컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 한 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

Take a look at the following sentence. Which “that” can be dropped?

“She has a car that people admire, but he has a car that is falling apart.”

The first “that” can be dropped without changing the meaning.

O - She has a car people admire, but he has a car that is falling apart.

X - She has a car that people admire, but he has a car is falling apart.

If you examine the original sentence carefully, you will notice a structural difference between the relative clauses:

“…that people admire…”

“…that is falling apart.”

In the first clause, the relative pronoun “that” is followed by a noun and a verb. The relative pronoun “that” refers to the “car,” and the immediately following noun “people” serves as a type of subject-agent for the verb “admire”.

The first clause is equivalent to:

She has a car. People admire that car. = She has a car. That car people admire.

If we join the two sentences, we don’t need to repeat “car," and “that” is optional:

She has a car (that) people admire.

In the second relative clause, the relative pronoun “that” is followed by a verb phrase (is falling apart). There is no noun agent after the relative pronoun in the second clause. However, a subject-agent is required in English declarative clauses. Here the relative pronoun “that” serves as the subject-agent and cannot be dropped.

He has a car. The car is falling apart. = He has a car. That (car) is falling apart. =

He has a car that is falling apart.

Here is another example using “who”:

He is the astronaut who works for NASA. (No subject-agent for the verb “works”; “who” cannot be dropped.)

He is the astronaut (whom) NASA hired. (NASA is the subject-agent for the verb “hired”; “who(m)” can be dropped.)

Remember: If you want to drop a relative pronoun, check to see if there is a subject-agent for the following verb. If so, the relative pronoun can be dropped.

We hope (that) you enjoyed learning a little about relative clauses.

컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 한 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

Happy New Year! Seollal is a time when many Koreans give gifts to friends and family. What would an American say when giving a gift for Lunar New Year?

a)  I’d like to present you with some Spam.

b)  I bought you something. It’s Spam.

c)  Happy New Year! Here’s some Spam.

If you found this question difficult, congratulations! None of these expressions are typical.

In the first place, Lunar New Year is not commonly celebrated in the United States, except perhaps among Asian-Americans.

In fact, many Americans are not aware of the lunar calendar, even though they may have heard of “Chinese New Year”. Further, Americans do not generally give gifts for New Year’s Day.

So, what would an American say when giving a gift for Lunar New Year? Good question.

a) “I’d like to present you with” is highly formal and would most likely be heard at a ceremony. 

For example, “I’d like to present you with a Medal of Honor for your service to our country.”

b) When someone announces, “I bought you something” or “I bought you a gift”, there is an expectation that the gift may be something special; otherwise, it would not be announced.

c) Americans typically say “Happy New Year!” on January 1, but we don’t give gifts. If you want to give them gifts, you can just say “Happy New Year” and pass them a small present.

* Culture lesson

I recently visited Hawaii and was surprised to see a large section of the grocery aisle stocked with a variety of Spam. 

Ah, Spam! I hadn’t thought of it since I lived in Korea a few years ago and was given a boxed set for Seollal. I enjoyed my friend’s present, but it felt like a peculiarly Korean cultural experience to receive Spam as a gift. In the mainland United States, that would be unthinkable.

Spam originated in Minnesota in 1937 as an inexpensive, canned meat product for sale during the Great Depression. Because of its long shelf life, it later became a primary ration for American soldiers serving overseas during World War II. Spam has been sold in grocery stores ever since, but, outside of Hawaii, it seems to be dwindling in popularity, especially among young people.

To them, the word “spam” conjures thoughts of junk email, and they think of the canned meat as junk, too. However, according to Wikipedia, the term “spam” for unsolicited email actually emerged from a 1970 Monty Python TV sketch of a restaurant where Spam was prolific, just like digital junk mail is prolific today.

We hope you enjoyed this language gift from COMPECS. 

Happy Lunar New Year!

컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 한 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

What’s wrong with the English from this sign posted in Seoul?

“No smoking in and around the building”

The sign should be worded:

No smoking in OR around the building.

The reason we use “or” instead of “and” is related to a sense of inclusion when using “and”.

Consider these sentences:

You can’t eat here.

You can’t smoke here.

We can make a compound sentence with “and,” retaining the original meaning:

You can’t eat here, and you can’t smoke here. = (You can’t eat here) + (You can’t smoke here).

However, in a negative sentence, if we use “and” to make a compound verb, there is some confusion.

*“You can’t eat and smoke here.”  = (eat and smoke inclusively, but not exclusively)

In other words, this sentence may possibly be interpreted:

“You can eat here but you can’t smoke here.”

Or

“You can’t eat here but you can smoke here.”

Or

“You can’t both eat and smoke here at the same time.”

Using “or” with a negative compound verb eliminates this confusion.

“You can’t eat or smoke here.” = “You can’t eat here, and you can’t smoke here.”

컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 한 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

Do you know Joe Biden?

Of course, most Americans know who Joe Biden is, but they may answer that question in the negative. 

In American English, using “Do you know…” followed by a person’s name means “Are you personally acquainted with” someone. 

So, in answer to “Do you know Joe Biden?” you may hear:

“No, I’ve never met him.”

“Well, I know OF Joe Biden, but I don’t know him personally.”

“Of course, I know who Joe Biden is, but I don’t KNOW him.”

A better way to phrase the question for American English speakers would be:

“Do you know of Joe Biden?”

Or, more commonly:

“Have you (ever) heard of Joe Biden?”

Thanks for reading COMPECS Connection. We hope you’ll ask your friends if they have heard of us.

컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 한 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

What does the expression “5 below” refer to?

a)      Money

b)      Body temperature 

c)       Submarine depth

d)      Weather

The answer is d).

When winter arrives, people often talk about the weather. In fact, weather is one of the most common small talk topics among Americans. Here are some typical cold weather expressions we use:

“It’s chilly today.”

“It’s cold out.”

“It’s freezing outside!”

“It’s 5 below!”

Notice that when we talk about weather, we start the sentence with “it’s”.

Also, take a look at the final two expressions. Remember that Americans measure temperature in Fahrenheit. On the Fahrenheit scale, “freezing” is 32 degrees above 0 (equivalent to 0 degrees Celsius), while “5 below” means 5 degrees below 0 Fahrenheit (about -20 Celsius). That’s far colder than the freezing point.

Although there’s a big difference between “freezing” and “5 below,” oftentimes a speaker will say “It’s FREEZING!” as a general statement without looking at a thermometer. If someone says “It’s freezing outside,” they may have noticed ice outdoors, but they probably don’t mean it’s exactly 32 degrees F. If someone says “It’s FREEZING in this room!” they are just exaggerating how cold it feels to them indoors.

Warm wishes from COMPECS!



컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 한 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

What does “pay a visit” mean?

a) Pay the admission fee to enter a site, like a zoo

b) Visit a widow or widower out of politeness after their spouse’s death

c) Pay to stream a movie on cable or digital TV or Internet

d) Go spend time with someone

We hope you guessed “d”. “To pay a visit” simply means “visit.”

“I paid a visit to my grandparents” means the same thing as “I visited my grandparents.”

Sentence a) is the wrong definition because “pay a visit” has nothing to do with paying money. We can say that we “paid a visit to the zoo” even if the admission is free.

Sentence b) is the wrong definition because we can “pay a visit” anytime, not just at a funeral. The typical expression for funeral visits is “pay one’s respects,” which actually means to visit someone out of politeness. “I have come to pay my respects” is commonly used when we make a polite visit to relatives of a deceased person.

Sentence c) is the wrong definition as well. We may “visit a website,” but this is a free activity. If we pay money to watch an event on television or online, the expression is “pay per view”. It is sometimes abbreviated PPV.

Thanks for paying a visit to Compecs!

컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 한 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

What is wrong with this sentence?

I was eye shopping but the clerk kept hounding me so I left.

The expression “eye shopping” is Konglish and would be understood literally in English.

Just as “car shopping” means shopping for cars and “grocery shopping” means shopping for groceries, “eye shopping” means shopping for eyeballs, which is a very strange thing to buy.

The corresponding English expression for “eye shopping” is “window shopping”.

The correct sentence would be:

I was window shopping, but the clerk kept hounding me so I left.

Although the rest of the sentence is correct, it may be a little confusing for Korean learners of English. “…The clerk kept hounding me…” indicates that the customer felt excessively pressured by the store clerk to buy something. Here, “hounding” implies that the clerk was continually following and trying to interact with the customer, but the customer wanted to be left alone. There may be a cultural difference in shopping habits between Korea and the United States. In Korea, store clerks frequently offer help or follow customers around, but in the United States, many shoppers prefer to be left alone for a “do-it-yourself” shopping experience.

If you find yourself being hounded when shopping in the United States, you can tell the clerk that you are “just looking” or “just browsing”, and the clerk will leave you alone.

컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 두 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

He only calls once in a blue moon.

What is the meaning of “once in a blue moon?”

a) at a time of sadness

b) once a year around harvest time

c) very rarely

The answer is c) very rarely.

a) Although we use expressions like “feeling blue” or “have the blues” to refer to sadness or depression, a blue moon is not associated with sadness.

b) The full moon that appears very large in the sky each fall is called a “harvest moon.” It is not related to the blue moon, nor do we have the expression “once in a harvest moon”.

c) A blue moon is the occurrence of 2 full moons in one month of the solar calendar. Aside from February, which has 28 days, most months in the solar calendar have 30 or 31 days. Because a full moon occurs every 29.5 days, there is usually only one full moon per month. However, about every 2 or 3 years, there may be two full moons in a month. The second full moon in a month is called a blue moon. The occurrence of a blue moon is so unusual that the expression “once in a blue moon” is a time expression to describe an event that happens very rarely (not even annually) and perhaps unpredictably. (Interestingly, in 2018, there were 2 blue moons in the same Gregorian calendar year. That won’t happen again until 2037.)

컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 두 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

What does “bimonthly” mean?

a) Two months

b) Two times in one month

c) Once every two months

The answer is both b) and c).

Unfortunately, the word “bimonthly” is ambiguous and could mean twice in one month or once every two months. Similarly, “biweekly” could mean twice in one week or once every two weeks, and “biannually” could mean twice a year or once every two years.

These three words can cause tremendous confusion in academic writing. For example, if a researcher states that “participants were evaluated bimonthly for a year,” were there 6 or 24 evaluations? The answer is unclear and needs to be clarified by adding details. A more understandable sentence would be “participants were evaluated 6 times during the year on a bimonthly basis.”

The next time your boss announces a biweekly office meeting, you might now have an excuse if you miss it!

컴팩스 카카오톡 채널(http://pf.kakao.com/_EMNxfK) 친구추가 하시면 일주일에 두 번씩 다양한 주제의 포스트를 받아보실 수 있습니다.

What is the difference in meaning between these sentences in American English?

1) I’ve got more money than you.

2) I’ve gotten more money than you.

Sentence 1

In American English, the phrasal verb “have got” is synonymous with “have” and means “possess.” Sentence 1 means “I possess more money than you.” Depending on context, the speaker could be referring to money in the bank, meaning: “I’m richer than you.” Or, the speaker could be referring to what he is holding at the moment, meaning something like: “I have more money in my pocket right now than you have in your pocket.”

In British English, “have got” can be used as a present perfect form, but this is non-standard in American English.

Sentence 2

“Have gotten” in sentence 2 is an example of present perfect tense. The present perfect is a past tense form that we often use to connect a past event to the present moment. In American English, “have gotten” generally means “have received.” The sentence could be interpreted, “I have received more money than you (in my most recent paycheck) or “I have collected more money than you (in the charity drive we just completed). “

“Have” is a very versatile verb. Here are some standard usages in American English:

have/have got: “possess”

I have a car./ I’ve got a car.

“I’ve got it”: “I understand”

Oh! Now I’ve got it!

have to/have got to: “must”

I have to work today.

I’ve got to work today.

Have gotten: “have received”

I’ve gotten a promotion!

Got it?