Learning Vocabulary

Learning vocabulary may look daunting to you (you may not know the word daunting, but most probably you can still guess that it means something like "difficult"; that is how you learn a new work by relating it to the context in a sentence), but you have to learn it cumulatively, that is, learning a few words every day. 

Corporal / Corporeal

Corporal means related to the body; corporeal means bodily and not spiritual.

e.g. Corporal punishment is no longer acceptable in schools.

e.g. We should be more concerned with our spiritual rather than our corporeal welfare.

Forbear / Forebear

Forbear means to tolerate, refrain from; forebear means an ancestor

e.g. You have to forbear from asking too many questions.

e.g. He always takes pride in that Charles Dickens was his forebear.

Adverse / Averse

Adverse means unfavorable; averse means opposed to.

e.g. We managed to survive in these adverse economic conditions.

e.g. He was averse to giving financial aids to the poor.

Everyday / Every day

Everyday is an adjective.

e.g. This is an everyday event.

e.g. This happens in every day.

e.g. Every day somebody is killed on the road.

Indispensable / Indisputable

Indispensable means absolutely necessary; indisputable means factual, without a doubt, and not arguable.

e.g. Air is indispensable to life.

e.g. It is indisputable that the verdict of the judge is final.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Learn Some Colloquial Expressions

Are you with me?: understand or agree with me.

e.g. I've been explaining this for an hour. Are you with me?

Bang out: reveal.

e.g. If you go into politics, you must be prepared to let all your secrets bang out.

Deliver the goods: do what is expected or required.

e.g. The new employee seems to deliver the goods -- very hard working and conscientious.

Say-so: permission.

e.g. Do I have your say-so to launch the project?

See with half an eye: see easily.

e.g. The mistake is so obvious: you can see it with half an eye.

Where one gets off: stop disagreeable behavior.

e.g. I'll tell him where he gets off.

The necessary: the cash.

e.g. You want to buy this car? Do you have the necessary?

The never-never: the hire-purchase system.

e.g. Renting a car puts you on the never-never.

Whistle for: wish in vain.

e.g. The stock market has fallen sharply. You can whistle for your money invested.

Tall story: exaggerated story

e.g. No one would believe your tall story.

Tell that to the marines: do you expect anyone to believe that.

e.g. "I lost all the money at the casino." "Tell that to the marines!"

Keep one's head above water: stay out of debt or a difficult situation.

e.g. In this economic environment, it is not easy to keep your head above water.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Common English Expressions

Easy on the eye: good looking.

e.g. I say, your girlfriend is easy on the eye.

Act your age: behave yourself according to your age..

e.g. You’re almost an adult. Come on, act your age, and stop behaving like a spoiled brat!

Call it a day: consider something to be done or finished.

e.g. Let’s call it a day, and just go home.

Nod is as good as a wink: take note of the hint.

e.g. I think he was trying to tell you to resign; a nod is as good as a wink.

Butter up: flatter.

e.g. Now that you have been promoted, everybody seems to butter up you.

Bang-up: excellent.

e.g. We did spend a bang-up week in Greece.

No oil painting: ugly.

e.g. To tell the truth, the dress you bought me is no oil painting.

All hot and bothered: agitated, confused, or excited.

e.g. She was all hot and bothered when she heard the news of her daughter’s divorce.

Lame duck: someone who needs help but undeserved.

e.g. My brother, who is always unemployed, is a lame duck to me.

Buy it: die.

e.g. During the car crash, I thought I was going to buy it.

Much of a muchness: practically the same.

e.g. I don’t see any difference between the twins; they’re pretty much of a muchness to me.

Catch it: be scolded.

e.g. If you do this again, you’ll catch it.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Better English for You

Parental Anger

 Conflicts and misinterpretations often lead to anger with parents, resulting in the development of future relationships with a lack of love and trust.  Conflicts with biological parents, stepparents, foster and adoptive parents may vary in intensity, and even change drastically due to the separation and divorce of parents. In addition, bad parental relationships may worsen due to the following:

 

·       The birth of a new baby demanding more parental attention.

·       Financial problems, such as unemployment.

·       Development of anxiety and depression in both parents and children.

·       Experiences of abuse and bullying at home, at school or elsewhere.

·       Drug and alcohol use.

 

     Children, while growing up into preteens and teenagers, often become more independent and more responsible, with their own perspectives and preferences in every aspect of their lives. Their mental and emotional changes are the foundations of their disagreements with their parents, including their time management, their doings, and non-doings, as well as their obedience and disobedience to their parents’ demands.

 

Irrational anger

 

     On November 21, 2022, a 10-year-old boy shot and killed his mother by mistake. He allegedly claimed he took the gun from his mother’s bedroom down to the basement, where his mother was doing her laundry. The boy initially claimed that he was twirling the gun around his fingers when it went off and “accidentally” killed his mother.

     But, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the boy later confessed that he carried out the heinous act out of his anger after his mother refused to buy him a VR headset. Members of his family further revealed the 10-year-old boy’s many previous episodes of erratic anger and rage issues, such as setting fire at home and causing explosion when his demands were rejected by his mother.

     Even while being interrogated by the FBI, the boy surprisingly asked if the VR headset that he ordered from Amazon the day after killing his mother had arrived or not.

 

The Bottom Line

 

     So, as a parent, you need to improve your relationships with your children by doing the following:

 

·       Spending more quality time with more one-on-one interactions with your children as they grow up.

·       Finding the right time to address any issue, instead of responding to it right away.

·       Listening to complaints without any interruption.

·       Acknowledging their needs and wants, and explaining to them the differences between needs and wants.

·       Connecting or reconnecting them with warmth, such as hugging.

·       Being willing and open to any compromise.

·       Teaching them about love, compassion, forgiveness, and empathy.

·       Helping them set their own life goals, and not what you want them to do.

Angry No More: A new book on how to control and eradicate your anger.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

 

What Is Good Writing?

Good writing means trying to avoid the overuse of clichés (overused catch phrases and figures of speech)

e.g. busy NOT busy as a bee

e.g. confront the truth NOT face the music

e.g. everyone NOT each and every one

e.g. finally NOT last but not the least

e.g. firstly NOT first and foremost

e.g. gentle NOT gentle as a lamb

e.g. infrequent or seldom NOT few and far between

e.g. obviously NOT it goes without saying

e.g. seldom NOT once in a blue moon

Avoid weakling modifiers. Most of the following weakling modifiers can be removed without changing the meaning of a sentence:

e.g. actually

e.g. both

e.g. certainly

e.g. comparatively

e.g. definitely

e.g. herself, himself, itself, themselves

e.g. needless to say

e.g. particularly

e.g. per se

e.g. really

e.g. relatively

e.g. very

To use these weakling modifiers occasionally is permissible, but to use them frequently makes your writing ineffective.

Figures of speech add life and vividness to writing. Figures of speech compare one thing abstract with another thing, which is usually literal or concrete.

Metaphors

Metaphors are implied comparisons.

e.g. After listening to the speech of the senator, I was a volcano within although I was still calm without.

e.g. He is a hog at mealtime.

 Similes

Similes are direct comparisons to bring out the imagination of the readers.

e.g. After listening to the speech of the senator, I was like a volcano about to erupt although I was still calm on the outside.

e.g. He eats like a hog.

Similes always use words as or like.

EFFECTIVE WRITING MADE SIMPLE

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

American Idioms for ESL Learners

Get the blues: become sad.

e.g. Many people get the winter blues in this kind of dreary weather.

Back to back: following immediately.

e.g. We were busy with appointments back to back.

Come to think of it: I just remembered.

e.g. Come to think of it, you owe me some money.

Have one's head in the clouds: not knowing what is happening.

e.g. She drifted along with her head in the clouds.

Bark up the wrong tree: ask or choose the wrong person.

e.g. If you think I'm the guilty person, you're barking up the wrong tree.

Get a load off one's mind: say what one is thinking.

e.g. I have a lot to tell you; I just want to get a load off my mind.

Bury one's head in the sand: ignore the obvious danger.

e.g. You need to deal with the situation; you just cannot bury your head in the sand.

Johnny-come-lately: a late comer.

e.g. We have been doing this for years. Why should we let a Johnny-come-lately tell us what to do?

Kiss and make up: forgive and be friends again.

e.g. We had a big quarrel, but in the end we kissed and made up.

By the same token: in the same way.

e.g. I gave you financial assistance before; by the same token, I expect you to help me this time.

AMERICAN IDIOMS

Stephen Lau 

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Understanding What Freedom Is

  Your freedom is about your right, your choice, and your obedience.

     But your right does not necessarily become your choice, and your choice may also involve your obedience to act accordingly. Remember, you are living your life, and nobody can live it for you. So, what is someone’s right does not have to be your choice, and your choice may be subjective to your obedience to others. Freedom is complicated and paradoxical, but it does play a pivotal role in every aspect of your daily life and living.

     The bottom line: To have a better understanding of what is “true freedom”, you need wisdom to open your mind.

 WISDOM

      Opening your thinking mind is your wisdom, which is not the same as your knowledge. Knowledge refers to the information you have acquired, while opening your mind means using the information collected to apply to your everyday life and living. So, an individual can be knowledgeable but without being wise.

     Then, what is wisdom? And where does it come from?

     Wisdom is all about opening your thinking mind to find out how it perceives and processes not only all your life experiences but also all the information you have been exposed to through your individual five senses. Your perceptions and processes create the so-called “realities” in your own mind, and they subsequently affect how your mind thinks, giving you your beliefs, your attitudes, and even your self-delusions.

     The reality is that you have both a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. All your past information is stored in your subconscious mind, which controls and dominates your conscious mind.  In other words, your wisdom is your mental capability to separate the truths from the half-truths, as well as to discern and discover the self-delusions and the self-illusions stored in your subconscious mind. Without that mental capability, you will not fully understand your “freedom”, as well as your choice and obedience to do this and not to do that.

 

“The reason why man may become the master of his own destiny is because he has the power to influence his own subconscious mind.” Napoleon Hill

 

     So, your wisdom is all about controlling your subconscious mind.

An Empty Mind 

     Your wisdom begins with having an empty mind, which is clarity of thinking. Your mind cannot think clearly with its many pre-conceived ideas and thoughts.  Only an empty mindset can free you from the many shackles of life that might have enslaved you for years, keeping you in bondage even without your knowing it.

Questioning

      Thinking is also a process of self-intuition through asking relevant questions to create self-awareness and self-introspection. It is the natural habit of your thinking mind to solve problems by asking specific questions. Solving problems with specific questions is self-empowering your thinking mind to attain wisdom because it creates your intent to learn, to discover, and then to change for the better.

     Knowing the importance of asking questions and the continuation of asking more relevant questions is the way to attaining true human wisdom.

     For example, to develop your empty mindset, do your reverse thinking—which is thinking backward by asking questions to find out how and why you might have your current thoughts of thinking with your attitudes and prejudices, as well as with your beliefs and emotions. Your reverse thinking may then show you that your so-called “new realities” are, in fact, distorted and even unreal.

FREEDOM with BONDAGE shows you how you can have "freedom" and not "bondage" in your everyday choices and decisions. 

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Comma

The Comma

The comma is used for clarity in separating different parts (words, phrases, or clauses) of a sentence.

e.g. The bag contained old shoes, worn clothes, and a pair of trousers.

The comma before and is optional, but is preferable where clarity may be an issue. The comma is not omitted before and in a series of independent clauses.

e.g. The man took the key, his children carried the box, and their dog followed them.

The comma separates independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (but).

e.g. This is an excellent book, but many have not read it.

The comma separates a dependent clause from an independent one.

e.g. Although this is an excellent book, many have not read it.

The comma separates coordinate adjectives (describing the same noun) without the conjunction and.

e.g. a tall, dark, handsome man (coordinating adjectives)

However, the comma is omitted in cluster adjectives (describing the subsequent words)

e.g. a dark brown leather jacket (dark describes brown; brown describes leather; and leather describes jacket)

The comma is used for clarity of meaning.

e.g. At sixty-five, you may consider retirement.

e.g. Not getting any sleep, she felt exhausted.

e.g. To write effectively, you must learn some basic writing skills.

The comma separates a non-essential clause or sentence element from the rest of the sentence.

e.g. Look at this book, which was found on the kitchen floor!

There is only one book here, and it was found on the kitchen floor; which was found on the kitchen floor becomes only additional but not essential information (indicated by the presence of the commas).

Look at another example:

e.g. Look at this book that was found on the kitchen floor!

There are many other books, and this one was found on the kitchen floor; that was found on the kitchen floor is essential information because it identifies which book to look at (indicated by the absence of the commas).

The comma separates modifiers and conjunctive adverbs.

e.g. on the other hand,

e.g. for example,

e.g. in fact,

e.g. in the first place,

e.g. therefore,

e.g. moreover,

e.g. nevertheless,

e.g. thus,

The comma is NOT used before subordinating conjunctions (after, although, because, before, if, since, unless, until, when, where).

e.g. You cannot leave now because the airport is closed. (NO comma)

e.g. Because the airport is closed, you cannot leave now. (comma here)

e.g. Do not call 911 unless it is an emergency. (NO comma)

e.g. Unless it is an emergency, do not call 911. (comma here)

e.g. We left the bar when we finished our drinks. (NO comma)

e.g. When we finished our drinks, we left the bar. (comma here)

EFFECTIVE WRITING MADE SIMPLE

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau