Reviewing Your Message about Guests

2023-06-09

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1
  • A few weeks ago, we asked our readers and listeners to write about having guests over.
  • 2
  • Many of you wrote in using the words you learned. One reader, Gerardo, wrote to us about his cousin Peter's visit.
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  • In this week's Everyday Grammar, we will comment on Gerardo's message.
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  • And we will give some grammar suggestions.
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  • I usually am very fond of guests.
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  • Two weeks ago, I suddenly met my cousin Peter near the bus station.
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  • We have not seen each other for ages.
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  • He came to the cita for just three weeks.
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  • So I invited him over for drinks last week-end.
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  • He was short of time but he finally accepted.
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  • On Saturday, we spent time catching up talking about those beautiful days we played games and eating in the countryside when we were very young.
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  • We had dinner together and then he left.
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  • Let's start with the first two sentences.
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  • I usually am very fond of guests.
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  • Two weeks ago, I suddenly met my cousin Peter near the bus station.
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  • Gerardo uses the adverb "usually," which means "generally" or "under normal conditions."
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  • While this is a good adverb to use, we suggest placing the adverb after the auxiliary or helping verb "be."
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  • I am usually very fond of guests.
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  • The adjective "fond" is a great descriptive word. It is stronger than "like" but a little less strong than "love."
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  • Lastly, in these two sentences, we have "suddenly met."
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  • The adverb and verb combination are a good way to describe the chance meeting.
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  • In American English, we have a phrasal verb that is widely used in everyday speech for that chance meeting, "run into."
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  • "Run into" means to meet someone by chance or without planning.
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  • I am usually very fond of guests. Two weeks ago, I ran into my cousin Peter near the bus station.
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  • Let's move onto the next three sentences.
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  • We have not seen each other for ages.
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  • He came to the cita for just three weeks.
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  • So I invited him over for drinks last week-end.
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  • There are only a few small changes we need in these three sentences.
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  • Since Gerardo is writing in the past tense throughout the paragraph, we suggest keeping the past tense in the third sentence by using the past perfect.
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  • The past perfect is:
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  • Helping verb "had" plus the past participle of the verb.
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  • We had not seen each other for ages.
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  • In the fourth sentence, there is a small spelling error.
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  • We can change "cita" to "city."
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  • He came to the city for just three weeks.
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  • In the fifth sentence we will add a comma after the word "so."
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  • "So" in this case is an introductory word or transition.
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  • We add a comma after introductory words of this kind to show that the main part of the sentence follows.
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  • And lastly in that sentence, we can remove the hyphen (-) between the words "week" and "end" and combine them as a one-word compound noun.
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  • So, I invited him over for drinks last weekend.
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  • Let's look at the sixth sentence.
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  • He was short of time but he finally accepted.
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  • We suggest changing two things in this sentence.
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  • First, we suggest changing the preposition "of" to "on."
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  • While both "short of" and "short on" can mean similar things, "short on" means there is less time than expected or wanted, while "short of" means a lacking of something.
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  • Plus, "short on time" is used more often in American English than "short of time."
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  • Our final observation is that we need to add a comma between "time" and the conjunction "but."
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  • These are two separate sentences combined with "but," so we need a comma.
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  • He was short on time, but he finally accepted.
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  • We will continue with the final part of Gerardo's paragraph and suggest some organizational tips later.
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  • Today, we looked at Gerardo's message about his cousin's visit.
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  • We thought about adverb placement, commas and verbal tense.
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  • We learned a new phrasal verb "run into."
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  • We even looked at the small differences between "short of time" and "short on time."
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  • We will continue with Gerardo's message in a few weeks.
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  • Thank you, Gerardo, for sending your writing to us.
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  • I'm Faith Pirlo.
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  • I'm Bryan Lynn.
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  • And I'm Dorothy Gundy.