Mastering English With Ease

  HOW MANY WORDS DO WE HAVE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE VOCABULARY?             There are over one million words in the English Language.   Notably, i n December 2010, a joint Harvard/Google study found that “the language contains 1,022,000 words ( including of course, different forms of the same words and some archaic words) and expands at the rate of 8,500 words per year”.   B ut the average user uses only about 60,000 to 100,000 words.   It is impossible for anyone to be able to understand every word in the English Language; more so, there are terminologies and registers in every profession, all of which have made the English Language to be very vast.           Now, let us use the remaining space of our column to discuss other pertinent areas. Origin of the English Language             English Language had its developmental origin in England in the 5th century AD, out of Anglo-Saxon or Old English, which was a language introduced there by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes --- three

  THE ROLE OF ARTICLES   Grammatically, articles are the words ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’.     The words ‘ a’ and ‘ an’ are indefinite articles while the word ‘ the’ is a definite article.         We usually use the indefinite articles (a, an) first to mention a person or thing.   By doing that, we don’t have to be clear about which particular person or thing we are referring to.  When we refer to the same person or thing again, we use the definite article (the), as ‘ the’ is used to indicate the person or thing already mentioned. Now, let us use the following information to illustrate the explanation: ‘There is a newspaper which connects the Urhobo people with other ethnic groups in Nigeria and in the Diaspora.   The newspaper is The Urhobo Voice.   The Urhobo Voice has an amiable publisher.   The publisher is Ogbemure Imene’.           In the illustration above, a and an are indefinite articles (as they were used to first mention the newspaper and publisher) while the is

  CAN ‘HYPHEN’ AND ‘DASH’ BE USED INTERCHANGEABLY? -         HYPHEN is represented with a small horizontal sign that looks like a short minus sign (-) -         DASH is also represented with a horizontal sign that looks like a minus sign, but is longer than a hyphen (---).   As a matter of fact, a dash is three times longer than a hyphen.        Grammatically speaking, hyphen and dash are punctuation marks, but with different functions.   Let us now discuss their functions to enable us know how they differ.   1.   Hyphen (-) -    Used to indicate compound words e.g guard-of-honour, ex-manager. -     Used to link words that have special application in a sentence. -    Also used to hyphenate long words which cannot be accommodated on a preceding line, and have to be carried over to the next line. 2. Dash (---) Short dash is referred to by some as En Dash and long dash is referred to by some as Em Dash.       -   Used to emphasize a point or an idea within a senten

  PHRASAL VERBS AND THEIR USE           Phrasal verbs are combinations of words that perform the function of a verb. These combinations necessarily include a verb and either an adverb or a preposition (or both). They form one complete semantic unit because the words that comprise a phrasal verb together describe one action.   If one of the words in a phrasal verb is taken out, or used alone, the description of the action will be incomplete.           Let us now explore the rich world of commonly-used phrasal verbs, explain their meanings and use a number of examples to highlight the beauty of using them. 1.                  Work Out   (1) Meaning: To be successful with something. Examples: (i)                I sincerely hope that things work out for the new headmaster. (ii)              This job will work out only if I am supported by my subordinates. (iii)           Things will work out for the foundation students only if they study hard. (iv)            The marriag