Reviewing Your Message about Guests
2023-06-09
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1A few weeks ago, we asked our readers and listeners to write about having guests over.
2Many of you wrote in using the words you learned. One reader, Gerardo, wrote to us about his cousin Peter's visit.
3In this week's Everyday Grammar, we will comment on Gerardo's message.
4And we will give some grammar suggestions.
5I usually am very fond of guests.
6Two weeks ago, I suddenly met my cousin Peter near the bus station.
7We have not seen each other for ages.
8He came to the cita for just three weeks.
9So I invited him over for drinks last week-end.
10He was short of time but he finally accepted.
11On Saturday, we spent time catching up talking about those beautiful days we played games and eating in the countryside when we were very young.
12We had dinner together and then he left.
13Let's start with the first two sentences.
14I usually am very fond of guests.
15Two weeks ago, I suddenly met my cousin Peter near the bus station.
16Gerardo uses the adverb "usually," which means "generally" or "under normal conditions."
17While this is a good adverb to use, we suggest placing the adverb after the auxiliary or helping verb "be."
18I am usually very fond of guests.
19The adjective "fond" is a great descriptive word. It is stronger than "like" but a little less strong than "love."
20Lastly, in these two sentences, we have "suddenly met."
21The adverb and verb combination are a good way to describe the chance meeting.
22In American English, we have a phrasal verb that is widely used in everyday speech for that chance meeting, "run into."
23"Run into" means to meet someone by chance or without planning.
24I am usually very fond of guests. Two weeks ago, I ran into my cousin Peter near the bus station.
25Let's move onto the next three sentences.
26We have not seen each other for ages.
27He came to the cita for just three weeks.
28So I invited him over for drinks last week-end.
29There are only a few small changes we need in these three sentences.
30Since 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.
31The past perfect is:
32Helping verb "had" plus the past participle of the verb.
33We had not seen each other for ages.
34In the fourth sentence, there is a small spelling error.
35We can change "cita" to "city."
36He came to the city for just three weeks.
37In the fifth sentence we will add a comma after the word "so."
38"So" in this case is an introductory word or transition.
39We add a comma after introductory words of this kind to show that the main part of the sentence follows.
40And lastly in that sentence, we can remove the hyphen (-) between the words "week" and "end" and combine them as a one-word compound noun.
41So, I invited him over for drinks last weekend.
42Let's look at the sixth sentence.
43He was short of time but he finally accepted.
44We suggest changing two things in this sentence.
45First, we suggest changing the preposition "of" to "on."
46While 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.
47Plus, "short on time" is used more often in American English than "short of time."
48Our final observation is that we need to add a comma between "time" and the conjunction "but."
49These are two separate sentences combined with "but," so we need a comma.
50He was short on time, but he finally accepted.
51We will continue with the final part of Gerardo's paragraph and suggest some organizational tips later.
52Today, we looked at Gerardo's message about his cousin's visit.
53We thought about adverb placement, commas and verbal tense.
54We learned a new phrasal verb "run into."
55We even looked at the small differences between "short of time" and "short on time."
56We will continue with Gerardo's message in a few weeks.
57Thank you, Gerardo, for sending your writing to us.
58I'm Faith Pirlo.
59I'm Bryan Lynn.
60And I'm Dorothy Gundy.