With THE and Without THE

Let’s analyze different situations when we use the article ‘The.’ It is used before countable Names (Nouns).

Union: The Soviet Union, The Union of South Africa.
Kingdom: The United Kingdom (The UK)
States: The United States of America. (The USA)
The United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands,
Republics: The German Democratic Republic (GDR)
The republic of Ireland.
Sea: The Red sea, the Black Sea, The North Sea,
The Arabian Sea.
Ocean: The Indian ocean, The Pacific Ocean, The Atlantic
Canal: The Suez Canal, The Panama Canal.
Channel: The English Channel.
River: The Nile, The Ganges, The Damodar,
Mountain: The Himalayas, The Rockies, The ARavalies,
Range: The Pir Panjal Range, The Rockies.
Desert: The Kalahari, The Gobi, The Sahara.
Islands/ Isles: The British Isles, The Andamans, The Nicobars.

The names of the individual mountain s and islands and the names of lakes are used without the article “The.”

Kanchnjungha (Name of a Peak)
Mount Everest.
Mount Deomali.
Lake Chilika, (Name of a Lake)
Lake Superior.
Lake Ontario.

‘The’ is used with the names of Newspaper and Religious Books.

The New York Time, the times of India, the Guardian
(Names of News paper)
The Gita, the Koran, the Bible, the Upanishads, the Gurugranth Sahib. (Names of Religious books)

‘The’ is used with the Nationality adjectives to mean the peoples of a particular country.

The British (People of Britain)
The Irish, The Dutch, The Swiss, The Indians
The Japanese, The Chinese, The Arabs, The Turks.

‘The’ is used before the names of Musical instruments.

The Harmonium is one of my favorite instruments.
The flute, the saxophone, the tabla etc.

Names of meals go without the article ‘the’

It is high time for dinner.
Lunch is important for all office goers.

Rest on some other day, follow me!!

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ARTICLES: A, AN and THE

In English grammar Articles are but three small words that do significant and important jobs as their use and non use make the differences in meanings of sentences as they either determine the number of nouns or work as back referencer (like pronoun in case of Noun) or make a group (the rich). Though articles are small words still their role in a sentence is big.

There are three articles which are categorized into two groups such as Definite Article and Indefinite Article. ‘The’ is the definite article and both ‘A’ and ‘An’ are known as Indefinite article. Sometimes nouns require no article and that condition is known as ‘Zero article’ (Books are known as best chum for all).

A and An are used two make plural nouns as singular. When a noun begins with a vowel sound (A, E, I, O and U) takes ‘An’ and those nouns which begin with any one of the other 21 consonant letter takes ‘A’ while making singular expression. Not only do letters but vowel sounds also necessitate the use of ‘An’ though the initial letter happens to be consonant.

Cow is a domestic animal. A cow has two fore legs.

He has an umbrella which is red in color.

The above two sentences make the rule clear. Let’s analyze the sound or pronunciation part.

We call an MLA or an MP. A US spokesperson.

(The pronunciation of ‘M’ begins with ‘A’)

An heir, An hour, An honest man.

But

A university, An European.

(Here the choice of article is determined by the sound of the noun. Generally, vowels have two sounds and sometimes more than one vowel unite to complete the required sound. One sound is known ‘Soft Sound’ that ends abruptly and the ‘Hard Sound’ that lingers on and ends up producing a consonant sound like the U in University. It is not only the initial vowel but also vowel sounds of nouns that determine the use of article ‘A’ and ‘An.’

Let’s discuss about the pronunciation pattern of ‘The.’

When there happens to be an initial vowel letter or initial vowel sound ‘The’ is pronounced /di/ and in the rest of cases it is pronounced as /da/.

The /da/ books of our time were very bulky and informative.

The /di/ ancestors of Ram were great men of caliber.

N: B: Want to know more about articles? Please do visit the blog regularly as all the following installments of your choice or your inclination regarding articles and other grammatical entities will be covered by and by. So follow me to catch more and more

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Verbs We Use

Let’s read the following sentences:

a) Sam is a writer and he writes stories.

b) He has written many stories.

c) He will definitely write a story on the present cultural conditions.

The words write, written are called verbs. These words indicate some sorts of activities. And these kinds of words that talks of some action or activities or moment of the Subject or the doer we call them as VERBS. No doubt there are verbs in the above sentences like Is, Has and Will that do not talk of any action or activities. Still they are verbs as they work for the Main Verbs. They establish a link rather bridge the link between the Subject and the Main verb.

Verbs like is, are, were, was, has, had, do, did, done, be, am, will, shall are called Auxiliary Verbs or Helping Verbs or Anomalous Finite. They don’t have any dictionary meaning as the main verbs. These verbs have single form. They are not used independently and always support a main verb. They are used to show Moods, Tense, Voice etc. of the main verbs. And for this they are also known as Structural Words. On the other hand, main verbs have three different forms Present, past, past participle. These verbs can be used independently and they always have some dictionary meaning. There are some auxiliary verbs like do, have which is used as Full verbs.

I have an umbrella.

Full verbs or main verbs as well as helping verbs can be categorized as Finite or Infinite.

1) I write. 2) I shall write. 3) Will you go there?

Observe the three sentences. In the first sentences there is no auxiliary verb and write is used independently. In this case it is a Finite Verb. In the second sentence there is an auxiliary verb and here write can be called an Infinite verb. In the second sentence Will is in the beginning of a sentence and hence it is a
Finite Verb.

All full verbs have three forms such as Present, Past and Past Participle. Of course there is the ~Ing form that is called Present Participle. One will have to learn various forms of verbs to frame good and meaningful sentences. After a lot of reading and practice all these things are mastered by a user. In English a word changes its form in its different form in different tenses.

Let’s examine some Rules or Conventions.

Generally ~Ed is used to change the forms of a verb in the Present to Past and Past Participle. But there are a lot of verbs that have different forms in different.

Irregular verbs: There so many verbs in English language which have different forms in different tenses. There is no change in forming the Present Participle like ~ing. Irregular verbs have different forms in different tenses and don’t take ~ED to form Past and Past Participle forms.

There are some Irregular Verbs that have all the forms as identical like:

Present	Past	Past participle
Cut	Cut	Cut
Let	Let	Let
Hit	Hit	Hit

There is another group that has two parts identical and one Part happens to be different:

Present	Past	Past participle
Spend	Spent	Spent
Come	Came	Come
Bring	Brought	Brought
Go	Went	Gone

Yet another group that has all the parts or forms as different:

Present	Past	Past participle
Blow	Blew	Blown
Speak	Spoke	Spoken
Throw	Threw	Thrown

Group 1

Present	Past	Past participle
Bet	Bet, Betted	Bet, Betted
Bid	Bid, Bade	Bid, Bidden
Broadcast	Broadcast	Broadcast
Burst	Burst	Burst
Bust	bust, busted	Bust, Busted
Cast	cast	cast
Cost	cost, (costed)	cost, (costed)
Cut	cut	cut
Fit	fit (us) fitted	fit, fitted
Forecast	forecast	forecast
Hit	hit	hit
Hurt	hurt	hurt
Input	input (inputted)	input (inputted)
Knit	knit, knitted	knit, knitted
Let	let	let
Miscast	miscast	miscast
Offset	offset	offset
Outbid	outbid	outbid
Put	put	put
Quit	quit, quitted	quit, quitted
Recast	recast	recast
Reset	reset	reset
Rid	rid, ridded	rid, ridded
Set	set	set
Shed	shed	shed
Shut	shut	shut
Slit	slit	slit
Split	split	split
Spread	spread	spread
Sweat	sweat, sweated	sweat, sweated
Thrust	thrust	thrust
Typeset	typeset	typeset
Upset	upset	upset
Wed	wed, wedded	wed, wedded
Wet	wet, wetted	wet, wetted

Group2

Present	Past	Past participle
Burn	burned, burnt	burned, burnt
Dwell	dwelled, dwelt	dwelled, dwelt
Learn	learnt, learned	learnt, learned
Misspell	misspelled, misspelt	missspelt, misspelled
Smell	smelled, smelt	smelled, smelt
Spell	spelled, spelt	spelled, spelt
Spill	spilled, spilt	spilled, spilt
Spoil	spoilt, spoiled	spoilt, spoiled

Group 3

Present	Past	Past participle
Bend	Bent	Bent
Build	Built	Built
Lend	Lent	Lent
Rebuild	Rebuilt	Rebuilt
Rend	Rent	Rent
Send	Sent	Sent
Spend	Spent	Spent
Unbend	Unbent	Unbent

Group 4

Present	Past	Past participle
Behold	beheld	beheld
Bleed	bled	bled
Breed	bred	bred
Feed	fed	fed
Flee	fled	fled
Hold	Held	held
Lead (pro: lid)	led	led
Mislead	held	misled
Overfeed	overfed	overfed
Read (Pro: rid)	read (pro: red)	read
Reread	-	-
Speed	sped, speeded	sped, speeded
Uphold	upheld	upheld
Withhold	withheld	withheld

Group 5

Present	Past	Past participle
Creep	Crept	Crept
Deal (Pro: Dil)	Dealt (Pro: De..)	Dealt
Dream	Dreamt/ed	Dreamt/ed
Feel	Felt	Felt
Keep	Kept	Kept
Kneel	Knelt/ed	Knelt/ed
Lean	Leant/ed	Leant/ed
Leap	Leapt/ed	Leapt/ed
Leave	Left	Left
Mean	Meant	Meant
Meet	Met	Met
Oversleep	Overslept	Overslept
Sleep	Slept	Slept
Sweep	Swept	Swept
Weep	Wept	Wept

N: B: Wait for the Verb: Part 2 for the list of rest of general verbs.

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SO N SUCH: Two Small Words

By using so and such we combine two sentences with one Subject. The first action is triggered or caused or by the second one. In other words, we can say that the first action happens to be a consequence of the second one. And generally we begin the combined sentence from the second action though the reverse way also happen to right.

After combination we can again make them two sentences as one can find both subject and object and the second part ALWAYS contains an ADJECTIVE/ADVERB.

So+Adjective

• They could not find the way in the night.
• There was darkness.

Now let’s combine the above two sentences by using the So+Adjective/ So+Adverb construction.

• They could not find the way as it was dark. (Adjective) Or

• They could not find the way as it was so dark. (Beginning with the first part)

• As it was dark they could not find the way. (Beginning with the second part)

• Sumi and her friends danced. The show was very amusing.

• The show was so amusing that Sumi and her friends danced.

• He was eating like a horse. He was hungry.

· He was so hungry that he was eating like a horse.

So+Adverb

· Sabita could not follow Surya’s words. He whispered softly. (Adverb)

· He(Surya) whispered so softly that Sabita could not follow his words

· Sabita could not follow Surya’s words as he whispered so softly.

Such+Adjective+Noun

• Tom often meets with accidents. He is such a reckless driver.

• Tom is such a reckless driver that he often meets with accidents.

• It is difficult to teach him. He is such a dull boy.
• He is such a dull boy that it is difficult to teach him.
• Nainital attracts a large number of visitors. It is such a picturesque spot.
• Nainital is such a picturesque spot that it attracts a large number of visitors.

In all these examples sentences So and Such mean Very.

So….that and Such ….that.

• Everest peak is so high (that) mountaineers toil hard to reach atop.
• The gale was so devastating (that) it swept the riparian areas.
• Tom spoke in such a rude manner (that) his mother was worried.
• It was such a rainy day (that) not a single shop was open in the market.

1) Everest peak is high. 2) Mountaineers toil hard to reach atop.

The conjunction ‘THAT’ can be left out in the above construction. Take note: The second part is triggered by the first part. Sometime

So and Such are used with a different meaning:

· Ram’s father is 60 years old. But he doesn’t look so old. (As old as he is)

· He has bought a used camcorder for twenty thousands. But it is worth so much.

So long But Such a long time

So far But Such a long way

So many

So much But Such a lot (of)

· Where have you been so long?

· Where have you been for such a long time?

· A small child can hardly live so far from home.

· A small child can hardly live for such a long time from home.

· There were so many dogs barking out there and it was impossible to sleep.

· There were such a lot of dogs barking out there and it …..

· There was so much suspended particle in the atmosphere that we felt choked.

· There was such a lot of …..

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