Quick lesson Archives | The CV Branch

4 frustrations when establishing your own business

24th September 2016 By The CV Branch

Remember I wrote the article on how not to let your mind explode while establishing your own company? I mentioned that it was to be a four-part series. As promised, this one deals with the frustrations I’ve encountered and often still do.

1. Websites and Web developers

I believe that I can relieve a small nation of their national debt with all the money I’ve spent on Web developers. If I remember correctly, I’ve tried five of them!

My point is: Be prepared for frustration. I had two websites, and no, not because I’m so important, but because the scope of my company has changed. The result was more frustration with having the site published, gaining an internet presence, and here we go again.

2. Google

It seems to me that without Google, humanity might experience a soupçon* of agony. Did you know that it has transformed into a verb as well? Now that’s having ‘arrived’ if you ask me. And remember, if Google can’t find you, nobody will. Your company might not even exist for that matter.

It took me about a year to figure this out, to understand how The Thing works and then to realize that It obsessively changes Its algorithms.

3. Social media

I should probably have started with this frustration. Do you have ANY idea how many platforms there are? It’s nauseating. And the entire world clamours for attention. ‘Does inconsequential me have any prospects of being seen/recognized/read/gain attention?’

I have a list of all the platforms where the company has a presence because it’s becoming ridiculous how many there are. (And all to satisfy the Google-beast.)

So remember now: you like on Facebook, you follow on Twitter, you connect on LinkedIn, you pin on Pinterest, and I can’t remember now what you do with Instagram or Google+.

I trust that my problem is clear.

4. Uncapped ADSL, expenses, etc.

During the last two years, money have* been growing feet and walked out my front door. Promise.

My uncapped ADSL shouldn’t be mentioned here; best decision I’ve made in the recent past. Between Telkom, MWeb, and of course my host, my problems have been negligible.

So between continued education, running expenses, a bit of wine, design, and books…it’s constant toil.

But man am I having fun!

*Quick French lesson

Soupçon means a dash, a bit, a tad, etc.

You will notice the ‘ç’ symbol; it’s called a cédille or in English ‘cedilla’. It shows that the ‘c’ should be pronounced as an ‘s’ and not a ‘k’.

If you are interested in the influence that French had, and has, on English, Emeritus Professor Antoinette Renouf of English Language and Linguistics at the Birmingham City University wrote a (long) article as a contribution to a book on the subject of Gallicisms; Shall we Hors-d’Oeuvres? Uses and Misuses of Gallicisms in English.

*Quick English lesson

Uncountable nouns (like ‘money’) fall into one of the following categories:

substance – air, wood, water, gold;
feeling – love, happiness, fear;
quality/characteristic – patience, strength, beauty, kindness;
activity – soccer, karate, chess; and
idea – democracy, freedom, peace.

Unaccountable nouns only have the plural form and are not used with a/an or numbers.

I have written a post about uncountable nouns after a colleague of mine pointed out that this description is not entirely accurate.

What exactly is an uncountable noun?

17th July 2016 By The CV Branch

I’ve written a little piece on the frustrations you may count on when you establish your own business. And as you know, I often include a ‘quick lesson’ at the end of my posts.

The topic of today’s grammar post is uncountable nouns, also called mass nouns and non-countable nouns. A colleague has pointed out to me that the quick lesson that I gave in the frustrations post is a little misleading, if not simply wrong. Hence my plan to devote an entire post to the subject.

I am shamelessly ignoring the fact that most people find grammar boring beyond belief. But this is a language site and blog, so I cannot always write about driving in Germany or establishing a business or love.

So what is it?

Easy to remember: you cannot count the noun.

'A noun that is uncountable cannot be made plural or used with a or an.' – Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

They are usually concepts or substances and cannot be separated into individual elements.

Its categories and examples:

Concepts: honesty, information, patience
Activities: playing, reading, sleeping
Food: butter, sugar, rice
Gas: air, oxygen, smoke
Liquids: coffee, water, wine
Materials: cloth, wood, metal
Items: clothing, software, money
Natural phenomena: heat, rain, sunshine
Particles: dust, salt, sugar

Breaking the rules

If you’ve ever studied or learned a language, you will know that practically no rule holds true.

Let’s look at water, it conforms to all the rules:

A water is clearly wrong.
However, you can say a drop of water, or some water, or a little.

But…hark at this. Have you heard of the term ‘taking the waters’? For instance, in Bath, England. The hot, mineral waters in Bath date from the Roman times and are said to have healing and therapeutic properties. There are many towns in Germany which have the word Bad in front of their names. The reason is the same, the town is or has been known for its hot spring. It also indicates that the town has received spa-status.

Bad Kissingen in Bavaria has been a spa town since 1883 and boasts many illustrious visitors in the past; the Austrian Empress Elizabeth (Sisi), the Prussian statesman Prince Otto von Bismarck, and the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini.

Aachen cathedral © Ministry for Building and Transport

I had the opportunity to smell and taste these ‘miracle’ waters in Aachen. Let me tell you, it smells horrific and tastes rather unpleasant due to its high sulphur content. Aachen, incidentally, prefers not to use the prefix Bad, something to do with the alphabet...

To return to uncountable nouns; see, there you have an irregularity - an uncountable noun has now taken on a plural form. But it is slightly comforting to know that that it’s most common in the food and liquid categories.

Not breaking the rules

Consider sunshine; the plural is patently impossible – sunshines. Not happening, right? Nor is a sunshine.

There are ways of quantifying uncountable nouns:

a ray of sunshine; it (only) appears countable by using the preposition of which is used for; relating to, belonging to, or connected with.

no sunshine; no is a quantity adjective used to describe an approximate amount.

a little

Here is a quick test to see if you’ve read everything… Let me know what your score is.

Quick German lesson

Das Bad means bath, spa, or watering place. It is a neutral noun and the plural is die Bäder. Remember, German nouns always start with a capital.

6 words beginning with an ‘X’

2nd March 2016 By The CV Branch

Oxford... I am enamoured. The university, the town (which I haven’t seen, but it can only be marvellous), and the language. If my dad left me a trust fund, I am convinced that by now I would have had several doctorate degrees in medieval history and languages. Alas, I have to contend myself with ‘The Oxford Dictionary’ – in inverted commas because it deserves reverence.

I have a few favourites:

New Hart’s Rules,
New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, and
the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.

Unless otherwise specified, my writing follows the rules as prescribed by this Organization - at least I try to, I should probably add.

You may now think that ‘pray tell, what precisely does Oxford have to do with X?’ Well, I found this Oxford YouTube video which offers us a bit of an explanation of the use of the letter ‘x’ in the English language. It inspired me to look up and share a few words starting with this phenomenon of a letter.

After Q and Z, X is the least common letter in English. And like so many other aspects of our language, it has its origin in Greek; Χ and Ψ. I don’t want to list every language that contains an X in their alphabet, but from what I can see, most do, with varying pronunciations. It is interesting to note that the words starting with an X in English are all loan-words or of modern creation.

1. Xylitol

Probably not baked with xylitol...

A sugar substitute. And a good one, apparently. In my opinion, this fact will probably change tomorrow. It is a sugar alcohol, pretty much as sweet as sucrose, but with 33 per cent less calories. And it seems to be beneficial for your dental health.

2. Xanadu

No, I’m not talking about the film. Xanadu is supposed to be a glorious, idealized place. Where dreams turn into reality even before you realized that you had that dream.

3. Xylophone

A musical instrument. It is made up of two wooden bars of different lengths. You ‘hit’ these bars with two small sticks. I played a xylophone in a primary school concert, dropped it, sending all the bars flying, crying like only a little girl can, and was embarrassed for the rest of that school year.

A xylophone

5. X in mathematics

In mathematics (never my favourite subject), an ‘x’ represents a number whose value is not mentioned. You all remember (x + 2) – 3 = who knows what.

I have written another article on the relationships between language and mathematics.

5. XML

I’m not even going to pretend to understand this one. It is an Extensible Markup Language; a system used for marking the structure of text on a computer. An example is when you create a website.

6. Xhosa

I know that the correct word is isiXhosa, but I decided to use it anyway as it is such a truly South Africa word. Here is a YouTube video that explains the ‘X’-sound.

There are a plethora of other uses of the letter or symbol X:

magnification,
dimensions,
multiplication,
a kiss, and
the Roman numeral for ‘10’.

I have used the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary for words and definitions.

Quick Xhosa lesson

isiXhosa is a tonal language which means that the same arrangement of vowels and consonants may have different meanings, depending on the intonation. The ‘click consonants’ are, of course, a distinctive characteristic of the language.