THE CONJUGATION OF BODIES

It is sometimes confusing the conjugation of words such as everybody, somebody or anybody because some of them englobing, well, everybody, one may suppose it would conjugate as a plural, but no, it conjugates as a singular.

Here are some examples:

Everyones is expected to Wendy's party.
Somebody should check if the boiler is on.
Has anybody seen my baby?

On the other hand people is a plural noun -or pronoun, as some Grammar books may categorize it- and therefore should be conjugated as plural.
Eg. People are generally kind-hearted.

Here is a small exercise for you to practise:

Put the verbs in prenthesis in the correct form depending on the subject:

1. Everything possible (have) been done to save the patient's life.
2. Everyone (agree) with you.
3. Everyone (want) to be happy.
4. Most people (be) ambitious.
5. Many people (travel) by bus.
6. A few people (be) not frightened by earthquakes.

If you wish solve the exercise and post your results!

TOPS & BOTTOMS

ceiling.- n. inner top of a room or building. eg. The lamp hangs from the ceiling.

roof.- n. outer top of a room or building. eg. After the rins they had to sweep the tree leaves from the roof .

floor.- n. 1. inner bottom part of room or building. 2. one of several stories in which a building might be divided. eg. The rug on the wooden floor is imported from China.

ground.- n. the bottom part of everything, where one sets foot on. eg. The sailors were glad to arrive to safe ground finally.

GUIDELINES FOR PROBLEM-SOLUTION SPEECH

When starting to write your speech, start with a killing sentence to grsp your audience's atention, then keep in mind the following questions to round your speech:

1. What type of problem was it?

2. Where were you?

3. When were you there?

4. Who was with you?

5. What were you doing?

6. Why were you there?

7. How were you feeling?

8. Why did you feel that way?

9. What was your goal?

10. How did you react?

11. How was the problem solved?

SPEECH RUBRICS

Considerate Punctuation
Eye contact
Vocabulary
Grammar
Fluency
Pronunciation
Use of gestures
Pose
Average:

BURGLARS, MUGGERS AND OTHER UNPLEASANT PEOPLE

How do you call unpleasant people that threaten your peace on the streets or even home?
Well, it depends on what they do because even in the low districts there is a hierarchy!

Burglar.- n. Someone who breaks into a place (house, flat, office, etc.) to take things illegally.

Mugger.- n. Someone who stops you in the middle of the street to take your things away.

Robber .- n. Someone who steals by force.

Thief .- n. Someone who steals.

Ok, so you say, "Well, the last three are very similar." Yes, they are, but check the minor details, they are there for a reason. Read again. A mugger appears out of nowhere and takes your things, maybe he scares you but he doesn't harm you. A robber is violent, he uses force, he may be armed or he may hit you. Finally a thief can be a poor person that takes an apple from a stand out of pure hunger without harmful intentions. Anyway if he steals your wallet, he's still unpleasant!

CONFUSING WORDS: A MATTER OF FEELINGS

Often, for Spanish natives, it is easy to confuse emotion and excitement because of the false cognate of emoción and emotion. Ok, here's the tip:

emotion n. 1. strong feeling such as love, anger, or fear 2.emotional inteligence or sensibility [MFr, rel. to MOTION]
eg. The intense emotion invaded her and she started crying.

excitement n. 1. excited state of mind 2. eciting thing (exciting.- arousing great interest or enthusiasm)
eg. The excitement over the football match was great, people were roaring and a vibrant atmosphere could be sensed in the stadium.

WORD FORMATION -less, -ful

Adjectives can be formed adding -less or -ful to nouns. eg. shameful, shameless
In this case -less rests the quality while -ful adds it, therefore shameless means with no shame and shameful means full of shame.
Try to deduct the meaning of the following adjectives:

fruitless
fruitful
harmful
harmless
spoonful