http://www.linglish.net Where English meets Linguistics Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:19:37 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 http://www.linglish.net/images/logo.png http://www.linglish.net 144 166 Where English meets Linguistics http://www.linglish.net/2010/06/19/command-and-conquer/ http://www.linglish.net/2010/06/19/command-and-conquer/#comments Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:32:29 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=808 “Obama Trusts Himself When All Men Doubt Him.” Or so a news headline runs. There may be doubts about Obama’s ability, but there is absolutely no doubt that both himself and him here refer to the same person, namely Obama. It is therefore bizarrely remarkable that we have to use two different words to denote the same [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2010/06/19/command-and-conquer/feed/ 0 http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/08/nothing-left-is-right/ http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/08/nothing-left-is-right/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:23:50 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=768 I read a joke on Facebook, a witty play on words: My left brain has nothing right, My right brain has nothing left. The wit obviously lies in intentionally confusing two pairs of homophones, namely left as a direction and left as the past participle of leave, and right as a direction and right meaning proper and correct. [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/08/nothing-left-is-right/feed/ 2 http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/05/china-china-china/ http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/05/china-china-china/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:44:54 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=731 For long there has been an article (original article in Chinese) circulating on the Internet which propagates the idea that the English word China is a pejorative term and should instead be replaced with the demonym Zhongguo. The author believes that China is given its name because of its porcelain, or china. He proceeds to argue that we [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/05/china-china-china/feed/ 1 http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/02/god-save-the-queen/ http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/02/god-save-the-queen/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:59:12 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=705 A student of mine told me that he had found a mistake in the lyrics of the national anthem of the United Kingdom. He said the name of this anthem, God Save the Queen, had a missing -s after the verb save. The subject, God, is singular in the third person, therefore the verb should be conjugated to [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2010/03/02/god-save-the-queen/feed/ 2 http://www.linglish.net/2009/05/26/the-many-who-are-sick-of-our-church/ http://www.linglish.net/2009/05/26/the-many-who-are-sick-of-our-church/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 03:39:24 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=648 Don’t misunderstand, this article has nothing against the church. Instead, it is about a line which I stumbled upon on a web site today, which read: 1. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community. The line was claimed to be taken from a Church Bulletin, although my Christian friend found it [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2009/05/26/the-many-who-are-sick-of-our-church/feed/ 8 http://www.linglish.net/2009/05/12/im-loving-it/ http://www.linglish.net/2009/05/12/im-loving-it/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 16:58:04 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=559 When we learn English verbs, we usually spend a lot of time remembering when to use a certain tense A, and then when to use another tense B. However, few of us pay attention to when we should not use a tense A or a tense B. When we see “I’m loving you,” or “I [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2009/05/12/im-loving-it/feed/ 4 http://www.linglish.net/2009/01/03/buy-a-pie-for-the-spy/ http://www.linglish.net/2009/01/03/buy-a-pie-for-the-spy/#comments Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:13:21 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=483 During the holiday I spent much of my time on a local discussion forum, reading and discussing topics regarding the English language. One question that was raised again and again by local students was this: Why does the ‘p’ in spy sound somewhat different from the ‘p’ in pie, and in fact, for Chinese speakers, the [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2009/01/03/buy-a-pie-for-the-spy/feed/ 6 http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/29/initialismism/ http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/29/initialismism/#comments Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:11:40 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=363 It shouldn’t be any different in other metropolises, but in Hong Kong, one of the major activities people have during the Christmas holiday is shopping in big, grand and sometimes grandiose shopping malls. Certainly these malls have been getting more or more thoughtfully designed and decorated, but at the same time, another trend seems to have emerged [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/29/initialismism/feed/ 0 http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/23/whats-in-a-verb/ http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/23/whats-in-a-verb/#comments Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:50:47 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=285 In Tense and Tensibility, we discussed the need and implication of having tense. In essence, tense gives us information on when an event or action takes place. However, the meaning of what we commonly call ‘tense’ in English is actually quite fluid.  A ‘tense’, or a tense form, oftens gives much more information than merely the temporal location of an [...]]]> http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/23/whats-in-a-verb/feed/ 1 http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/05/tense-and-tensibility/ http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/05/tense-and-tensibility/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:58:47 +0000 Thomas Tsoi http://www.linglish.net/?p=245 http://www.linglish.net/2008/12/05/tense-and-tensibility/feed/ 2