A couple of English questions

[e-ahmet.823]

A couple of English questions

I know there are better forums to do this kind of thing but currently I'm active in here and I don't want to register to another forum just for it. 1. Is the sentence below weird in any way? Be it either by meaning or grammar. "It wouldn't be a bold statement to say that 'blah blah blah'." 2. From short story "Taste" by Roald Dahl: "There was a trace of whiteness around his nostrils now, and his mouth was shut very tight."(this sentence is from somewhere middle in the story) "It took a few moments for the full meaning of her words to penetrate, and in the silence that followed I became aware of Mike and how he was slowly drawing himself up in his chair, and the colour coming to his face, and the eyes opening wide, and the curl of the mouth, and the dangerous little patch of whiteness beginning to spread around the area of nostrils. 'Now, Michael!' his wife said. 'Keep calm now, Michael, dear! Keep calm!' " Last paragraph is the end of the story. Mike is furious, maybe proud and also relieved at the same time because what is revealed at the end of the story. I wonder what that whiteness could be, is it a sign of an illness or something bad.. maybe?

 

[Etainne]

I can take a stab at this for you."It wouldn't be a bold statement to say that 'blah blah blah'." This one is not an academically great sentence, but there does not seem to be anything wrong with it in the vernacular. If the meaning is similar to " It wouldn't be a bold statement to say that ice cream melts when left in the sun on a summer day." and the intention is to state the obvious truth, this sentence is perfectly fine. If the sentence is going to be part of an academic paper, then it has two problems. The first problem is the conjunction of would not and the second problem, as I explain to my students, is in these kinds of sentences, the writer can almost always take the word 'that' out without changing the meaning of the sentence, and while still keeping the integrity of the idea. As far as Dahl, his writing is illustrative. He often uses words to paint pictures in the mind. My interpretation of this section when I saw it was it alluded to the complexion of the person named Mike. I have known fair-skinned people who when they are excited, get red all around the face and even the ears, but their lips and the skin where the mustache grows turn stark white. It seems to be similar to the blushing response and is not an indication of illness, just a circulation issue. Maybe someone else has other opinions?

 

[e-ahmet.823]

First, I'd like to thank you. The complexion and circulation idea never occurred to me and I think you're right. When I read the first mention of that whiteness I thought "Hmm..has he been sniffing something white?" but at the end it started to spread by itself then it didn't make sense About the sentence with "bold" in it, it's a concluding sentence of a paragraph that I wrote about media as part of a homework for my English Reading and Writing lesson. I'm studying to be an English teacher. I'm a freshman. The topic was in short "Does the media reflect society or the other way around?". So I wrote a paragraph and at the end I wrote " To sum it all, it wouldn't be a bold statement to say that "Media is the image of a society in a mirror"." Now I see "that" should be removed from there to make it sound better but don't understand why "would not" is inappropriate. My teacher also has crossed "wouldn't" there. By the way, you sound like you're teaching English.

 

[Etainne]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with 'would not' however, "wouldn't" (which means exactly the same thing) is completely incorrect in an academic paper. All Contractions Are Forbidden. You must write the words in their entirety. Yes, English is one subject I am qualified to teach, and my last teaching assignment was high school English. To fix the mistake is an easy thing. When you are writing creatively, contractions are allowed. When you are writing academically, they are not. It goes to the purpose of the writing-- who is the audience? If you are writing for stuffy old English Professors, or for publications, you cannot use contractions. If you are writing for us here at the forum, you can use contractions all you want. Did you like the assignment and did you learn anything interesting? Thank you for the recognition. That made my day!edit: I personally think if the students use language that makes sense then we should not be as particular about contractions in a paper. The whole thing is a hold-over from the 1500-1800's when flowery speech was the norm and to be educated meant that one had to sound 'proper'. I just think this is silly in the age of electronic communication, with all of the text messages and more languages coming into contact daily anyway. Your teacher is probably just preparing you for those who think tradition needs to be upheld.

 

[e-ahmet.823]

Ah! Those contractions. Lately I've learned only "is" contracted in writing with "who, what and where" according to Betty Schrampfer Azar who is a teacher and an author of some grammar series. I've been using contracted "not" for so long that I forgot it wasn't allowed in formal writing. I agree with you that it shouldn't be that strict, but I have to abide by my teachers for now Did I learn anything from the assignment? Not really. I'd written my own opinions. Apart from the homework, I've always liked English course books because they always contain interesting reading passages and bits of trivia or thorough knowledge of some particular subject.