📗 “We will go—you and I alone, Caroline—to that wood …” “We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar.” – Charlotte Bronte, Shirley (1849) … 🔎 In what ways is the future tense in these two sentences different? This is a question that baffles many students – understandably, since the differences are very subtle! This […]
📗 “I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing!” “That’s the effect of living backwards,” the Queen said kindly: “it always makes one a little giddy at first—” “Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!” – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871) … Have you ever read
Lesson #223: Avoiding confusion in your writing: 3 Punctuation Tips Read More »
📙 ‘There was all the more time for me to hear old-world stories from Miss Pole, while she sat knitting, and I making my father’s shirts.’ – Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford (1853) … ✏️ (If you missed the first part of this Lesson on prepositions of time, you can find it here). ✏️ … 📝 #5
📙 ‘Miss Matty and I quietly decided that we would have a previous engagement at home: it was the evening on which Miss Matty usually made candle-lighters of all the notes and letters of the week; for on Mondays her accounts were always made straight— not a penny owing from the week before; so, by
💮 Spring is such a beautiful season! A few evenings ago, as I was walking in the garden, I saw the sunlight touching these blueberry flowers and had to stop to appreciate the beauty of the moment. I took a photograph of them of course, but nothing compares with the experience of seeing flowers like
Lesson #221: How and When To Use Paragraph Breaks in Writing Read More »
📘 I really do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella’s sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to
📘 No; I should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate little
📗 Arthur had passed the village of Hayslope and was approaching the Broxton side of the hill, when, at a turning in the road, he saw a figure about a hundred yards before him which it was impossible to mistake for any one else than Adam Bede, even if there had been no grey, tailless
Lesson #216: Seven Nouns with Identical Singular and Plural Forms in ‘Adam Bede’ Read More »
📘 ‘Lady Carbury, having finished her third letter, threw herself back in her chair, and for a moment or two closed her eyes, as though about to rest. But she soon remembered that the activity of her life did not admit of such rest. She therefore seized her pen and began scribbling further notes.’ –
Lesson #213: On Anthony Trollope (and 3 Easily Mistaken Verb Forms) Read More »
This is Part 2 of our complete Lesson in which we look at past perfect verb form + adverbs past participles + infinitives present participles + infinitives simple past tense + 2 infinitives 2 simple past tense constructions in a row 2 different verb forms (simple past + present participle) in a row … 📝
Mini-Lesson Monday, Lesson #212 (Part 2): Multiple Verbs and Correct Word Order Read More »
📙 Many American ladies on leaving their native land adopt an appearance of chronic ill-health, under the impression that it is a form of European refinement, but Mrs. Otis had never fallen into this error. She had a magnificent constitution, and a really wonderful amount of animal spirits. Indeed, in many respects, she was quite
Mini-Lesson Monday, Lesson #212 (Part 1): Multiple Verbs and Correct Word Order Read More »
In last Monday’s Lesson we looked at adjective groups based on their endings; we saw how they were different from verb forms that look similar. In today’s Lesson we are going to also look at verbs ending with -en, many of which are created from adjectives. ✏️ 👉 For this reason, some of them will
Lesson #208: “Don’t go frightening the princess”: Ten English Verbs ending with -en Read More »