prononced as "ee") so it is clearly connected to "deer". Plural in Dutch is almost always an addition of "en" at the end, and so strongly felt that words that did have a different plural form got it stacked on top. So the plural of "kind" (kid) was "kinder" (as it still is in German) but became "kinderen". "Ei" (egg) has "eireren". "Schoe" (shoe) even got it twice, via "schoen" to "schoenen" and "schoen" became the singular form!
@@barttemolder3405 In another video, Gideon explained that "venison" means, in your dish, "deer". I did not understand why the discrepancy, as "venaison" (the term which gives "venison" in English, for sure) means "hunted meat", "wild game" in French, whereas "deer" means a certain mammal. I now see that "deer" anciently simply meant German "Tier", i.e. "wild animal", hence the link between "venison" and deer-wild game.
@@uffa00001 Venison is the meat of deer (or elk) and just like "deer" it was more widely used in the past - albeit just for the meat of a variety of "deer"... Even "venaison" nowadays is mostly used for deer meat but can still extend to wild boar etc.
"An unkindness of ravens" will be my new nickname, it's enormously fantastic! Collective nouns are actually nice, there is a story behind each and it is an interesting part of linguistics. Considering fish, for example, in ukranian, which is my native language, it is singular by itself but in a phrase it could be treated like plural as well, without changes, although it has plural form. And to say, for example, "one fish" you have to add a suffix and an ending, to say 2 and up to 4 fishes you have to change an ending, to say 5 and up to 20 fishes you drop the ending. And now the climax - when you say 21 fishes it is singular again with suffix and ending as for one, 22-24 like 2-4 and 25-30 drops an ending, 31 is singular, ta-da-a-a!!!! and so forth. We have two forms of plural for many nouns indeed. Speaking of borrowed words like paparazzi, flamingo and many others - they don't have number. Oh, by the way, there is one fish called "ivasi" (herring's cousin by the way) which also does not have number but already sounds like plural. About possesives: every noun has possesive form and genetive form and you use them depending on whether the possessed object goes after or before subject. And a lot of other quirks and features could be found in my language. Great video, as always!
Thanks! I'd like to tip in my 2c about English - my native language for 60+ years, on this point that confuses the hell out of my foreign-born wife. I have an aquarium full of tropical fish. (Fish, plural). But sometimes when I go to feed them I say "good night fishies". My told me off for saying "fishes" because we already agreed that this word implies multiple species of fish..... "I have some guppies, some neons, and a few other fishes". But actually I was saying 'fishies' which is cute diminutive form a bit like calling a dog a doggy. Your new word for the week 🙂 As homework you can work with a partner to sort out the difference between 'fruit' and 'fruits' *yikes*. [ps on second thoughts be careful using the work 'fruits' in polite society :-D ]
The plural of fish is usually fish, but fishes has a few uses. In biology, for instance, fishes is used to refer to multiple species of fish. For example, if you say you saw four fish when scuba diving, that means you saw four individual fish, but if you say you saw four fishes, we might infer that you saw an undetermined number of fish of four different species.
For the rest of my life , I'll be extremely thankful for having a BRILLIANT TEACHER LIKE YOU. The lessons you 're teaching , the knowledge and skills that you have taught will be remembered forever while your inspiration will always give me the strenght to succeed sweetheart !!! If only everyone could have a teacher as wonderful as you , THE WORLD WOULD BE A MUCH BETTER PLACE !!!!!!!!!!
Many thanks for your wonderful comment that motivates me to continue. However there are many brilliant teachers all over the world spreading knowledge and inspiring people every day.
I didn't know about Chaucer. So basically - a parliament can be used for fowls, owls or even rooks, BUT for ravens the correct term would be "unkindness", and for crows it would be "murder"?... i'll go out on a limb here and guess English is just messing with everyone XD
This was so informative! I have never heard of an "unkindness of ravens", although I've heard of a "murder of crows". I guess that is the difference between those two birds - ravens are just a little more civilized that crows. (?) Also, that last point about quoting French phrases for someone like me who's first language is English: Actually, at the risk of sounding lazy, the info you quoted sort of made sense to me in a strange way. I don't really use those phrases very often, and do try for correct pronunciation, however I like the idea that it's kind of a tip of the hat to the the French language and okay if we can't always get it perfect. Anyway it was amusing and got me thinking.
Thank you so much for this video: I love being shown how much there is still to discover in English. I was more or less familiar with the plurals and Saxon Genitive (although I fear there still are many examples that would be a surprise for me), but I wasn't aware of the Latin Genitive, it's fantastic! Now I only have to take up astronomy...
@@LetThemTalkTV Amazing video, as always. I think that astronomical objects have Latin names because the early astronomers spoke Latin. Centaurus is the Latin name of a certain constallation. Alpha is a star belonging to that constallation. So to speak, it's not a star of its own (of course it is indeed), or a star of which we could speak alone, at the same time being astronomically clear and assertive, that is, making it very cleat exactly which star we are talking about. So we say "Alpha, but not any Alpha. That only Alpha that belongs to Centaurus constallation". Now that is the Latin name of that star: Alpha Centauri. I think we don't use Saxon possesive because it's a proper name, such as a person's.
@@LetThemTalkTV I am a professional astronomer, and I can tell you, that although I never learned latin and I don't know why 'alpha centauri' is correct, that naming style has leaked into a lot of other areas in Astronomy. Younger people try to make us say "Centaurus A" but the latin genetive has a lot of life left in it yet. Now I know about its origin I'll dogmatically use it wherever I can :-)
"Don't sound too french" is a good advice for any part of England I guess xD Anyway, -horrific- -horrible- -terrible- terrific video. Summs up my love/hatred for that language so well!
Dear respected Gideon. I listen to this video again and again. Clear and excellent explanations. My example sentence; when Joan visited his office mate in Marseille , they both went to an excursion in the countryside North of France. They sent photos of oases there. Amazing.
The genitive case in German was on the way to die out some hundred years ago, but it was preserved in the written standard language. But is a "defective case" in German. In other languages with a real genitive case, one can easily set a single noun into the genitive case, e.g. in Latin: Centaurus > Centauri. In German, this is impossible: a noun in the genitive case must always be "supported" by an article, pronoun or adjective. Example: the verb ''entbehren'' (to be without something) requires an object in the genitive case. One can say now: - wir entbehren einer guten Regel (we lack a good rule) - wir entbehren guter Regeln (we lack good rules) with "einer guten Regel" and "guter Regeln" standing in the genitive case. In these examples, "Regeln" is supported by other words (einer, guten, guter). But one cannot say: - xxxxxxxx (we lack rules) There are no 3 possibilities: 1) one breaks the rules and says, incorrectly: ''*wir entbehren Regeln'' 2) one chooses another verb: - wir haben keine Regeln (we don't have rules) - uns fehlen Regeln (rules are missing to us) 3) one adds a supporting word, e.g.: - wir entbehren jeglicher Regeln (we lack ANY rules)
ich entbehre gute regeln (akkusativ). er entbehrte jeglichen anstand (acc), er war bar jeglichen anstands (gen). hmmm. austrian-german native speaker. 🤔
English is easy only at the beginning but the further the more difficult, I think to myself... Thank you for this video. As usually the perfect English lesson performance!
I´d like to expand on your comment. I think with you that English grammar is not that, that difficult to begin with... for somebody coming from Europe with a Indo-European mother-tongue. I suppose that it is an altogether different story for Asian speakers. All languages have easy, logical, simple rules and difficult, abstruse rules as well, because they are the result of many influences and centuries of use. In any case, all languages are very difficult to master, even as a mother-tongue. To master any language is extremely difficult and takes years and years of training and perseverance. The most difficult languages are those from tribes that have been isolated for a long time in the past, as one of the laws of linguistics states that the more in isolation a group lives, the more complicated rules the language develops: Old Greek, Sanskrit, Icelandic, Arapahoe, Japanese, Bushmen of the Kalahari, Quechua, Inuit, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish, Polish... but being difficult does not mean to be better or more brilliant. In fact, extreme difficulty hinders the spread of the language. Simplicity is a virtue. Then, take the the old Greeks with Sappho, Socrates, Arete of Cyrene, Plato, Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Pythagoras, Theano, Archimedes, Hypatia, Pandrosion, and many other geniuses...only spoke one single language, Greek, and considered the rest of the world as barbar. Although Cleopatra was an exception as a brilliant polyglot who could speak Greek, Latin, Egyptian and other languages. This ability, however, did not help her as a general in the battle of Actium. That means to me, that only one language is needed to become a brilliant, compassionate person and to discover important things. On the other side, the more languages one knows up to a reasonable high level, the more information one can absorb and learn and there is a chance there to become a little bit wiser in the process, only a chance, not a guarantee. 🤔
Absolutely love you videos! I teach English at a language school in the Czech republic and I must say I use your stuff during my classes and students find it really interesting! Keep up the great work mate. One little detail, when speaking about MOSES' STICK at 11:05 you actually say 'S no apostrophe' when in fact I guess you wanted to say 'S apostrophe no second S' and also when mentioning Achilles' heel, you say you know there's 'S apostrophe and there's no second apostrophe' but I guess you meant to say there's no second S. Just thought it might might make it a bit easier for students who are not as proficient at the moment to avoid this kind of confusion. ;)
@@LetThemTalkTV not at all, it was more of a friendly note. I have made a list of cockney slang and am absolutely loving it! Cheers again ;) Stay safe in these crazy times!
I was wondering if the astronomical name for the star Pollux would be Beta Geminorum; turns out it is. On the plurals for fish species: I have a hunch that the plurals of fish native to the waters in and around the British Isles don't take an -'s and the more exotic do. Thanks for your entertaining as well educational videos, Gideon.
Someone please help me from NOT falling in love with him :)))))) Although I am proud to say I mostly know what he is talking about, I feel I keep learning and won't ever stop! What a discovery as I enter the world of teaching English worldwide. His videos are God sent! Plus he cracks me up and makes me laugh. Bless his heart. Great guy. Stay classy !!
Thank you for your pronunciation of mischievous. I grew up with that, but for several decades now I've been hearing it with the 4 syllables, even from my English mother-in-law. Drives me a little crazy. I think it's not the only word with the "ous" ending that people have started adding an extra vowel after whatever consonant precedes the "ous."
Gideon! you are my favourite English teacher in the world, "English with Lucy" is my top 2, she is a wonderful teacher as well. You have a unique energy, you are the man of the hour, it seems like you have gone through many adventures ups and downs, and you know, that for certain polishes the best version of ourselves. I teach English for free like they say pro bono hehehe, to make more and more people learn basic English, so they can find jobs in call centers / outsourcing centers in LATAM and more. Un GRAN SALUDO Y UN ABRAZO DESDE EL SALVADOR, AMERICA CENTRAL TIO!
A wonderful book about "collective nouns" (also called "terms of venery", as in hunting) is An Exaltation of Larks. It has beautiful illustrations as well as a fascinating and amusing text.
Mr. Gideon, hello! Congratulations! Your videos are exceptional! I always look forward to your next one! Today's video has too much information. Once again, I had to keep notes. But, please allow me to tell you that the word stadium (στάδιον) is also Greek. Stadia (στάδια) is the plural in Greek - ancient and modern. In ancient Greece, it used to be a unit of measurement as well. Graffiti comes from the ancient Greek verb graphein (infinitives: γράφειν - γράφω) which means I write. I am not that smart, I am Greek, that is how I know all these details. Thank you again for the knowledge that you offer us so generously.
Well, the strangest rule I remember now in Spanish is the word "mar" (sea) or "calor" (heat) that can have a male or female article, both, it's up to the one who speaks. By the way, I have a whale of a time watching your videos and you help me to learn a bunch of English. Cheers, Gideon!
Can be confusing when the C is on a tap in the sink in Spain, Italy etc. I think it might be due to how modern languages evolved from Latin and collapsed three genders (neuter) into two. Another reason for me to love English !
Hyphen - en-dash - em-dash - also: minus sign − (yes, It is different) I think it's true for every european language. In Russia we also have cool «quotes» that I've never seen in English (and likewise em-dash they are also missing on our keyboards, which is sad)
I don't see anybody paying this kind of attention to the various "dashes" in Italian writing conventions, there are only two of them: - is used as "minus sign", as a hyphen in the rare cases that need a hyphen. When writing with a normal keyboard, the same symbol - is used for incidental phrases. A printed book might use a different and slightly longer dash, but I think there are only two in total in Italian typographic conventions. Also, an incidental - such as this one - is also terminated by a dash in Italian typographic conventions. Having a keyboard that must allow inserting easily ò,à,ù,è,é,ì,^, and in fact also ç which is standard in Italian keyboard layouts, we cannot afford the luxury to have four different dashes in our keyboard layout - and neither feel such a need!
As a Hungiarian I like the Hungarian dog names pluralized in Hungarian in English dictionaries: puli - pulik, komondor-komondorok. The vizsla has vizslas I guess because of the complication of its Hungarian plural where you even have to change the ending vowel: Vizsla-vizslák.
In French, qualifying adjectives related to colours only take an "s" when describing plural nouns if they are not derivated from a noun (for example we’d write "les chemises orange et les cravates turquoise" but we’d write "les chemises rouges et les cravates jaunes"). But - as you probably know, French grammar is full of exceptions and in this case, the qualifying adjectives "pourpre", "violet", "rose" and "mauve" are exempt from this rule. That being said, most French people do not know about this rule if the truth be known!
What I do for the S possessive is add 's no matter if the word ends in one S or two, or if the following word starts with S or not (Thomas's book, Ross's shoes, Louis's house), except for ancient names of course (Jesus' followers, Pythagoras' theorem, Socrates' words), and also names that sound like plurals, which also stay the same in plural for me, or words that are their own plural, like "series", provided the S is pronounced (e.g. Mr Andrews' (plural: Andrews) house, Charles Dickens' works (plural: Dickens), Steve Jobs' (plural: Jobs) inventions, but Ms Jones's house (plural: Joneses) and Mr Woods's house (plural: Woodses); the series' conclusion, the species' habitat, but the corps's (plural: corps) members) Words ending in X or Z take 's no matter what (Bordeaux's wine, Alex's seat, Liz's pen, Gorillaz's members). Stuff like "Alex' house" or "Alcatraz' prisoners" (which I have seen similar examples to!) are wrong
Hi. I have a grammar question that I was discussing with a non-English speaker, and I wondered if you could shed some light on it? Why do we use “the” for some things, but not others? Eg Fly me to the moon Fly me to Mars I climbed the Eiffel Tower I climbed Mount Everest. I couldn’t work out how you know when to use “the” Thanks
Most "things" use a definite article -- most places do not. However many countries will use "THE" if the name is plural or a collection of items. Guam vs The Hawaiian islands. Canada vs The United States. Belgium vs The Netherlands. etc.
8:50 Once I found a podcast of some Internet radio about orgins of collective nouns. It seems like there were a group of English gentlemen who were having fun when coming up with those words (eg. gaggle of women)
Latin genitive in astronomy reflects some of the historical influences on usage for placenames in England? "Thornham Magna" & "Thornham Parva", for example.
But please don't try to use them when communicating with an english speaker. One piece of spaghetti, a bit of graffiti, one of the paparazzi, these forms are perfect :-D
@@IanKemp1960 (Why not? If you are a foreigner, Italian in particular, and you do it knowingly, it adds originality to the communication style!) We have a similar rule in Italian: foreign words are always in singular form, and you understand from the context whether they are used as a plural or not. And also, if you use them in their plural form, that is considered less educated. Although things are changing very fast...
Although of course a "graffito" (pl. graffiti) is not at all something you do on walls with spray paint, unless you are living a few millennia BC (and spray paint was done a lot different then) 😂 I sometimes wonder how in the world a word that in Italian only refers to prehistoric artworks could have entered English to mean something invented just a few decades ago. Oh and yes, that's "millennia" and definitely not "millenniums" 😉
I love your videos. In the Internet generation of the last 20 years I’ve noticed people really struggling with subject-verb agreement and the near-disappearance of adverbs. I watch a lot of fashion YT, and this is what I constantly hear: “The next category I want to talk about ARE shoes” (or other plurals like bags, trousers, skirts, etc.). They look a bit confused, as if unsure, but stick with this weird form anyway. This is not an error that English speakers of my generation (born 1960) make, ever, really. We learned SVA from early childhood by the everyday speech of our parents, we didn’t have to wait to receive instruction in written English or grammar. I can’t think of an adverb example at the moment, but the adjective form is continuing to replace it in Internet speech. Most of our English grammar is simple, one only has to study a highly-declined language like Latin or Greek to know that. I think the grammar is fairly easy to learn. But, English has its tricky aspects, mostly in pronunciation and spelling. Most foreign speakers never really get our short Germanic I vowel, or all three of our U vowels sounds. I hear poosh for push, etc., and my name Kim, as Keem, constantly, about half of our local population is Hispanic, of Mexican, Central and South American origin. Many are recent immigrants, completely new to English, but of course, these differences vanish in the next generation as soon as elementary school begins. Many also don’t have strong literacy skills in their native Spanish, which can give them extra difficulty with written English. We (at least a large majority of us) welcome all peaceful immigrants here in California, of whatever origin, it’s a great launchpad for families of good, law-abiding, productive citizens to get established in the US. I do think that eventual competency in English is essential for immigrants, though, and the State and local education systems are very supportive of this. English is the language that unites all Americans, and increasingly, unites us with a lot of the rest of the world.
Just for clarity, spaghetto is a single string of pasta, but if ask for a portion we say (a portion of) spaghetti; Paparazzo is actually a real surname of a gossip photographer: Fellini knew him and created the term "Paparazzi", creating the plural, as the generic plural for gossip photographers;
Gideon, that's the most brilliant lesson of yours I've ever watched! You've actually blown my mind out. The dark side of the English moon is pritty terrible :-)
I am an American author and my guide has always been "Strunk & White." "The Elements of Style, also known as Strunk & White, is a style guide for formal grammar used in American English writing. Originally written in 1918 by William Strunk, Jr., it was later revised by Strunk and Edward A. Tenny in 1935. An expanded and modernized edition was made by E. B. White in 1959." It has sold over 10 million copies since its publication.
What about the serial (or Oxford) comma? Which is more correct: “…red, white and blue…” or “…red, white, and blue…”? Different guides have different styles.
The plural of the original word "Wunderkind" is "Wunderkinder". e.g. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Boris Becker, Michael Jackson, Vanessa Mae, Ann-Sophie Mutter. I am curious of the other parts of the sentence.
Another beauty: The Statue of Liberty, not the Liberty's Statue )and is not a star)... Singular of Spaghetti is Spaghetto, but who is going to eat a single spaghetto?
25 November 2019, Palermo, Sicily. Well, you may eat a single spaghetto when your pasta is cooking in the pan and you get 1 spaghetto out to check if your spaghetti are ready to eat or still uncooked.
BEST ENGLISH TEACHER! Such a pleasure to attend his classes!, About the topic of this video - How to pronounce French words in English - I would mention ‘crêpe’ as a big NO-NO! Never pronounce it the French way otherwise it would sound like ‘crap’!
regarding exceptions to the apostrophe-S for ownership, what about: - "the English coastline", meaning "England's coastline" - "the papal hat", meaning "the Pope's hat" - "the Lunar atmosphere" , meaning "the Moon's atmosphere" - "cartesian coordinates", meaning "Descartes' coordinates" - "Sistine Chapel" , meaning "Sixtus' chapel"
Hello, Gideon! You are really genius. Brilliant! Here are the answers of mine about the plural forms of the loanwords of Bonsai, Seraph, Virtuoso, Flamingo, Château, and Wunderkind as follows: 1. Bonsai 2. Seraphs or Seraphim or Seraphin 3. Virtuosos or Virtuosi 4. Flamingos or Flamingoes 5. Châteaus or Châteaux 6. Wunderkinder or Wunderkinds
I would have just said Bonsai, Seraphim, Virtuosi, Flamingoes, Châteaux, Wunderkinder. I'm German too, and I also feel that "Wunderkinds" hurts my ears - just as Châteaus or Virtuosos and so on. Which is your mother tongue apart from Bahasa Indonesia?
Curious is the word 'façade' in French that is much used in architecture but written 'facade' for there's usually no 'ç' in English. That one the reader could hardly guess the pronunciation... 😜
The Latin genitive is not only used in astronomy. We have other expressions where it still exists even though we may only say the abbreviation. Anno domini, a.d., in the year of the Lord, exempli gratis, e.g., for the sake of example. Also some legal terms such as compos mentis, of sound mind, in loco parentis, in place of the parent, etc. I've been an English teacher for many years too. Good video!
@@LetThemTalkTVHappy to put in my tuppenceworth!! Latin is my biggest passion, that's how I know. I was quite impressed with yours too! Just one self correction - "for example" in Latin should have read exempli "gratia", with "a" not "s". The spellchecker changed it to the word it recognised before I realised. Sorry about that!! I loved the bit on punctuation. People think it doesn't matter any more but its very important to avoid misunderstanding. Giles Brandreth's book "Have You Eaten Grandma?" presents this in a very humorous way. I share your videos with all my students.
Regarding the plural of fish; fishes may be used : Bob fishes around in the attic for his ski boots . So my point is maybe because the word is used in other modes, it has become acceptable as a plural?
Regarding plural of fishes, my grammar says simply that salmon, cod and trout have no plural. I think another exception is "tuna" which is actually "tuna fish" and should be "tuna fish" also as plural. All other fishes* (meaning: species) should form a normal plural.
Oops. At 8:07, you've got a structural problem. In your examples, you're setting off a parenthetical comment. To do so, you have three choices, viz., parentheses, commas, or em-dashes. Those choices, in the order I presented them, suggest the relative importance of the parenthetical comment. If it's set in parentheses, it's like a whisper. If commas are used, it's of moderate importance. If the writer sets off a parenthetical with em-dashes, then it's the strongest possible. Your sentence could be correctly written in any of these three ways: It's the British (or rather the Scottish) who make the best whisky. It's the British, or rather the Scottish, who make the best whisky. It's the British--or rather the Scottish--who make the best whisky. Whichever method you choose, you need to open and close with the same punctuation mark. You can't mix and match in the same sentence.
Absolutely - an en dash is kind of a separation of emphasis or levels in one sentence On the other hand a pair of em dashes - those are the wider ones, the width of a lower case em - is essentially a round-trip which goes somewhere else for a short detour, but promises to come back by the time we see the second one
I was taught in high school many years ago that since "data" is a Latin word which is the plural of "datum," "data" should be considered a plural word in English, and the English singular form should be the same as in Latin -- "datum." Thus we should say, "the data are", not "the data is." However, it seems that "the data is" has become the most common usage in the US.
I have heard that the English department of an exam board struggled with the phrase "Old People (s) Home (s)" in other words The possession of places where old people are put to retire. So where do you put the inverted comma?
Hi Gideon, About Em-dashes, don't you think it would be better to ad a second Em-dash at the end of the inserted information ? For example : "Nobody -- not even his wife -- suspected he was a murderer." To me it would make more sense. About French words included in an English phrase, your rule is absolutely true and relevant. It's exactly the same in French with Italian words, for example...
When one has full command and mastery of h is/er 'mother language', like writers and poets, by their own right they can innovate and create new rules and exceptions and invent new 'hapax legomena', which if accepted become a new word of common use within the semantic corpus of `la langue'.
Yes! A very difficult aspect of English grammar, and I always shied away from even attempting to teach it, is the order of adjectives in a string. The beautiful large brand new bright blue rectangular faceted diamond engagement ring. Teach that! I dare you!
Gideon, I'm a Portuguese native speaker and you know what? While watching to the video, expecially the plural forms, I noticed the word "graffiti" that corresponds to a singular word in Portuguese "grafite". This word in Portuguese regarding to that millimetric gray cilinder used in automatic pencils is popularly referred as a countable noun "1 grafite, 2 grafites, 3 grafites", but despite me being native in Portuguese I don't know if it is correct because the lead case indicates de quantitie like 10 pieces, 20 pieces, 40 pieces instead of 10 grafites, 20 grafites or 40 grafites. So I'm not 100% sure wether "4 grafites" or "4 peaces of grafites" is the correct way, but I always say "4 grafites".
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
I can not refrain myself from expressing that your videos are superb and for those of us who feel the English language as second nature, your concepts come like mana from Heaven. In my eyes this video has been the best achieved of your remarkable capacity of histrionics to gather the attention of your audience. A real teacher. Chapeau!
I'm humbled by your comment. Many thanks
Regarding "cannon", this has a counterpart in military expressions like "foot" and "horse". If I need to say that a certain unit has 200 men (infantry) and 50 knights, the English expression is that the unit has "200 foot and 50 horse". One can also say "the battle was won by the foot", for what I gather, meaning "the infantry".
If some of these are a bit confusing don't feel bad. I'm a native English speaker and I didn't know most of these rules hah. Thanks Gideon! 👍👍👍
Thanks...and there is a lot more that I still don't know.
@@LetThemTalkTV Hah well with the accent and faded bookshelf background you certainly seem like you know everything. 😎
It seems like that but I still have a lot to learn
@@LetThemTalkTV You are a really humble person. Awesome! We really appreciate all of your hard work and effort.
I'm a non-native English speaker. That's why I'm here to learn the Seven *Insane Grammar Rules* from the *Dark Side* of the English Language. I'm Indonesian. 🇮🇩 I speak Indonesian also known as Bahasa Indonesia. 🇮🇩 Notwithstanding the different language of my native language, Indonesian, I learnt English inasmuch as I would like to comprehend the English grammar rules. The difficulties of those seven insane English grammar rules notwithstanding, I'm still learning one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world. Greetings from Indonesia. 🇮🇩
This channel is amazing ! I wish I had had a teacher like this in school !
The true strength of the English Language is English Teachers. Great video, Gideon. Kudos! Thanks for your valuable job.
Dear Gideon, I'm probably repeating the same thing for a while, but I have to say once again that you are the best! Keep it up!
Yes you are!
Worry not about it, my friend.
You say it as many times as possible.
you prolly dont care at all but does someone know of a tool to get back into an Instagram account..?
I was stupid forgot the login password. I love any assistance you can offer me!
The plural ending -a originally comes from Greek. For example, the Greek word criterion, plural: criteria. In addition, the ending -is which becomes -es in the plural is also from Greek, such as analysis - analyses, crisis - crises. We do have a plethora of endings in our grammar! An interesting case of a plural in English that I would like to point out is appendix - appendices, a word derived from Latin. Once more, you've done an excellent video! Greetings from Greece.
The plurals of animals is one of those holdovers from Old English, where (a certain class of) neuter nouns had the same plural forms as their singular forms. Deer is an example, neuter in Old English (and originally meaning "any animal"), with an identical plural form.
Most nouns lost this pattern. For example, the plural of house should have been house, but it regularized into houses. Old English differentiated the plural by the article: þæt hus (the house), þa hus (the houses).
For whatever reason, the pattern seemed to remain exclusively to animals. Perhaps as the breakdown of grammatical gender happened, the collective memory of why some nouns have identical singular-plural patterns had forgotten this nonsense about the neuter gender and maybe thought it was just the animals that conformed to that pattern.
Interestingly, "fish" was not neuter historically and never conformed to that pattern. Old English se fisc, þa fiscas. Fish and fishes. Again, the collective memory theory, people had forgotten that the fish was masculine and simply assumed that animals followed that pattern of identical forms in the plural. Thus fish and fish.
"Animal" is "dier" and 'Tier' in Dutch and German (with "ie" prononced as "ee") so it is clearly connected to "deer".
Plural in Dutch is almost always an addition of "en" at the end, and so strongly felt that words that did have a different plural form got it stacked on top. So the plural of "kind" (kid) was "kinder" (as it still is in German) but became "kinderen". "Ei" (egg) has "eireren". "Schoe" (shoe) even got it twice, via "schoen" to "schoenen" and "schoen" became the singular form!
@@barttemolder3405 In another video, Gideon explained that "venison" means, in your dish, "deer". I did not understand why the discrepancy, as "venaison" (the term which gives "venison" in English, for sure) means "hunted meat", "wild game" in French, whereas "deer" means a certain mammal. I now see that "deer" anciently simply meant German "Tier", i.e. "wild animal", hence the link between "venison" and deer-wild game.
@@uffa00001 Venison is the meat of deer (or elk) and just like "deer" it was more widely used in the past - albeit just for the meat of a variety of "deer"...
Even "venaison" nowadays is mostly used for deer meat but can still extend to wild boar etc.
"An unkindness of ravens" will be my new nickname, it's enormously fantastic!
Collective nouns are actually nice, there is a story behind each and it is an interesting part of linguistics.
Considering fish, for example, in ukranian, which is my native language, it is singular by itself but in a phrase it could be treated like plural as well, without changes, although it has plural form. And to say, for example, "one fish" you have to add a suffix and an ending, to say 2 and up to 4 fishes you have to change an ending, to say 5 and up to 20 fishes you drop the ending. And now the climax - when you say 21 fishes it is singular again with suffix and ending as for one, 22-24 like 2-4 and 25-30 drops an ending, 31 is singular, ta-da-a-a!!!! and so forth. We have two forms of plural for many nouns indeed. Speaking of borrowed words like paparazzi, flamingo and many others - they don't have number. Oh, by the way, there is one fish called "ivasi" (herring's cousin by the way) which also does not have number but already sounds like plural.
About possesives: every noun has possesive form and genetive form and you use them depending on whether the possessed object goes after or before subject.
And a lot of other quirks and features could be found in my language.
Great video, as always!
A very interesting insight into the Ukranian language. Thanks and enjoy your Ivasi.
@@LetThemTalkTV
Other Slavic languages follow the same rules.
Thanks! I'd like to tip in my 2c about English - my native language for 60+ years, on this point that confuses the hell out of my foreign-born wife. I have an aquarium full of tropical fish. (Fish, plural). But sometimes when I go to feed them I say "good night fishies". My told me off for saying "fishes" because we already agreed that this word implies multiple species of fish..... "I have some guppies, some neons, and a few other fishes". But actually I was saying 'fishies' which is cute diminutive form a bit like calling a dog a doggy. Your new word for the week 🙂 As homework you can work with a partner to sort out the difference between 'fruit' and 'fruits' *yikes*. [ps on second thoughts be careful using the work 'fruits' in polite society :-D ]
Absolutely terrific content - I'm astounded for this fantastic compilation. Thank you very much
Terrific comment. You are fantastic.
The plural of fish is usually fish, but fishes has a few uses. In biology, for instance, fishes is used to refer to multiple species of fish. For example, if you say you saw four fish when scuba diving, that means you saw four individual fish, but if you say you saw four fishes, we might infer that you saw an undetermined number of fish of four different species.
Same principle with money. It is singular and plural, unless you are talking about multiple types of different currency. Then it can be monies.
For the rest of my life , I'll be extremely thankful for having a BRILLIANT TEACHER LIKE YOU. The lessons you 're teaching , the knowledge and skills that you have taught will be remembered forever while your inspiration will always give me the strenght to succeed sweetheart !!! If only everyone could have a teacher as wonderful as you , THE WORLD WOULD BE A MUCH BETTER PLACE !!!!!!!!!!
Many thanks for your wonderful comment that motivates me to continue. However there are many brilliant teachers all over the world spreading knowledge and inspiring people every day.
I remembered "Parliament " from Chaucer's "Parliament of Fowls ". These expressions are so picturesque.
I didn't know about Chaucer. So basically - a parliament can be used for fowls, owls or even rooks, BUT for ravens the correct term would be "unkindness", and for crows it would be "murder"?... i'll go out on a limb here and guess English is just messing with everyone XD
Brilliant as usual, your lessons are créme de la créme!
No! They are la crème de la crème. In French, accents are essential.
This was so informative! I have never heard of an "unkindness of ravens", although I've heard of a "murder of crows". I guess that is the difference between those two birds - ravens are just a little more civilized that crows. (?)
Also, that last point about quoting French phrases for someone like me who's first language is English: Actually, at the risk of sounding lazy, the info you quoted sort of made sense to me in a strange way.
I don't really use those phrases very often, and do try for correct pronunciation, however I like the idea that it's kind of a tip of the hat to the the French language and okay if we can't always get it perfect. Anyway it was amusing and got me thinking.
Thank you so much for this video: I love being shown how much there is still to discover in English. I was more or less familiar with the plurals and Saxon Genitive (although I fear there still are many examples that would be a surprise for me), but I wasn't aware of the Latin Genitive, it's fantastic! Now I only have to take up astronomy...
Thanks. Yes, the Latin genitive is pretty obscure. I don't think I can explain it.
@@LetThemTalkTV Amazing video, as always. I think that astronomical objects have Latin names because the early astronomers spoke Latin. Centaurus is the Latin name of a certain constallation. Alpha is a star belonging to that constallation. So to speak, it's not a star of its own (of course it is indeed), or a star of which we could speak alone, at the same time being astronomically clear and assertive, that is, making it very cleat exactly which star we are talking about. So we say "Alpha, but not any Alpha. That only Alpha that belongs to Centaurus constallation". Now that is the Latin name of that star: Alpha Centauri. I think we don't use Saxon possesive because it's a proper name, such as a person's.
@@LetThemTalkTV I am a professional astronomer, and I can tell you, that although I never learned latin and I don't know why 'alpha centauri' is correct, that naming style has leaked into a lot of other areas in Astronomy. Younger people try to make us say "Centaurus A" but the latin genetive has a lot of life left in it yet. Now I know about its origin I'll dogmatically use it wherever I can :-)
Honestly your way of learning the lessons is more than wonderful that I love your channel which I benefited from so much thanks for your great efforts
I love your comment. Thanks
THANKS A LOT .from Moscow Russia. YOU ARE THE BEST TEACHER!!!!!
Thanks for your vote of confidence. Much appreciated.
"Don't sound too french" is a good advice for any part of England I guess xD
Anyway, -horrific- -horrible- -terrible- terrific video. Summs up my love/hatred for that language so well!
You can have fun inventing your own collective nouns. My favourite is one for a meeting of head teachers -- a scratching of heads.
I love your way of teaching and your examples.Thanks a bunch.
Dear respected Gideon. I listen to this video again and again. Clear and excellent explanations. My example sentence; when Joan visited his office mate in Marseille , they both went to an excursion in the countryside North of France. They sent photos of oases there. Amazing.
I need to watch this video many times. Its really insane.
Thank you for this lesson:)
Thanks for the comment.
Thank you for teaching. I'm a beginner. Love to learn English.
The genitive case in German was on the way to die out some hundred years ago, but it was preserved in the written standard language. But is a "defective case" in German. In other languages with a real genitive case, one can easily set a single noun into the genitive case, e.g. in Latin: Centaurus > Centauri.
In German, this is impossible: a noun in the genitive case must always be "supported" by an article, pronoun or adjective.
Example:
the verb ''entbehren'' (to be without something) requires an object in the genitive case.
One can say now:
- wir entbehren einer guten Regel (we lack a good rule)
- wir entbehren guter Regeln (we lack good rules)
with "einer guten Regel" and "guter Regeln" standing in the genitive case.
In these examples, "Regeln" is supported by other words (einer, guten, guter).
But one cannot say:
- xxxxxxxx (we lack rules)
There are no 3 possibilities:
1) one breaks the rules and says, incorrectly: ''*wir entbehren Regeln''
2) one chooses another verb:
- wir haben keine Regeln (we don't have rules)
- uns fehlen Regeln (rules are missing to us)
3) one adds a supporting word, e.g.:
- wir entbehren jeglicher Regeln (we lack ANY rules)
ich entbehre gute regeln (akkusativ). er entbehrte jeglichen anstand (acc), er war bar jeglichen anstands (gen). hmmm.
austrian-german native speaker. 🤔
Unkindness of Ravens...Brilliant! Does it have a plural? What would two lots of them be called? Didn't dare take a guess on that one.
The last part about not sounding to French is the best part!!!
Honorable mention: a crash of rhinos. I love how these collective names somehow describe the temperament of the animals. Cheers!
a tower of giraffes! a gaggle of geese! a congregation of alliagators !
English is easy only at the beginning but the further the more difficult, I think to myself...
Thank you for this video. As usually the perfect English lesson performance!
I´d like to expand on your comment. I think with you that English grammar is not that, that difficult to begin with... for somebody coming from Europe with a Indo-European mother-tongue. I suppose that it is an altogether different story for Asian speakers.
All languages have easy, logical, simple rules and difficult, abstruse rules as well, because they are the result of many influences and centuries of use.
In any case, all languages are very difficult to master, even as a mother-tongue. To master any language is extremely difficult and takes years and years of training and perseverance.
The most difficult languages are those from tribes that have been isolated for a long time in the past, as one of the laws of linguistics states that the more in isolation a group lives, the more complicated rules the language develops: Old Greek, Sanskrit, Icelandic, Arapahoe, Japanese, Bushmen of the Kalahari, Quechua, Inuit, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish, Polish... but being difficult does not mean to be better or more brilliant. In fact, extreme difficulty hinders the spread of the language. Simplicity is a virtue.
Then, take the the old Greeks with Sappho, Socrates, Arete of Cyrene, Plato, Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Pythagoras, Theano, Archimedes, Hypatia, Pandrosion, and many other geniuses...only spoke one single language, Greek, and considered the rest of the world as barbar. Although Cleopatra was an exception as a brilliant polyglot who could speak Greek, Latin, Egyptian and other languages. This ability, however, did not help her as a general in the battle of Actium.
That means to me, that only one language is needed to become a brilliant, compassionate person and to discover important things.
On the other side, the more languages one knows up to a reasonable high level, the more information one can absorb and learn and there is a chance there to become a little bit wiser in the process, only a chance, not a guarantee. 🤔
Absolutely love you videos! I teach English at a language school in the Czech republic and I must say I use your stuff during my classes and students find it really interesting! Keep up the great work mate. One little detail, when speaking about MOSES' STICK at 11:05 you actually say 'S no apostrophe' when in fact I guess you wanted to say 'S apostrophe no second S' and also when mentioning Achilles' heel, you say you know there's 'S apostrophe and there's no second apostrophe' but I guess you meant to say there's no second S. Just thought it might might make it a bit easier for students who are not as proficient at the moment to avoid this kind of confusion. ;)
Thank you for your kind comments. Sometimes I have to rush to finish the video so there are some mistakes I hope they didn't spoil your enjoyment.
@@LetThemTalkTV not at all, it was more of a friendly note. I have made a list of cockney slang and am absolutely loving it! Cheers again ;) Stay safe in these crazy times!
14:46 My reaction to Fowler’s - sacré bleu! (Do I have the apostrophe, hyphen and pronunciation right?) Sigh. C’est la vie.
Gideon, you are brilliant! Thank you for your noble work!
I was wondering if the astronomical name for the star Pollux would be Beta Geminorum; turns out it is.
On the plurals for fish species: I have a hunch that the plurals of fish native to the waters in and around the British Isles don't take an -'s and the more exotic do.
Thanks for your entertaining as well educational videos, Gideon.
Someone please help me from NOT falling in love with him :)))))) Although I am proud to say I mostly know what he is talking about, I feel I keep learning and won't ever stop! What a discovery as I enter the world of teaching English worldwide. His videos are God sent! Plus he cracks me up and makes me laugh. Bless his heart. Great guy. Stay classy !!
"Phenomena" is another word that many people use as both singular and plural even though the singular is really "phenomenon".
Thank you for your pronunciation of mischievous. I grew up with that, but for several decades now I've been hearing it with the 4 syllables, even from my English mother-in-law. Drives me a little crazy. I think it's not the only word with the "ous" ending that people have started adding an extra vowel after whatever consonant precedes the "ous."
Gideon! you are my favourite English teacher in the world, "English with Lucy" is my top 2, she is a wonderful teacher as well. You have a unique energy, you are the man of the hour, it seems like you have gone through many adventures ups and downs, and you know, that for certain polishes the best version of ourselves. I teach English for free like they say pro bono hehehe, to make more and more people learn basic English, so they can find jobs in call centers / outsourcing centers in LATAM and more. Un GRAN SALUDO Y UN ABRAZO DESDE EL SALVADOR, AMERICA CENTRAL TIO!
Excellent knowledge and still better way of explanation
Simply mind blowing
Thanks Gideon! As an English tescher, I really love your great videos. Panini or Panino is another...
I love these bizarre collective nouns. A murder of crows... an unkindness of ravens... Marvelous!!!
@@dixonpinfold2582 fixed, cheers!
A wonderful book about "collective nouns" (also called "terms of venery", as in hunting) is An Exaltation of Larks. It has beautiful illustrations as well as a fascinating and amusing text.
Mr. Gideon, hello! Congratulations! Your videos are exceptional! I always look forward to your next one! Today's video has too much information. Once again, I had to keep notes. But, please allow me to tell you that the word stadium (στάδιον) is also Greek. Stadia (στάδια) is the plural in Greek - ancient and modern. In ancient Greece, it used to be a unit of measurement as well. Graffiti comes from the ancient Greek verb graphein (infinitives: γράφειν - γράφω) which means I write. I am not that smart, I am Greek, that is how I know all these details.
Thank you again for the knowledge that you offer us so generously.
Thanks, it seems that so many English words originate from Greek. It's eye-opening.
Well, the strangest rule I remember now in Spanish is the word "mar" (sea) or "calor" (heat) that can have a male or female article, both, it's up to the one who speaks. By the way, I have a whale of a time watching your videos and you help me to learn a bunch of English. Cheers, Gideon!
El mar, el calor. Both def. masc.
@@joecostner1246 No, Maria is right in poetry we use la Mar, la calor is common in popular, lunch-bucket usage.
Can be confusing when the C is on a tap in the sink in Spain, Italy etc. I think it might be due to how modern languages evolved from Latin and collapsed three genders (neuter) into two. Another reason for me to love English !
Hyphen -
en-dash -
em-dash -
also:
minus sign − (yes, It is different)
I think it's true for every european language.
In Russia we also have cool «quotes» that I've never seen in English (and likewise em-dash they are also missing on our keyboards, which is sad)
We should adopt the cool quotes. Sounds......cool. Thanks
hello ruski ))
The same «quotation marks» are used in French as well. Napoléon may have brought them to you.
I don't see anybody paying this kind of attention to the various "dashes" in Italian writing conventions, there are only two of them:
- is used as "minus sign", as a hyphen in the rare cases that need a hyphen. When writing with a normal keyboard, the same symbol - is used for incidental phrases. A printed book might use a different and slightly longer dash, but I think there are only two in total in Italian typographic conventions.
Also, an incidental - such as this one - is also terminated by a dash in Italian typographic conventions.
Having a keyboard that must allow inserting easily ò,à,ù,è,é,ì,^, and in fact also ç which is standard in Italian keyboard layouts, we cannot afford the luxury to have four different dashes in our keyboard layout - and neither feel such a need!
As a Hungiarian I like the Hungarian dog names pluralized in Hungarian in English dictionaries: puli - pulik, komondor-komondorok. The vizsla has vizslas I guess because of the complication of its Hungarian plural where you even have to change the ending vowel: Vizsla-vizslák.
I learn so much with your videos! Thank you!
In French, qualifying adjectives related to colours only take an "s" when describing plural nouns if they are not derivated from a noun (for example we’d write "les chemises orange et les cravates turquoise" but we’d write "les chemises rouges et les cravates jaunes"). But - as you probably know, French grammar is full of exceptions and in this case, the qualifying adjectives "pourpre", "violet", "rose" and "mauve" are exempt from this rule.
That being said, most French people do not know about this rule if the truth be known!
I've learned so much from your videos! Thank you very much and please don't stop making videos.
What I do for the S possessive is add 's no matter if the word ends in one S or two, or if the following word starts with S or not (Thomas's book, Ross's shoes, Louis's house), except for ancient names of course (Jesus' followers, Pythagoras' theorem, Socrates' words), and also names that sound like plurals, which also stay the same in plural for me, or words that are their own plural, like "series", provided the S is pronounced (e.g. Mr Andrews' (plural: Andrews) house, Charles Dickens' works (plural: Dickens), Steve Jobs' (plural: Jobs) inventions, but Ms Jones's house (plural: Joneses) and Mr Woods's house (plural: Woodses); the series' conclusion, the species' habitat, but the corps's (plural: corps) members)
Words ending in X or Z take 's no matter what (Bordeaux's wine, Alex's seat, Liz's pen, Gorillaz's members). Stuff like "Alex' house" or "Alcatraz' prisoners" (which I have seen similar examples to!) are wrong
Awesome lesson. I like your humor as well.
Most interesting video! Majority of things I was unaware.
Thanks!
Hi. I have a grammar question that I was discussing with a non-English speaker, and I wondered if you could shed some light on it?
Why do we use “the” for some things, but not others? Eg
Fly me to the moon
Fly me to Mars
I climbed the Eiffel Tower
I climbed Mount Everest.
I couldn’t work out how you know when to use “the”
Thanks
Most "things" use a definite article -- most places do not. However many countries will use "THE" if the name is plural or a collection of items. Guam vs The Hawaiian islands. Canada vs The United States. Belgium vs The Netherlands. etc.
I learnt so much from this video, this is so informative. You know what/how to teach. You're the best! Stay blessed, sir!
Thanks for coming back! Had been missing you. Both your lessons and accent are 😍.
Miss you too
8:50 Once I found a podcast of some Internet radio about orgins of collective nouns. It seems like there were a group of English gentlemen who were having fun when coming up with those words (eg. gaggle of women)
Once again I must thank you for sharing your educational videos.
Latin genitive in astronomy reflects some of the historical influences on usage for placenames in England? "Thornham Magna" & "Thornham Parva", for example.
I confirm that in Italian spaghetto, graffito and paparazzo are perfectly legitimate singular nouns.
But please don't try to use them when communicating with an english speaker. One piece of spaghetti, a bit of graffiti, one of the paparazzi, these forms are perfect :-D
@@IanKemp1960 (Why not? If you are a foreigner, Italian in particular, and you do it knowingly, it adds originality to the communication style!) We have a similar rule in Italian: foreign words are always in singular form, and you understand from the context whether they are used as a plural or not. And also, if you use them in their plural form, that is considered less educated. Although things are changing very fast...
Although of course a "graffito" (pl. graffiti) is not at all something you do on walls with spray paint, unless you are living a few millennia BC (and spray paint was done a lot different then) 😂
I sometimes wonder how in the world a word that in Italian only refers to prehistoric artworks could have entered English to mean something invented just a few decades ago.
Oh and yes, that's "millennia" and definitely not "millenniums" 😉
I love your videos. In the Internet generation of the last 20 years I’ve noticed people really struggling with subject-verb agreement and the near-disappearance of adverbs. I watch a lot of fashion YT, and this is what I constantly hear: “The next category I want to talk about ARE shoes” (or other plurals like bags, trousers, skirts, etc.). They look a bit confused, as if unsure, but stick with this weird form anyway. This is not an error that English speakers of my generation (born 1960) make, ever, really. We learned SVA from early childhood by the everyday speech of our parents, we didn’t have to wait to receive instruction in written English or grammar. I can’t think of an adverb example at the moment, but the adjective form is continuing to replace it in Internet speech. Most of our English grammar is simple, one only has to study a highly-declined language like Latin or Greek to know that. I think the grammar is fairly easy to learn. But, English has its tricky aspects, mostly in pronunciation and spelling. Most foreign speakers never really get our short Germanic I vowel, or all three of our U vowels sounds. I hear poosh for push, etc., and my name Kim, as Keem, constantly, about half of our local population is Hispanic, of Mexican, Central and South American origin. Many are recent immigrants, completely new to English, but of course, these differences vanish in the next generation as soon as elementary school begins. Many also don’t have strong literacy skills in their native Spanish, which can give them extra difficulty with written English. We (at least a large majority of us) welcome all peaceful immigrants here in California, of whatever origin, it’s a great launchpad for families of good, law-abiding, productive citizens to get established in the US. I do think that eventual competency in English is essential for immigrants, though, and the State and local education systems are very supportive of this. English is the language that unites all Americans, and increasingly, unites us with a lot of the rest of the world.
in italian we have the singular form for the words you mentioned and we use it (graffito, spaghetto, paparazzo)
Just for clarity, spaghetto is a single string of pasta, but if ask for a portion we say (a portion of) spaghetti; Paparazzo is actually a real surname of a gossip photographer: Fellini knew him and created the term "Paparazzi", creating the plural, as the generic plural for gossip photographers;
Gideon, that's the most brilliant lesson of yours I've ever watched! You've actually blown my mind out. The dark side of the English moon is pritty terrible :-)
I'm glad you're pleased with it. It's all very scary but good to know. Many thanks.
By the end of this marvelous and enriching video it made me remind how scarcely I found a French talking good English...
So so interesting lesson. I didn't know most of it. Thank you very much.
Hello, sir if you make a PDF of lessons , it would be helpful to us
I am an American author and my guide has always been "Strunk & White." "The Elements of Style, also known as Strunk & White, is a style guide for formal grammar used in American English writing. Originally written in 1918 by William Strunk, Jr., it was later revised by Strunk and Edward A. Tenny in 1935. An expanded and modernized edition was made by E. B. White in 1959." It has sold over 10 million copies since its publication.
I’m primarily here for the brilliant and blistering comic relief embellishments. 👏🏻
I love thís channel. Thank you. Please make a video on punctuations.
What about the serial (or Oxford) comma? Which is more correct: “…red, white and blue…” or “…red, white, and blue…”? Different guides have different styles.
The plural of the original word "Wunderkind" is "Wunderkinder". e.g. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Boris Becker, Michael Jackson, Vanessa Mae, Ann-Sophie Mutter. I am curious of the other parts of the sentence.
I love you ... Amazing lesson, I guess I'm a bit of a geek too 😊
Another beauty: The Statue of Liberty, not the Liberty's Statue )and is not a star)...
Singular of Spaghetti is Spaghetto, but who is going to eat a single spaghetto?
If you're on an extreme diet you could eat a spaghetto.
My dog does. He's crazy about 'spaghettos'.
"The Statue of Liberty" is a Norman Genitive.
25 November 2019, Palermo, Sicily.
Well, you may eat a single spaghetto when your pasta is cooking in the pan and you get 1 spaghetto out to check if your spaghetti are ready to eat or still uncooked.
That's a remarkable comment
BEST ENGLISH TEACHER! Such a pleasure to attend his classes!, About the topic of this video - How to pronounce French words in English - I would mention ‘crêpe’ as a big NO-NO! Never pronounce it the French way otherwise it would sound like ‘crap’!
regarding exceptions to the apostrophe-S for ownership, what about:
- "the English coastline", meaning "England's coastline"
- "the papal hat", meaning "the Pope's hat"
- "the Lunar atmosphere" , meaning "the Moon's atmosphere"
- "cartesian coordinates", meaning "Descartes' coordinates"
- "Sistine Chapel" , meaning "Sixtus' chapel"
Great video. I enjoyed from beginning to end thank you Mr Gideon
Hello, Gideon! You are really genius. Brilliant! Here are the answers of mine about the plural forms of the loanwords of Bonsai, Seraph, Virtuoso, Flamingo, Château, and Wunderkind as follows:
1. Bonsai
2. Seraphs or Seraphim or Seraphin
3. Virtuosos or Virtuosi
4. Flamingos or Flamingoes
5. Châteaus or Châteaux
6. Wunderkinder or Wunderkinds
You are brilliant. All correct.
@@LetThemTalkTV Thank you for the compliment.
I'm Indonesian, but I ❤ English.
Greetings from Indonesia. 🇮🇩🇮🇩
As a German, hearing the word Wunderkinds, it hurts my ears. :D
I would have just said Bonsai, Seraphim, Virtuosi, Flamingoes, Châteaux, Wunderkinder.
I'm German too, and I also feel that "Wunderkinds" hurts my ears - just as Châteaus or Virtuosos and so on.
Which is your mother tongue apart from Bahasa Indonesia?
Curious is the word 'façade' in French that is much used in architecture but written 'facade' for there's usually no 'ç' in English. That one the reader could hardly guess the pronunciation... 😜
I love your videos, cheers from Monaco
The Latin genitive is not only used in astronomy. We have other expressions where it still exists even though we may only say the abbreviation. Anno domini, a.d., in the year of the Lord, exempli gratis, e.g., for the sake of example. Also some legal terms such as compos mentis, of sound mind, in loco parentis, in place of the parent, etc.
I've been an English teacher for many years too. Good video!
That's very interesting. I didn't think of that though my knowledge of Latin is pretty poor. Thanks for joining the debate
@@LetThemTalkTVHappy to put in my tuppenceworth!! Latin is my biggest passion, that's how I know. I was quite impressed with yours too!
Just one self correction - "for example" in Latin should have read exempli "gratia", with "a" not "s". The spellchecker changed it to the word it recognised before I realised. Sorry about that!!
I loved the bit on punctuation. People think it doesn't matter any more but its very important to avoid misunderstanding. Giles Brandreth's book "Have You Eaten Grandma?" presents this in a very humorous way.
I share your videos with all my students.
What a treat! Thank you.
The pleasure is mine thanks.
i dont know the exact meaning of "geek " , but you gideon you seem as an amazing , open minded guy ! an open minded , very well efucated person
Regarding the plural of fish; fishes may be used : Bob fishes around in the attic for his ski boots . So my point is maybe because the word is used in other modes, it has become acceptable as a plural?
An outstanding video with golden information! I'll never find these notions on books, thank you very much 😎
Thank you so much Mister,, really I enjoy when I listen to your lessons.
I really enjoy your comments. Thanks
Regarding plural of fishes, my grammar says simply that salmon, cod and trout have no plural. I think another exception is "tuna" which is actually "tuna fish" and should be "tuna fish" also as plural. All other fishes* (meaning: species) should form a normal plural.
Great video, just love it!! Keep up the good work. Thanks a lot !!!!
This channel deserve more much followers!
Oops. At 8:07, you've got a structural problem. In your examples, you're setting off a parenthetical comment. To do so, you have three choices, viz., parentheses, commas, or em-dashes. Those choices, in the order I presented them, suggest the relative importance of the parenthetical comment. If it's set in parentheses, it's like a whisper. If commas are used, it's of moderate importance. If the writer sets off a parenthetical with em-dashes, then it's the strongest possible. Your sentence could be correctly written in any of these three ways:
It's the British (or rather the Scottish) who make the best whisky.
It's the British, or rather the Scottish, who make the best whisky.
It's the British--or rather the Scottish--who make the best whisky.
Whichever method you choose, you need to open and close with the same punctuation mark. You can't mix and match in the same sentence.
Absolutely - an en dash is kind of a separation of emphasis or levels in one sentence
On the other hand a pair of em dashes - those are the wider ones, the width of a lower case em - is essentially a round-trip which goes somewhere else for a short detour, but promises to come back by the time we see the second one
I was taught in high school many years ago that since "data" is a Latin word which is the plural of "datum," "data" should be considered a plural word in English, and the English singular form should be the same as in Latin -- "datum." Thus we should say, "the data are", not "the data is." However, it seems that "the data is" has become the most common usage in the US.
Of course data is plural
In Spanish they are using data (la data) , specially amidst the poshy. Disgusting.
I have heard that the English department of an exam board struggled with the phrase "Old People (s) Home (s)" in other words The possession of places where old people are put to retire. So where do you put the inverted comma?
People is collective, so for a house is Old People's Home and for two is Old People's Homes IMVHO.
8:27 That was hilarious.
Brilliant video!
Hi Gideon,
About Em-dashes, don't you think it would be better to ad a second Em-dash at the end of the inserted information ? For example : "Nobody -- not even his wife -- suspected he was a murderer." To me it would make more sense.
About French words included in an English phrase, your rule is absolutely true and relevant. It's exactly the same in French with Italian words, for example...
I have enjoyed this video very much indeed. You made me laugh, Gideon. Really fun!!
I am not going to improve my English but..., your videos are fascinating.
10:15 what about if it's the plural of witness+the possesive form🤔
At that point I'd personaly say: "the statement of the witnesses"
When one has full command and mastery of h is/er 'mother language', like writers and poets, by their own right they can innovate and create new rules and exceptions and invent new 'hapax legomena', which if accepted become a new word of common use within the semantic corpus of `la langue'.
"An unkindness of Ravens" I thought it is a 1st April joke. :-)
i thought you say "a murder of ravens"
I’ve heard of “A murder of crows”. I never knew about unkindness though .
It’s probably unkind to murder
Let's not forget the parliament of rooks Neil Gaiman wrote about.
Brilliant as usual my favourite teacher
Yes! A very difficult aspect of English grammar, and I always shied away from even attempting to teach it, is the order of adjectives in a string. The beautiful large brand new bright blue rectangular faceted diamond engagement ring. Teach that! I dare you!
Could you explain how to separate words? Thanks 🤗
Gideon,
I'm a Portuguese native speaker and you know what? While watching to the video, expecially the plural forms, I noticed the word "graffiti" that corresponds to a singular word in Portuguese "grafite". This word in Portuguese regarding to that millimetric gray cilinder used in automatic pencils is popularly referred as a countable noun "1 grafite, 2 grafites, 3 grafites", but despite me being native in Portuguese I don't know if it is correct because the lead case indicates de quantitie like 10 pieces, 20 pieces, 40 pieces instead of 10 grafites, 20 grafites or 40 grafites. So I'm not 100% sure wether "4 grafites" or "4 peaces of grafites" is the correct way, but I always say "4 grafites".