How far will your English get you?

        A trip across continents lets you experience firsthand how the world keeps moving closer             together language wise --or how far your English will get with you!

The attempt at creating a universal language, Esperanto, that can easily be learned by all the people of the world failed decades ago. English established itself as the communication medium of the world.  

Whenever I visit my home country I see more and more English expressions creeping into my native language. (French has the Academie Francaise who actively works to prevent Anglicanism/Americanisms gaining too much leverage in French).

In German, food related English expressions (burgers, fast food) and IT related terms (computer) were the first to make their way into the language many years ago. (The poor French still have to deal with an ordinateur; no computer for them)!

One of the first technical terms adopted into German was the word Handy; its origin is uncertain. Obviously you always have it with you, in your hand and it’s handy. What is it? It’s a cell or mobile phone. Why was that descriptive term not transferred into the English language?

American culture has long influenced the world. The music scene gave us Germans loan words that are firmly established in our native tongue now: e.g.: pop stars, love parade, pop festival.  World globalization did the rest to anglicize my native language.

 

When traveling in Germany you'll find that most people speak English to some degree. Since my childhood days learning English has been compulsory for school children as of 10 years of age. Recently that law was changed so that you now have the choice of starting at six. Therefore most people have the basics or a solid grounding even if they lack practice.

Although there are German equivalents, Germans speak of something being cool, a loser, junkies, car rental, and even more complex word combinations like Offshore wind parks or MMA :Mixed martial arts fighting challenge.

What if it was the other way round? You're safe! Only few German words made it into English:

Wunderkind, Kindergarten, Sitzbad(th), Realpolitik, Gestalt, maybe Hausfrau? I came across Kaffeeklatsch when I lived in Dublin. Then there are some tainted ones like Lebensraum or Blitz that hang around. And then there is  Zeitgeist.

Several years back, under a previous administration I felt the time was right to introduce another word into the English domain: Volksverdummung. It means “deliberate deception of the public.” (See my Ezinearticle).

Alas, it never took off.

You native English speakers were lucky: Long before I ever came to the US, I heard the story of how, a long, long time ago, the US voted on an official language. In events packed with drama, opinions were split between English and German. It all came down to the final vote: English won- by a single vote, because one German-favoring guy was sitting on the toilet.

 
Gripping as this story may be, it is not exactly true. The Legendary English-Only Vote of 1795 in which German almost became the official language of the US is an Urban Legend.

I consider myself lucky that the Chinese language hasn’t taken over world domination in spite of China having many more speakers than all English speakers on the planet combined and that I can still happily struggle trying to master my English!

Siggy Buckley 
www.Intrepidhomeswappers.blogspot.com

Happy Labor Day! Still traveling in Germany & technically challenged in the hills of the  Black Forest. I'll try to run the site from here during the remainder of my stay though the Internet connection via data stick here in the sticks in southern Germany is a hilly challenge.
I want to take this opportunity to give a big public thank you to my Internet friend and  fellow writer Scott Bury. Not only did he jump to my rescue but outdid me by far with his exceptional skills editing, tweeting and revamping the site. That plus his own contacts thrown in made WGT go from strength to strength.For me it has been an inspiring experience.
So feel free, all you readers and writers to keep up the momentum. We need you! Happy writing and good luck on your new endeavors, Scott! Don't be a stranger!

A climb up Mt. Mansfield, Vermont — Part 2

By Scott Bury

July, 2012

This post continues the previous one, where the author and his son, Super Nicolas, climbed Vermont's highest peak, Mount Mansfield, on foot from the very bottom to the very top.

In Part 2, we try to climb down. As anyone who's climbed knows, coming down is often harder than climbing up.

The wind up here is frigid, but after the hard work of the climb up, it's refreshing and we don't bother putting on our long pants or sweat-shirts.

At the top of the Cliff Trail, we have to make a decision: do we attempt this strenuous climb down this DDD trail, back over the section with the loops driven into the smooth rocks and back through the Cave of Winds with its bottomless holes to jump over, to get to the gondola which closes in 19 minutes? If we miss the last gondola, our options down are:

• back the way we came originally, retracing the rest of the extremely difficult Cliff Trail, up the ladders, along the ledges and through the tunnels
• climb up through the Cave of Winds yet again, over the holes, hike up again over the smooth rocks and up the narrow steps back to the Long Trail, and then make a long slog down the Toll Road.

Climbing DOWN through the
Cave of the Winds was not an
inviting prospect.

We elect not to take a chance on getting to the gondola in 19 minutes. It's going to be long enough without having to double the Cliff Trail needlessly. The Long Trail to parking lot A at the Visitor's Center is easy, and only takes a few minutes.

We must look tired when we get there — or at least, I must — because a family in a mini-van offers us a ride down. We accept.

The driver, Mike, explains that a friend has let him borrow his 1990 Honda Odyssey for the summer. The side doors don't work anymore, so the whole family — his brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece — climb in the front doors and over the seats to sit in the back. Nicolas and I follow, and sit on the floor, squeezed between coolers and backpacks. We can't see very well.

The toll road is very long, with a lot of switchbacks, and it seems even longer when you cannot see. And the road is quite steep.

After a while, Mike's brother, sitting behind me, advises him to use the brakes rather than low gear to go downhill "because it's cheaper to replace brake pads than a transmission."  Soon, the stink of overheated transmission oil is replaced by the much worse smell of burning brake pads.

The smell gets worse as we try to distract ourselves by exchanging information about where we’re from, our vacations and other small talk. But about half-way down the mountain, Sandra, in the back of three rows of seats, tells Mike to pull over. “The fumes are really building up back here,” she says. “And we can’t open the back window.” I look back: one of the teenagers, sitting in the cargo area, looks like she’s about to faint.

Mike pulls over where the road is a little wider. We clamber out and suck in as much clean air as we can. I hold my hand 15 centimetres from the rear fender to feel the heat radiating from the overworked brakes.

The youngest teenager wobbles around for a minute, woozy from the fumes of burning brake pads, then twists her ankle. Fortunately, Sandra, her aunt, is a registered nurse. Eventually, with the fumes dissipated and the ankle wrapped, we climb back into the minivan for the remainder of the trip.

Fortunately, we’re not far from the bottom at this point, and the brakes and transmission have a much easier time. Mike drives us to the parking lot at the bottom of the chairlift where we left our car. We say thank you and wish our short-term companions well.

As we watch the minivan drive back down Mountain Road toward Stowe, I am surprised not to see smoke coming out of it.

“So, what was more adventurous?” I ask Super Nicolas. “The climb up, or the drive down in the burning minivan?”

Nic laughs. “The trip down was more dangerous.”

From the peak, some people say you can see the lights of Montreal
on a clear night.

Scott Bury (right) is an author, editor and journalist based in Ottawa, Canada. His books include The Bones of the Earth and One Shade of Red. Visit his website, Written Words, and follow him on Twitter @ScottTheWriter.
Super Nicolas is a geologist and outdoorsman. Happy birthday, Super Nicolas!

1,000 metres up: A hike on Mt. Mansfield

By Scott Bury 

Vermont's Long Trail stretches from the Canadian border, over the top ridge of Mt. Mansfield, over several other Green Mountains, all the way to the Massachusetts border and connects with the Appalachian Trail system.

Our summer vacation in 2012 was to Stowe, Vermont, home of the nauseatingly famous Von Trapps, and nestled on the southern slopes of Mount Mansfield. From Stowe, the crest of this mountain looks like the elongated profile of a face, with a distinctive forehead, nose, chin (the summit) and Adam's apple, plus two other rises that could be lips.

 

I park at the bottom of the gondolas, and then Super Nicolas and I take the Haselton Trail, which is rated D for difficult. It's very pleasant, although quite steep as it parallels the ski runs. Most of the lower part is under trees, along hogs-back ridges or winding across the slope. At several places, it crosses little mountain streams, allowing pleasant places to rest. On that hot summer day, most of the morning is cool under the trees.

The top half of the trail becomes ski runs in the winter, so they're wide-open and exposed to the sun. However, because they’re around 3,000 feet above sea level, the conditions are breezy.

An inviting spot to cool your dogs.

The Haselton Trail ends at the top of the Toll Road. We still have to hike up to the Visitor's Center, which is at the base of the Nose. The Nose also has a number of antennae sticking up out of it.

Apparently, there used to be a luxury hotel here, and one of the guests’ favourite activities was to sit on the patio, sip coffee and watch crazy people scale the cliffs. But the hotel was torn down in the 50s. The Visitor's Center today has only a few brochures and posters of wildlife. There's no running water, and the only bathrooms are two por-to-lets.

From there, Super Nicolas and I take the Cliff Trail toward the summit. According to Wikipedia, the Cliff Trail is rated DDD. It must stand for "so Difficult, Don't even try this, Dummy."

The views as you ascend, especially from the ski runs, are spectacular. Here, we look east across the Green Mountains.

The Cliff Trail presents challenges for the inexperienced climber. There are places where you have to turn around and climb up or down using your hands as well as feet.

To get through some of the
tunnels, you have to take
off your backpacks.

There are caves or tunnels that require you to take off your backpack and crawl on your hands and knees to get through. And there are three or four study ladders placed by the Green Mountains hiking club.

Watch out for all the moose poop. Sometimes it seems like the Cliff Trail should be called the Mooses' Latrine.

The Cave of the Winds is near the northern end of the trail. It's actually not a cave, but more of a place where a sheet of rock has split off from the main cliff face. There are bottomless holes that you have to jump over. When I went through, behind me was a family that got onto the last part of the Cliff Trail after riding up the ski gondola. I turned and pulled a 12-year-old boy over the last hole.

Entrance to the Cave of the Winds.

The last part of the Cliff Trail is a steep climb up rocks; the state or the hiking club or whoever maintains the trail has actually put iron loops into the rocks to help you climb over them. 

When we finally get back to the Long Trail that winds more or less directly to the summit, I am panting and sweating. Thankfully, the Long Trail from here is easy: a slow, more or less steady climb up to the Chin.

Up this high, the trees are stunted. Signs advise you that the vegetation is delicate alpine/arctic tundra type, and urge visitors to "Take the Rock Walk" and stay off the plant life. The state has laid out string, looped around rocks, to guide your footsteps.

We walk up, and up, and up, toward what we both think is the peak. But when we get there, we realize it was an illusion: after a brief, shallow dip, the path rises again to the REAL summit.

Which one is the REAL summit? The farthest
one, of course.

I sit beside a woman in a pink hoodie. "Discouraging, isn't it? I thought this was the top, too. Then I saw that." she says, pointing to the trail that leads to the peak, a couple of hundred metres long.

I look at my watch. It is now 3:40, We had planned to ride the gondola down, but it closes at 4:30 "We've already come this far," says Nicolas.

"Already," I think. We started climbing the mountain before 11:00 a.m.

We make that last 200 metres or so fairly quickly and easily. Finally, we're looking at a brass disk set into the rock, marking the highest point in Vermont. The view is stunning. Lake Champlain to the west, the Camel's Hump to the south, green folds of Vermont to the east. Someone else at the top says that on a clear night, you can see the lights of Montreal in the north.

But we don't have much time to admire the view if we want to take the gondola. After taking it in, we hitch up our packs and begin the long walk down. 

Super Nicolas and I at the top of Vermont.

Scott Bury (right) is an author, editor and journalist based in Ottawa, Canada. His books include The Bones of the Earth and One Shade of Red. Visit his website, Written Words, and follow him on Twitter @ScottTheWriter.
Super Nicolas is a geologist and outdoorsman.

Keep your sentences ACTIVE!

A guide to sentences, part 2

STOP WHAT YOU’RE WRITING. Go back to the beginning, read it carefully and change every passive sentence into an active one. This is the easiest and quickest way to make your writing more engaging.

Why? Passive sentences are longer and less interesting than active sentences. Let’s take a first-grade example: 

Passive: The lazy dog was jumped over by the quick brown fox.

Active: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The active sentence is shorter, takes less room, consumes less energy and paper but contains no less information.

Quick definition

For those who, like me, don’t want to count the number of years since junior-high grammar lessons, an active sentence is one where the subject of the sentence performs the verb. In the example above, the fox performs or does the action—it jumps. The dog in the example is the object of the verb.

In the passive version, the subject of the sentence is the dog, but it is still the recipient or the object of the action.

Make “active” your default setting. While there are examples where a passive sentence is more appropriate, such as when the “do-er” of the verb is unknown or irrelevant. Here’s one from a novel I read recently:

“The sergeant moved to the living room window, where the screen has already been removed.”

Passive voice also makes sense in most lab reports, where the focus should be on the objects of observation. We write “the contents of the beaker were decanted into test tubes,” instead of “I poured the contents of the beaker into test tubes.”

But most of the time, passive voice is not only unnecessary, it’s dull. It deadens interesting topics. Take these examples, which twist together active and passive clauses into horrifying tangles:

Some companies use high-pressure sales tactics to offer what is perceived to be a buoy to those who may feel they are drowning in debt.

2014 will be characterized by a cacophony of trends that will converge, explode and create outstanding opportunities for organizations and individuals ready to thrive in velocity.

Action is better because audiences respond to it. Action keeps us interested. Passive sentences are like passive anything: not very interesting. Don’t believe me? Which zoo animal gets more attention: the monkey swinging on the bars, or the lizard soaking up the sun?

What kinds of movies have the biggest audiences? Which had a bigger box office last year: On the Road or The Avengers? What was the difference: the intricacy of the screenplay? The sensitivity of the acting? The artistry of the directing?

Action works. Action puts bums in seats. Action sells.

Activate these

Here are some examples from the real world. I have changed some details just to protect myself from ire:

Rising household debt is of growing concern for many.

Who’s concerned? Economists? Mothers? Debtors? Loan sharks?

The idea of segments of the supply chain being developed elsewhere was also brought up.

Who brought it up?

Tenants are urged to be wary about companies that claim they can negotiate a better deal with landlords so that only a part of their rent will need to be paid.

Who’s urging?

Solution

Experts urge tenants to beware of companies that claim they can negotiate a better deal with landlords ...

 Suggested times for starting each content section are shown in Slide 1: Agenda.

Solution:

Slide 1: Agenda suggests starting times for each content section.

By effectively controlling the supply chain, costs can be notably curtailed.

Solution:

Controlling the supply chain effectively can curtail costs.

This one is easy to fix just by removing unnecessary words:

The Windows-based Superdyn software can be used for setting parameters, and control and monitoring of DDw-789 motors. 

The Windows-based Superdyn software can set parameters, and control and monitor DDw-789 motors.

From fiction:

If she didn’t get out, she was going to be mauled to death by the dog.

If she didn’t get out, the dog would maul her to death.

Their whereabouts are only known by the religious caste of the Flarconeans.

Only the Flarconeans’ religious caste knows their whereabouts.

Watch for it

Watch your writing for passive sentences. One giveaway: count your use of the word “by,” as in “the dog was jumped over by the fox.” When you proofread your work, watch for long phrases and dependent clauses. In general, try to make sure that the subject of every sentence is what’s performing the verb.

Scott Bury 

Scott Bury is an editor, author and journalist living in Ottawa, Canada. For more writing tips, as well as interview with independent writers and reviews of their books, visit his blog, Written Words. You can also connect with him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @ScottTheWriter.

Avoid writing badly: make the sentence your unit of expression

Sentences, Part 1

What’s the difference between good writing and bad? To me, one sure sign of bad writing is bad grammar.

Grammar isn’t that hard. The first step is to understand that the sentence is your basic unit of expression.

Consider this example:

An analysis of survey results conducted by GHI concluded that different groups of consumers face different kinds of challenges, this includes unemployed and underemployed as well as low-income groups.

This example from fiction demonstrates the opposite problem:

The chattering of Will’s teeth, as loud as the cold north wind that blew down through mountains.

The problem in the first case is a comma splice: joining two separate sentences with a comma, rather than separating them with a period (or maybe a semi-colon).

The problem in the second example is an incomplete sentence. The verb is missing.

This is how a grammatically complete sentence would read:

The chattering of Will’s teeth was as loud as the cold north wind that blew down through mountains.

That’s not a particularly creative solution, but it’s correct.

Another example, with some light surgery to hide the actual source:

But back to the economy, all three projects expanded simultaneously and required capitalization, no wonder the organization’s bottom line was depleted.

The unit of expression

A word may be a unit of meaning, but a single word by itself does not usually express an idea.

Back when I was in grade school, after cleaning the sabre-tooth tigers’ litter boxes, we all learned that a sentence expressed a complete thought. To do that, it needs two elements: a verb or predicate — action — and a subject, which is usually a noun or a pronoun.

The quick red fox jumps.

The action word, the verb, is “jumps.” “Fox,” of course, is the subject. The rest of the words describe the subject.

Sometimes, you don’t need the subject to be written out: “Duck!” The subject is “you, implied” — a concept that caused all sorts of confusion when I was in school (but was not as distressful as the hungry velociraptors in the back of the cave).

Noun and verb. Other words describe the subject or complete the action.

A wave of lust slammed into her body.

“Lust slammed” would be a grammatically complete sentence.

The subject can also be a phrase or a clause: a group of words that function together as a noun.

Resisting the temptation to crush her body against his and tear off her clothes took all his willpower.

The subject in that example did not end until after “clothes.” (“After clothes” is one of my favourite places.)

That’s all there is to it. To write clearly, write about something doing something.

Joining complete thoughts

To join two complete thoughts — sentences — you have to have the right kind of link. Usually, it’s not a period, but a word or a group of words. Instead of boring you with grammatical logic, I advise you read good writing until you develop a sense of what “sounds” right.

Here are some examples of what not to do, and corrections, again taken from real sources.

Run-on sentence

The run-on sentence happens when one complete idea follows another without any punctuation or joining phrases.

She got up and went into the bathroom and got a wet washrag and came back and laid it across her mother’s forehead.

The succession of clauses joined by “and,” while grammatically correct, is tedious. There’s also too much detail. You don’t need to describe every single action: your reader can figure it out.

She wet a rag in the bathroom and laid it across her mother’s forehead.

Comma splice

She took his hand again, “how are we going to keep them safe?” She whispered.

Again, there are more than one problem here:

She took his hand again. “How are we going to keep them safe?” she whispered.

“If we move quickly we could be off in front of the soldiers, we’ve got fast horses and money.”

“If we move quickly we could get ahead of the soldiers — we’ve got fast horses and money.”

Does grammar matter?

As long as the underlying meaning comes across, does it matter that you follow every little rule?

Yes. First, correct grammar is a sign of professionalism. Whether you’re writing fiction, advertising or technical reports, if you don’t come across as professional, no one will take your document seriously. If the audience doesn’t believe you, why bother writing?

Second, grammar ensures clarity:

For hospitals seeking increased profitability in the operating room (OR) it is essential to streamline the movement of materials from suppliers to the hands of doctors efficiently acquiring and moving supplies critical to OR procedures are measurable ways to reduce costs, increase revenue capture, optimize labour and improve process management.

What’s efficient: doctors’ hands, or moving supplies?

When the subject is medical care, I think clarity is pretty darn important.

Scott Bury Scott Bury is an author, editor and journalist based in Ottawa, Canada. His blog, Written Words, publishes writing tips and guidance, reviews of independent books and interviews with their authors, samples of his fiction and opinions on the state of the communications industry. 

Follow him on Twitter @ScottTheWriter.