Craziness and oddity of the English language

It just makes no sense!
Seriously, what’s wrong with people? Why are we so clumsy with expressing our thoughts and why do we speak in such odd ways about the physical world surrounding us? Think about it: you fill the form in by filling it out! If hairs is plural of hair then why a man with hair on his head has more than a man with hairs on his head? Why is it called after dark when it’s really after light? Things we claim are under water or under ground are in fact surrounded by water or ground rather than under it. A theory of physics must be imbedded somewhere deep in our language, some indistinct and very rough concept of space in prepositions and an awkward concept of matter in nouns. Understanding this theory helps us explain not only the oddities of our language but also the mental models that we use desperately in our struggle to make sense of our lives.

Space in language
Location in language is somewhat digitised. I sense it from the simple fact that we make binary distinctions like near - far, on - off, in - out, on – under while scale is relative – we can use the same special term across about a spider walking across a window sill and a boat travelling across Pacific even if in first case the scale is centimetres, the other it’s thousands of miles. For the same reasons the interpretation of the special term there may vary. Saying the book is there I could possibly mean the book is in another room or in another country.

3 D’s
When you think of it, shape is schematic. In reality all objects take up some three-dimensional arrangements of matter but language idealises them as essentially one-dimensional, two-dimensional or three-dimensional. For example we don’t think of a CD as short cylinder, three-dimensional object, even though that’s all it is in reality. We think and talk about it as it was only two-dimensional. Well, hold on, isn’t it that in other words we choose to ignore some of the dimensions that make it up in reality concentrating on the smaller number of dimensions that sum it up in our minds? Yes, sounds about right.  It goes into some general sense of shape – We make it so much easier for ourselves by thinking simply of what shapes are similar to other shapes on the basis of comparison.

Prepositions and nouns
What’s important is that this idealised schematic geometry rules the use of our prepositions e.g. we use the preposition along in connection with one-dimensional objects only – therefore along the line is correct but along the table isn’t because we perceive table as a surface and a two-dimensional object. We can, however, say along the edge of a table and here’s another quirk about language of shape. For some reason the boundaries of objects are treated as if they were objects themselves. Edge is the one-dimensional boundary of the two dimensional table (I hope you are still with me because I think I’m close to losing it myself). For similar reasons we say something is under water when in fact all we mean that it is surrounded by water. Water can be refer to as to two-dimensional surface of a body of water so objects can be, in fact, under that two-dimensional surface.

Avoid common mistakes in English

Some mistakes made by foreigners while speaking English are more common than other ones. I hope this might help some of you and reading it will take only a few seconds... Let’s get started.

To tell and to say

We will learn the usage of the verbs 'to tell' and 'to say'. We say: I tell you. I say to you. We do not say: I tell to you. I say you. Analogically: I told you. / I said to you. not: I told to you. / I said you. I'm telling you. / I'm saying to you. not: I'm telling to you. / I'm saying you. I was telling you. / I was saying to you. not: I was telling to you. / I was saying you. I have told you. / I have said to you. not: I have told to you. / I have said you. etc.

To lose weight and to put on weight

Now we will learn the usage of the verbs 'to lose weight' and 'to put on weight'. Please notice, that a preposition 'on' occurs only in one of two given verbs and never in the other one. It is correct to say: I lose weight. Even though a lot of my students tend to say: 'I lose on weight' or 'I put weight' - these are not correct sentences. Please, study analogical examples below: I lost weight. / I put on weight. I have lost weight. / I have put on weight. I had lost weight. / I had put on weight. I will have lost weight. / I will have put on weight. etc.

Lesson3. I would also like you to have a look at the following list of words that very often I happen to see spelled wrong: accommodation, address, beginning, coffee, curiosity, disappear, disappointed, embarrassed, forbidden, guarantee, immediately, necessary, preferred, pronunciation, recommend, ridiculous, successful, unconscious, unfortunately, writing

Prepositions in, at and on

Now we're going to have a brief look at prepositions 'in', 'at' and 'on'. Common mistake number 1: I'm good in English. The sentence written above is NOT correct. Please remember that the preposition ‘at’ is used when describing people’s abilities in different pursuits. The correct sentence: I'm good at English. Common mistake number 2: There is a cat on the picture. The sentence written above is NOT correct. Please remember that the preposition 'in' is used when indicating place and location. The correct sentence: There is a cat in the picture.