Tag: rules

Don’t Let Little Transgressions Become Big Issues

“I would also extend to calling out those transgressions where someone is trying to take advantage of you or doing something illegal or unjust when they know it’s wrong but refuse to do anything about it.”

It can be difficult to step in when it comes to witnessing someone commit a transgression, which goes against societal norms and values. A transgression is an act, often small or basic in nature, that goes against a rule, law, code of conduct and causes offense to others in the society. While you may witness these transgressions as a bystander, you have it within your rights to call it out when you see it within reason. While I am not an advocate for self-policing and calling out random strangers for bad behavior, I do believe that it should be allowed especially in matters of public health and/or safety.

I would also extend to calling out those transgressions where someone is trying to take advantage of you or doing something illegal or unjust when they know it’s wrong but refuse to do anything about it. To give you some basic examples, if you are living in a city or a town and see somebody littering or throwing trash on the ground in front of you, I believe it’s worth calling them out for doing it because your tax dollars are going towards maintaining the cleanliness of your community and for hiring those local employees who help keep the streets clean.

The person causing the offense must be held accountable or at least giving a stern reprimand because while they may think they get away with it, everybody including yourself witnessing it is paying for it in extra tax money or effort to pick that trash up later. When you call out a transgression, be stern, make your point, and move on. It does not do any good to escalate directly with that person since you’re not enforcing the law yourself as your duty but rather express your concern as an ordinary citizen.

Other transgressions that come to mind include not picking up after your pet when they do their daily business, which you should call the person out for if you witness it and to report it after privately if you know where the transgression occurred. Also, another increasingly common one in certain cities is to see a group or a few individuals shoplifting and if you see this serious transgression, let a store person know to apprehend them or even call the police who can catch the individuals if the store or place has cameras.

You must keep your eye out for these kinds of transgressions because if there are no consequences for acts like littering, trespassing, not picking up after your pet, shoplifting, etc. which can result in heavy fines and even mandatory community service, those offenders will feel more emboldened to continue doing so and even commit even more violations of the laws and rules that our society is built on. If some people are abusing these basic morals and values with their transgressions, no matter how small they are, they must be held accountable for them in some form or another.

Think of our society as pillars holding the foundation together that binds us all under the same rules, laws, regulations no matter who we are. When one of those pillars starts to falter, in this case, being when little transgressions go without reprimand or punishment, it can start to crumble the entire foundation and weaken the other pillars as well. When these violators cause infractions and don’t get a stern slap on the wrist or a scolding at least, then they will be emboldened to do it again or even commit worse offenses, which we should be mindful of as a society.

The COVID-19 pandemic made me think about these small transgressions especially when you’re abiding by a mandate on public transportation, for example, and others refuse to abide by the mandate, and for which is not being enforced. When you follow the temporary mandate especially in a bus or on a train and others don’t, it does create a sense of entitlement to for those people who think they are above the rules and that the mandate should not apply to them even when it is a ‘mandate.’ I often ignored those people who would not abide by the mandate but there was one instance where I had to say something when the only people not wearing a face mask on the bus were sitting next to me and it was an entire family. They were oblivious to the fact that everyone else on the bus had a mask on at the time and even the driver had one on. This was before the vaccines were being distributed.

I would rather the bus driver had enforced the mandate himself but if you’re sitting next to me without a mask and I’m abiding by it, I don’t want my health to be put at risk by your lack of acquiescence. It was the only time I spoke out about it to a group of people as it puts you in an awkward spot but when it comes to public health, mask mandates on a bus, train, or a plane at the time should be the same for everybody especially when 90-95% care enough to abide by the temporary measure.

Unfortunately, those who impose the mandates are not able or willing to enforce them, which is doubly annoying for those people who abided by them each time and yet had to see other people flaunt the rules like it was no big deal without being held accountable for it. This kind of transgression is particularly disturbing when you realize that it could have public health consequences and those who set up such a mandate to begin with lacked the follow through or the care to enforce such a mandate making it rather useless and abusable.

Another transgression I’ve noticed is some people jumping the fare gate at the metro system or going in right behind someone who has paid their fare ahead of them and not paying it because they sneak in before the gate closes. That situation happened to me as I paid my fare to enter the metro station and go down to the train like any usual trip and there was a young guy behind me who bumped up right behind me and invaded my personal space. I noticed he came in right behind as I paid the fare and the gate opened for me. I also noted how he didn’t pay the fare since he wanted to use mine without paying his own way. I was mad about this to the point that I sternly reprimanded him and told him that he was abusing the system by not paying his fare like the rest of us.

He made a lame excuse in saying that he was in a rush and had to catch the next train. I kept my cool but informed him sternly that was not an excuse to not pay his fare and that some of us pay taxes and the fares each time to keep the system running well. The offender didn’t get it, of course, and weaseled his way onto the next train and I kept my distance from him. Sadly, he is a violator of the metro system like others who feel like they can jump the gate or not pay by bumping up against someone like me who pays each time.

These hooligans who do it unfortunately don’t get fined or reprimanded by the metro system officials very often, if at all, which is quite unfortunate and even detrimental to the larger society. When fare-beaters and anti-maskers get away with breaking the rules without consequences, it makes the rest of us sad that we are carrying all the weight for them, and they are mooching off the system based on mutual trust, benefit, and adherence.

As I mentioned earlier in the article, the rules and laws are meant for everyone and when the smaller ones are abused or not followed, these transgressions can lead to bigger issues in the general society. It leads to a lack of trust, a breakdown in norms, and an inability to keep track of how many people are abusing the basic laws and standards that keep the society running well. It erodes the pillars over time that keep the foundation of our shared society afloat. I’m not arguing for self-policing since that tends to not solve anything, but we need stricter enforcement for everyone to avoid these little transgressions, so they don’t lead to bigger problems that form later for all of us when the accountability and transparency is gone.

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Standing Up to Double Standards

“I am all for having standards to abide and follow as they form the backbone of our laws, rules, and regulations, but what we need to avoid is having two sets of standards, which divides people and aggravates resentments.”

I discussed in a previous article of mine why setting standards around behavior, conduct, and fairness are important. I want to dive further given recent current events of which I could put to a few examples, but for which involve the recent internationally televised and particularly controversial awards show (not naming names here) as well as other prominent examples from politics and business that come to mind in past years on why having two sets of standards can be so deleterious for a society. I am all for having standards to abide and follow as they form the backbone of our laws, rules, and regulations, but what we need to avoid is having two sets of standards, which divides people and aggravates resentments.

We all can agree upon certain norms and standards that are set for us to build trust, reliability, and faith in our institutions and our society. However, when standards are ignored or watered down or not even followed by certain privileged parts of society, that can backfire in several ways including the loss of trust in the standards that were meant for all but are not followed by everyone.

When a few noteworthy individuals, who are looked upon as role models or are put into positions of power and/or influence, when they do not abide by the standards or thwart them openly, it causes others to realize that there are ‘double standards.’ Double standards can happen rarely, occasionally, or often enough that most people will start to realize that the rules set for them are not good enough for everybody and it can cause a ‘domino effect’ when more and more individuals choose to ignore the set standards if they see those with great power, wealth, or influence ignore the standards that they so diligently abide by and follow.

Certainly, there is no excuse to avoid set standards when wealthy and powerful people go out of their way to avoid or ignore them, but it does have effects on people’s faith and trust in those standards when some people because of privilege or background can just ignore or trample all over them. When there are “rules for thee, but not for me” and they are openly flaunted without consequence or punishment, our standards of behavior, conduct, and overall kinship will suffer. On top of that, when standards are diminished, degraded, or abused, that can cascade to our laws, rules, and regulations falling out of favor with more and more people as a result.

The most influential, wealthy, and powerful people in society may not feel they have a moral and a legal obligation to abide by standards but if they choose to ignore or chastise them, there will be negative ripple effects that can come about when others who follow, support, or condone them makes excuses to avoid those standards too and to create their own that are weaker or unenforceable. Double standards involve two sets of standards; often contradictory or competing or negating each other, which can cause unfair practices or inequal application to different groups of people.

If you do not happen to have the chosen background, power, privilege, or wealth to have your own set of standards, you will see the injustice and grievances more clearly when you see the standards not apply to everyone equally even when they still apply to you and your peers. The worst consequences of having two sets of standards with the new set of standards being weak or non-existent or outright morally wrong is when some people act willfully ignorant of the standards that society has fought to uphold, normalize, and spread to everyone equally.

They can end up applauding the 2nd set of standards, ignore the wrongdoing being done, or even condone the action(s) of that individual as being morally upright even when they know in their heart that what that person did is inexcusable. While standards of behavior and conduct can be ignored or demeaned, they never truly go away and while we can choose to forget them or ignore them or mock them, those who uphold these standards will do their best to make sure to point out the ‘double standards’ occurring and how that makes our society worse off as a result.

When you see these ‘double standards’ pop up and there’s nothing you can do about it to change that abuse of the standard, don’t stay quiet about it and do your best to voice your discontent with that ‘double standard’ having reared its ugly head. If you can’t get rid of that ‘double standard’ or hold those of privilege or in power accountable for flaunting their disregard for one set of standards, make sure you do not forget their hypocrisy or their lack of respect for the rules and the laws that keep society functioning.

Standards can change, evolve, and become more just over time, but having two sets of standards will always muddy the proverbial waters and cause discontent, anger, and resentment to brew beneath the surface. Being able to call out the ‘double standards’ when they emerge is crucial to making sure this kind of injustice does not grow or become normalize is very important. If the ‘double standard’ is embraced rather than done away with, the best that can be done is to bring attention to it, try to influence those people who can get rid of it, and then do your best to make sure it never comes back. Once the set ‘standards’ break off into two or more groups or two or more social classes or more backgrounds, it can be hard to put everybody back on the same set of standards in terms of accountability.

People of great power, influence, and wealth are under an extremely heavy lens by the rest of us, which is why they should be ever more careful to strive to be good examples in how they comport themselves even if they never wanted the attention or focus on them. How they act, behave, live, or cause a scene in public can reverberate in how others do the same in their own lives, which may not seem entirely logical but people behave based on the standards that they see around them and when one individual or a group of people betray those strong standards by weakening, abusing, or creating their own lackluster standards for themselves alone, other people will notice and will cause ‘double standards’ to emerge more and more often causing the bonds of societal brotherhood, respect, and love that can hold the society together like a strong glue to slowly weaken, wither, and potentially break off.

English Corner – Colons

The colon is very useful in the English language, but it is also considered to be a bit underused as a means of punctuation within the world of grammar. You have to understand the circumstances for which a ‘colon’ can be used as well as a few examples of when it can show up in a regular sentence. If you can master colons, you can definitely count yourself as being advanced as an English learner. It will take time, but I hope that this tip will help you get a little bit better in making the colon work to your advantage as a writer.

What is a colon? Well, a colon indicates the meaning of what you want to say as well as to list what is necessary for the reader or the listener to understand. Colons and semicolons are very different in terms of meaning and use. They should never be used in the same sentence and are very rarely used together.

There are a number of uses for colons, but the three top ones would be the following:

Use #1: To introduce two or more items and to list them together separated by a comma(s).

Examples:

  1. You should do the following tonight: Practice your instrument, study for the test, and help clean the dishes.
  2. He got what he wanted today: A big promotion and an increase in his salary.
  3. Remember what we talked about: work hard, tell the truth, and always give it your best effort.

Use #2: To start a letter or an e-mail to somebody.

  1. Dear Mrs. Jones:
  2. To Whom It May Concern:
  3. To My Beloved ________:

Use #3: To introduce a quote or a short summary of a few sentences:

  1. John F. Kennedy once spoke: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
  2. The author of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, wrote in the second chapter:

“Tom Sawyer went back to his bed and stared at the fence where Jim was painting for Tom’s father. Tom wondered whether his father and Jim were friends or even if they spoke to each other.” (Not a real quote from the book, just an example)

  1. The Presidential candidate was quoted as saying: “I agree that we must move forward on fighting climate change in order to create a better future for our people.”

As you can see now, there are three main uses for colons as well as some rules that have to be observed. Let us now look at some of the important rules for using colons and how to make sure that we abide by them.

Rules of Colon Usage

  1. Colons are used in the middle of most sentences and are usually followed by a list of items or words belonging to the same or similar categories.
  2. Colons can also be used between two sentences especially if the second sentence relates to the meaning of the first sentence.
  3. A colon should always be used to introduce a numbered or a bulleted list, such as for grocery items or different types of grammar concepts.
  4. As mentioned earlier, colons can be used to introduce a quote from a speaker who was reported to have said the following words and sentences. This kind of long quotation does not need quotation marks if you have already introduced who the speaker is and what they are talking about followed by the comma (:).
  5. Colons can also be used at the beginning of a letter or an e-mail in both formal and informal settings for co-workers, bosses, friends, and family members. From seeing the examples above, you can note that instead of a comma (,), a colon (:) is being used instead to introduce the salutation or the greeting for the reader of the letter or e-mail.

These are the main rules for how to use colons and it’s important to keep in mind that a colon can:

  1. Never start a formal sentence.
  2. Never end a formal sentence.
  3. It is rare to have more than one colon used in a single sentence.
  4. Colons can be used between two sentences provided there is no period (.) separating them.
  5. While not very prominently used like a comma or a period, this form of punctuation has its uses which you should know how to utilize.

Colons are a tricky subject but once you understand both the main uses and the main rules, you will be well on your way to creating better sentences and more detailed quotes from the use of this punctuation. Similar to semicolons, colons are an advanced topic that separate an advanced English grammar learner from an intermediate learner. Once you can list items, introduce quotes, and start an e-mail off right, you will know that you are using colons correctly and for the right reasons.

English Corner – The Rules of Capitalization

Understanding the rules of capitalization is a key part of taking your English grammar understanding to a very advanced level. If you are able to know when, where, and how to capitalize letters and words correctly, you will definitely be ahead of most other English learners.

Some people may tell you that there are far more than just the main ten rules of capitalization in English, which may in fact be true. Other folks may say that there are only three rules of capitalization, and they may also be correct. However, The truth is that, depending on how you organize the rules, the rules of capitalization may be many or few based on how narrow or broad your definition of these rules are.

Most of the things we capitalize in English are what we refer to as ‘proper nouns.’ They are the names of specific and unique things.

  • If you are talking about one specific mountain (Mt. Fuji), state (Idaho) or street (Atlantic Avenue), use a capital letter for every word in the name.
  • However, when you are talking about a common thing of which there are many of them- like a mountain, a state or a street – you don’t have to use a capital letter for those words.

It’s important to remember as well that Capital letters are not used for articles (a, an, the) or for prepositions (of, on, for, in, to, with, etc.).

The Ten Main Rules

  1. Names or titles of people

This one may seem obvious, but there’s also a catch. Of course, you capitalize the first letters of a person’s first, middle and last names (John Quincy Adams), but you also capitalize suffixes (Jr., the Great, Princess of Power, etc.) and titles.

Titles can be as simple as Mr., Mrs. or Dr., but they also apply to situations wherein you address a person by his or her position as though it’s their first name. For example, when we talk about President Lincoln, we are using his role as though it were a part of his name. We don’t always capitalize the word president. Indeed, we could say, “During the Civil War, President Lincoln was the president of the United States.”

Another way to look at capitalizing job titles is to look at the position of the job title in the sentence in reference to the person’s name.

  • You should capitalize the title when it comes immediately before or after someone’s name.
  • You don’t have to capitalize the job title if it comes after the word “the.”

For example:  “Dr. Rogers was the Cardiac Surgeon.” “The cardiac surgeon allowed me to come into the room and observe the patient.”

  1. Names of mountains, mountain ranges, hills and volcanoes

Again, we’re talking about specific places. The word ‘hill’ is not a proper noun, but Bunker Hill is because it’s the name of one specific hill. Use a capital letter to begin each word in the name of a mountain (Mt. Olympus), mountain range (the Appalachians), hill (San Juan Hill) or volcano (Mt. Vesuvius).

  1. Names of bodies of water (rivers, lakes, oceans, seas, streams and creeks)

From here, it gets pretty easy. The same rules that apply to mountain names also apply to water names. A river is just a river, but the Mississippi River is a proper noun and must be capitalized, just like Lake Erie, the Indian Ocean and the Dead Sea.

  1. Names of buildings, monuments, bridges and tunnels

Man-made structures also often have names. The White House, The Eiffel Tower, The Statue of Liberty, The Golden Gate Bridge and The Lincoln Tunnel are a few good examples.

  1. Street names

It’s necessary to capitalize both the actual name part of the name (Capital) and the road part of the name (Boulevard); both are necessary for forming the entire name of the street (Capital Boulevard).

  1. Schools, colleges and universities

All of the words in the name of the educational institution should be capitalized. For example, Harvard University, Wilkesboro Elementary School, Cape Fear Community College.

  1. Political divisions (continents, regions, countries, states, counties, cities and towns)

As is the case with regions of a country, the divisions may not always be political, but you get the idea. When you refer to New England, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest or the South as a region (as opposed to a compass direction), you capitalize it. Also, continents (South America), countries (Belgium), states (Wisconsin), counties (Prince William County), cities (London) and towns (Lizard Lick) get capitalized.

  1. Titles of books, movies, magazines, newspapers, articles, songs, plays and works of art

This one’s a little tricky when ‘and,’ articles or prepositions are involved. If ‘the’ is the first word in the given name of a work, it must be capitalized (The Washington Post, The Glass Menagerie). If ‘a’ or ‘an’ is the first word, it too is capitalized (A Few Good Men), and if a preposition leads the way, you guessed it: Capitalized (Of Mice and Men). However, if any of these words come in the middle of the title, it is not capitalized.

  1. The first letter in a sentence

The last two rules are easy. Always capitalize the first letter of a sentence. If the sentence is a quotation within a larger sentence, capitalize it, but only if it’s a complete sentence. If it’s merely a phrase that fits neatly into the larger sentence, it does not require capitalization. Study the following two examples for clarification:

  • The waiter said, “My manager will be here shortly,” but he never came.
  • The waiter told us that his manager would “be here shortly,” but he never came.
  1. The pronoun ‘I’

It’s only necessary to capitalize other pronouns when they begin a sentence, but ‘I’ is always capitalized.

Remembering the Rules

How can you possibly remember all these rules? Well, first of all, you should ask yourself three questions:

  • Is this the first letter in a sentence? If the answer is yes, capitalize.
  • Is this the pronoun I? If yes, capitalize.
  • Am I using a name that someone gave to this thing or person? If yes, capitalize.

And if you want to remember all the specific categories, try memorizing one of the following sentences.

  • “For Bob Barker, the price is wrong sometimes,” Adam says.
  • Susan Sarandon bought my wife fancy toilet paper in Boston.

The first letter of each word stands for a category:

  • F– First letter in a sentence
  • B– Buildings (and other man-made structures)
  • B– Borders (of regions, states, countries, etc.)
  • T– Titles
  • P– People
  • I– I
  • S– Schools
  • W– Water
  • M– Mountains
  • S– Streets

Other Examples of Capitalization

First Word of a Sentence

The cat is sleeping in my bedroom.

Where did I put that book?

Hey! It’s great to see you! How have you been?

Names and Personal Pronouns

My favorite author is Jonathan Franzen.

Tom and Diane met at Jill’s house.

Have you met my dog, Barry?

The First Word of a Full Quote

Mario asked, “What is everyone doing this weekend?”

Stacy answered, “My sister and I are going to the theme park.”

Days, Months, and Holidays

I hate Mondays!

Harry’s birthday is in July.

Oh no! I forgot about Mother’s Day!

Words in Formal Titles

Lord of Rings is better than A Song of Ice and Fire.

The first movie of the series is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Cities, Countries, Nationalities, and Languages

English is made up of many languages, including Latin, German, and French.

My mother is Italian, and my father is German.

The capital of Ethiopia is Addis Ababa.

Time Periods and Events

Most of the World War I veterans have now passed away.

In the Middle Ages, poor hygiene was partly responsible for the spreading of the black death.

High school history students often enjoy studying the social changes that took place during the Roaring Twenties in the United States.

In this article, it is not just the ten main rules of capitalization that we have to be aware of. There are many other additional rules where you can use capitalization on a consistent basis. The examples shown above should help you, the reader, to understand when and where these words can be capitalized and to notice a pattern in terms of how these rules can be applied. 

Overall, capitalization is a very tricky topic to fully master but if you know the rules and you know when not to capitalize at all just for definite / indefinite articles along with prepositions, you will be well on your way to having a handle on this advanced grammar topic. It’s important to not be overwhelmed by all of the rules out there including the additional ones that were highlighted here. Starting off with the ten main rules of capitalization is a sufficient enough starting point to focus on. With Capitalization, you do not want to bite off more than you can chew and while the ‘additional rules’ of this grammar topic are important, it’s best to focus on the main rules such as geographic features, names of people / titles, the first letter in any sentence, etc. Good luck!

English Corner – Possessive Nouns

Being able to discuss ownership in English over a person, place, or thing is quite key when it comes to developing your grammar proficiency. In order to do that, you must be able to understand, use, and master possessive nouns. The function of possessive nouns is to essentially demonstrate ownership or some similar relationship over something else. Plural nouns indicate more than one person, place or thing. Listed below is a key hint about how to create the possessive noun as well as the five key rules that you can utilize in order to figure out if there is ownership of an object or not.

When you’re unsure of how to find the ‘possessive noun’ you have to look for the Apostrophe! Possessive nouns typically include an apostrophe!

Examples:

  • Jennifer’s imagination ran wild as she pictured the horrible car accident.
  • The kitten’s toy is a stuffed mouse, which she plays with every day.

You should be able to think of the apostrophe mark as a ‘hook’ reaching out to take possession of the object or person involved. Without the little hook or hand grabbing onto the ‘s’ or the next word, the noun is in its’ plural form simply but not actually possessive of anything or anyone.

In addition to looking out for the apostrophe to indicate that the noun is possessive, there are five major grammar rules for possessive nouns to understand and use.

Grammar Rules for Possessive Nouns

There are five basic grammar rules that cover the majority of times where writers encounter possessive nouns.

Rule #1: Making singular nouns possessive

You must add an apostrophe (‘) + s to most singular nouns and to plural nouns that do not end in the letter -s.

You’ll use this rule the most, so pay particular attention to it. English has some words that are plural but do not add the letter ‘s’. Words like children, sheep, women and men are examples of some plural words that do not end with an ‘s.’ These plural words are treated as if they were singular words when making the noun possessive.

Examples:

  • Singular nouns: kitten’s toy, Joe’s car, MLB’s ruling
  • Plurals not ending in s: women’s dresses, sheep’s pasture, children’s toys

Rule #2: Making plural nouns possessive

Add an apostrophe only to plural nouns that already end in the letter -s. You don’t need to add an extra ‘s’ to plural nouns that already end with the letter ‘s’. You only need to put the apostrophe onto the end of the word to indicate that the plural noun is now a plural possessive noun as well.

Examples:

  • Companies’ workers
  • Horses’ stalls
  • Countries’ armies

Rule #3: Making hyphenated nouns and compound nouns plural

Compound words can be tricky for the average grammar student. However, you’ll need to add the apostrophe (‘) + ‘s’ to the end of the compound word or the last word in a hyphenated noun.

Examples:

  • My father-in-law’s recipe for meatloaf is my husband’s favorite.
  • The United States Post Office’s stamps are available for purchase in rolls or packets.

Rule #4: Indicating possession when two nouns are joined together

You may be writing about two people or two places, or two things that share possession of an object. If two nouns share ownership of the object or the person in question, indicate the possession of that noun only once, and on the second noun itself. Add the apostrophe (‘) + ‘s’ to the second noun only.

Examples:

  • Jack and Jill’s pail of water is a common nursery rhyme.
  • Abbot and Costello’s comedy skit “Who’s On First” is a classic comedy sketch.

Rule #5: Indicating possession when the two nouns are joined, yet ownership remains separate

This is the trickiest rule of them all, but luckily you’ll only need to use this rule infrequently. When two nouns indicate ownership, but the ownership is separate, each noun gets the apostrophe (‘) + ‘s’. The written examples below may help you to understand exactly what this rule means.

Examples:

  • Lucy’s and Ricky’s dressing rooms were painted pink and blue.

Explanation – (Each person owns his or her own dressing room, and they are different rooms).

  • President Obama’s and Secretary Clinton’s educations are outstanding.

Explanation – (Each government official owns his or her education, but they attained separate educations).

Possessive nouns is a tricky grammar topic but by understanding the need to use the apostrophe in the correct place and studying the rules surrounding its’ usage, you’ll be going in the right direction. Nouns can be singular, plural, compound, hyphenated, etc. so that is why you must be aware that the formation of the possessive will change depending upon how the noun is formed.

These rules, examples, and explanations for possessive nouns will help you develop your English grammar proficiency especially for this particular topic. However, you as the student must take the time to create your own sentences, study these examples and review this blog post in order to master the subject of possessive nouns.

English Corner – Demonstratives

When it comes to discussing one’s distance from objects, things, or other people, it’s necessary to master the grammatical concept of demonstratives. To describe the physical distance of something or someone to another is a key aspect of demonstratives. Depending if the speaker is near or far from the other object, person, place or thing, the demonstrative will change to reflect that change in closeness.

A key aspect of demonstratives to remember is that they can either be adverbs or pronouns for both singular and plural nouns. You can use demonstratives as well to describe both countable and uncountable nouns. In addition, when it comes to discussing actual events, you would use ‘near’ forms of the demonstrative to refer to the present while ‘far’ forms of the demonstrative would refer to the past.

For the demonstrative adverbs, the word ‘here’ refers to the subject who is close by and near to the object, thing, or person. For the opposite, the adverb ‘there’ refers to the subject that is far away from the object, thing, or person.

Here are some examples of demonstrative adverbs for near / far usage:

  • I am here at the police station.
  • They are here for the Science exam.
  • She was there for the graduation ceremony.
  • We will be there at 9 o’clock.

Based on these examples, it’s important to remember that the adverb ‘here’ for near situations should be used in the present tense whereas for far situations, ‘there’ is heavily used and often with either the past or future tenses.

As mentioned before, if you are near to an object, thing, or person and you’re looking to use a demonstrative pronoun, you’ll want to use the words of ‘this’ or ‘these’ depending upon if its’ with a singular, uncountable noun or with plural, countable nouns. The demonstrative ‘this’ or ‘that’ would be used with singular and uncountable nouns while ‘these’ or ‘those’ would be used with plural and countable nouns.

Here are some examples of how ‘this’ and ‘these’ would be used in sentences to describe objects, things, or people that are close in distance to the subject:

  • This cup is for my tea.
  • Is this your jacket?
  • Where have you been traveling to these days?
  • These bananas are delicious.
  • This is my friend, Dan.

As you can see from these examples, these objects or things are close to the subject rather than far away in distance. You can also see how the demonstrative ‘this’ is used for singular nouns while the pronoun ‘these’ are being used with plural nouns.

If the opposite occurs and you or another subject in your sentence is far away in distance from another, person, place or thing, you’re going to want to use the demonstratives ‘that’ or ‘those.’

Here are some examples of how ‘that’ and ‘those’ would be used in sentences to describe objects, things, or people that are far in distance to the subject:

  • What are those men doing over there?
  • That book in my shelf was really enjoyable.
  • That printer has a paper jam that needs to be fixed.
  • Those boys are heading off to play in the park.
  • Those tires are flat. They need air.

It’s clear from those examples above that those objects or things are considered to be far away from the subject of the sentence. You can also see how the demonstrative ‘that’ is used for singular nouns while the pronoun ‘those’ are being used with plural nouns.

When it comes to placing a demonstrative like ‘that’, ‘this’, ‘these’, ‘those’ in a sentence, you should remember that those pronouns can be placed before the noun or adjective that modifies the noun even if there is more than one noun in the same sentence.

Examples:

  • Those hungry people need to eat soon.
  • These tired citizens are waiting long hours in the unemployment line.

Another way to use the demonstrative is that it can be placed before any number by itself when the noun is understood within the context of a larger paragraph.

Examples:

  • These four need to be fixed.
  • That one gave me some trouble.

Sometimes, a demonstrative pronoun or adverb can be used by itself in a sentence without a noun even being present after the demonstrative. The noun can be understood from the context of a previous sentence or larger paragraph making the demonstrative clear the only necessary subject to have.

Examples:

  • This was not very fair to me.
  • That is really cool.
  • Those were really interesting.
  • What was the issue with these?

As with many other grammatical concepts in English, there are some rules and circumstances that have to be remembered in order to develop both spoken and written fluency. In order to become comfortable with demonstratives, study the examples, create sentences of your own, and re-read this article to remember the rules of usage.

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