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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Grammar Girl here.
Today I'm going to play two listener comments that will lead us to a discussion of wordiness and idioms.
Wordiness
First, here's Tod in Canada from the todbits.com website:
Can you help me correct people? Everyone that I know seems to not be able to [not] put the phrase' go ahead and' in front of a verb. Every time they want to say a verb, they put the phrase 'go ahead and' in front of it. [For example,] I'm going to go ahead and walk down the street; I'm going to go ahead and send you the email; and the phrase 'go ahead and' is completely redundant1. So, please I would love you to correct this and also tell us what other other prefixes2 in front of verbs are completely irrelevant3. I'm going to go ahead and hang up now and listen to what you have to say.
Thanks Tod. Well said. I would call this wordiness, which is really just using a lot of unnecessary words.
Here's one that I'm guilty of in emails: for some reason I always start emails with the phrase I just wanted to let you know that, and then I get to my point. So I always have to go back and rewrite my emails so I don't belittle4 my own sentiment and waste the readers time. For example, I'll write, "I just wanted to let you know that I love your podcast." Ugh! Just say it: Dear Tod, I love your podcast. There's no need to sneak5 up on the sentence like you're trying to lasso a wild horse! I actually don't even think it's grammatically correct, or at least it's not good writing, because it uses the past tense (i.e., I just wanted) as if I wanted to tell him yesterday, but I'm writing today and, even though I'm not so sure anymore, I'll just say it anyway.
I'm sure there are other great examples I'm not thinking of, so I want to tap the audience on this one. If there's an unnecessary phrase like this that really bugs6 you, write in to feedback [at] quickanddirtytips.com and tell me about it. If I get more than a couple, I'll make a section compiling them on the website.
But first, it's free audiobook time again compliments of Audible, the Internet's leading provider of spoken word entertainment. Get a free audiobook download of your choice when you sign up today. For details, log on to audiblepodcast.com/gg.
Idioms
OK, since that was a short segment, we have time for another comment:
Hi Grammar Girl. Question for you: Would you be able to go into use of modifiers in a little bit more detail, use of pronouns, certain sentence constructions, and maybe some idioms. Things that get into a little more detail on sentence construction.
Thanks for the question. I'll touch on idioms today to keep the show short, and get to some of your more nitty-gritty questions very soon.
Idioms are phrases that don't mean what they literally7 say, but have meaning to native speakers. For example, the phrase under the weather is known by most native English speakers to mean that someone isn't feeling quite well, but if you weren't a native English speaker, you would probably have no idea what the phrase means by just looking at the words. I can just imagine some poor foreigner trying to figure out what it means to be literally under the weather. They might guess that someone is getting rained on, and who could blame them?
A lot of idioms seem to be holdovers of phrases that had a more literal meaning in the past. For example, some sources say that under the weather originates from a time when it was more common to travel by boat; and during storms seasick8 passengers would go below deck, where the rocking was less intense, and they were literally under the weather that was occurring above deck. However, idioms don't always have such clear historical sources, and even in this case some sources say that under the weather simply refers to the belief that bad weather can make you sick.
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That's all. I realize the topics in the last couple of episodes have been a little bit light, but don't worry: I'll do some hard grammar again soon. As always, this is Grammar Girl, striving to be your friendly guide in the writing world. You'll find a transcript9 of this podcast at QuickAndDirtyTips.com. You'll also find links to pages that list lots of English idioms. Thank you to everyone who has emailed or called in with a question. To make it easier, I added a messaging tool in the website sidebar that will let you call in for free if you have a computer with a microphone, or you can still call in to the voicemail line at 206-338-GIRL (4475).
收听单词发音 |
1
redundant
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| adj.多余的，过剩的；(食物)丰富的；被解雇的 | |
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2
prefixes
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| n.前缀( prefix的名词复数 )；人名前的称谓；前置代号（置于前面的单词或字母、数字） | |
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3
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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4
belittle
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| v.轻视，小看，贬低 | |
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sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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bugs
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| adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误 | |
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7
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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seasick
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| adj.晕船的 | |
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9
transcript
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| n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书 | |
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