How, by Gum
The Radical Artists Group, using the proceeds from the slightly disastrous gig a few weeks ago, are putting on an exhibition. In a cathedral.
So I get a call on Monday asking if I could spend a few hours on Tuesday helping to plan out the practicalities of the exhibition. Seeing as the bloke who was going to do it, can't. Okay, fine.
How do you hang paintings in a cathedral? Banging nails into stonework may not be such a good idea, and blutack is expressly forbidden because it stains the stone in a way that's remarkably difficult to remove. Sticky pads are likewise a bad idea, so we're reduced to hanging hooks from lintels and windows. Okay, fine.
Thing is, the paintings won't hang vertical - they all tip forward on the hooks. And that's when I get my two brilliant ideas.
(1) What they need is two inch blocks of wood attached to the back of the frames to make them hang level with the wall.
We've got loads of blocks of wood, but nothing to stick them to the frames. Not even blutack - 'cos we thought we wouldn't need it.
(2) Chewing gum!
So Kapitano goes over the road to buy the gum, and spends the next half hour frantically chewing and carefully sticking. It worked, by the way - the paintings did indeed hang straight.
So now I get a call on Wednesday asking if I can spare some time for more of the same on Thursday. Say...six hours? Okay, fine.
I can confirm that Wrigley's Spearmint is stickier than Juicy Fruit. Though it does leave the art smelling a bit minty.
Brain-stretching time. Take a look at these four sentences:
I went to the bank today.
I went to the bank yesterday.
I have been to the bank today.
*I have been to the bank yesterday.
What's wrong with the last sentence? Why is it wrong when the others are right?
After an hour of head scratching, I did the decent thing and asked Wikipedia. The gist of the answer is that Present Perfect tense entails the possibility that the event continued until the moment of utterance, but the adverb "yesterday" contradicts that entailment, requiring a shift to the Past Simple tense, which doesn't have that entailment.
And if you understood that on first reading, you're smarter than me.
Actually, I didn't go to the bank. I was going to, to ask informally whether it was worthwhile to ask later for a small personal loan to finance my return to university. I didn't hold out much hope, but as someone ought to have said, "Nothing ventured, nothing sprained".
But instead the university called to tell me they have reluctantly had to decline me a place on the TEFL course...because I don't have enough teaching experience to merit them teaching me how to teach.
Yes, that's what I thought.
Well, it wasn't absolutely unexpected, so now I shift to Plan B - a four week full time intensive course in London. To get on it, I have to (1) demonstrate on paper that I know some basics of linguistics, (2) demonstrate the same thing in interview and (3) somehow beat the rush of others doing the same thing.
Oh, and find some ultra-cheap accommodation for a month in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
The question about tenses is part of (1), and there's five more deceptively simple (by which we mean "deceptively complex") questions. Here's another to mull over.
*I'd like some informations.
Why is this sentence wrong?
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Had you learned English as a foreign laguage, dear Kapitano, you would most certainly not have lost an hour figuring out why that fourth sentence is wrong: Present Perfect doesn't allow «yesterday»; that's why also that tense is called «present».
ReplyDeleteAs to your challenge, all I can tell you is «I'd like some information» is the right sentence. Thus singular. I think (but I'm not sure anymore, I've learned that many years ago...) it's because «information» is an uncountable noun, as many other in English that I had to learn almost by heart, since that's not the case in other languages, namely in Portuguese.
Linguistics (and grammar!) is a fascinating world, isn't it?... I love comparing languages ever since I was a child, when I first started learning French...
I wish you the very best for your intensive course in London!
:-)
Thanks Ric. Who knows, I might get a contract to teach in Lisbon one day!
ReplyDeleteThe annoying/fascinating thing about uncountable nouns is: Some of them can be plural, and you can't predict what their plural meanings will be.
Cheese is uncountable. But "A cheese" is either a block of cheese, or a type of cheese. And "cheeses" is either several blocks of cheese, or several types.
Papers - documents
Monies - coins and notes
Sperms - individual spermatozoa contained in ejaculate
And then there's all those words which have an uncountable meaning and a countable one.
"A television" is a box in your living room. "Television" is the content which the box displays. "Televisions" is only the plural of "a television", and never of the content.
Personally, I think of the countable/uncountable distinction as being a bit like the masculine/feminine distinction in other languages' nouns. It entails grammatical distinctions, sometimes semantic ones, and you've just got to learn it for each word.
Quite true, Kapitano! As I said, if you're learning that distinction in a foreign language, you'll have to learn it «by heart». Otherwise it's impossible.
ReplyDeleteIn Portuguese, we make a distinction between «common» and «abstract» nouns. It's an old distinction, not very logical, condemned by linguists and grammarians... but it still prevails. Your example of «television» reminded me of it: «televisão» becomes «televisões» if you're mentioning sets (but there is also «televisor/televisores»...), but nowadays you say also «televisões» when you mean «television channels»...
As you say, semantics plays in this whole matter a paramount role. Hence it's so complex...
Oh, I wish you DO get that contract to teach in Lisbon! I'll be one of your students! From first minute on! Oh yeah! Where on earth would I get a more learned English teacher?!
Lovely chat! :-)
Banks are for c**ts.
ReplyDelete[shouts to the internet gods] Why didn't my earlier comment show up? Arrggh!
ReplyDelete[directs attention to Kapitano] If you know Spanish, you could see about coming to the States. I'd imagine if our Congress actually did something about the illegal immigration problem one way or another, there may be a surge in demand.
I'm never sure whether the "illegal immigrant problem" is "too many immigrants" or "no way to track them". The commentary seems to slip between the two.
ReplyDeleteI know smatterings of Spanish, but not enough to hold a conversation. If I had one world language to learn, I think it would be Spanish, because (a) it's grammar is a lot simpler than the German I struggled with and (b) there are Spanish speakers everywhere.
Maybe if I went to Mexico...a decade later there'd be hundreds of cooks, cleaners and cabdrivers in the states with Kapitano English accents? :-)
^The commentary is both and more. I'll have to do a post on that. I've been meaning to do one since the last Republican debate but I've been lazy and my internet service has been spotty too. Keep an eye out for it.
ReplyDelete