AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster —— questions and more questions!
RS: Listener Ahmed Mustaque sends this question by e-mail from somewhere in cyberspace: "Could you please tell me about the word 'being.'"
AA: "Being" is used as a verb when you talk about a continuous situation. For instance, the Irish-born playwright Oscar Wilde wrote a comedy called "The Importance of Being Earnest."
RS: It can also mean something that exists —— like a human being. There it's used as a noun. And it can modify a noun. When people say "for the time being," "being" serves as an adjective.
AA: "For the time being" means "for now," the present time —— in other words, until something changes. Some people also use "being" in place of "because" or "since," as in the phrase "being as how …… "
RS: Now, being as how we don't have much time, we move on to a question that should resound with teachers everywhere. It's from Dianne Gray in Moscow. She's new to English teaching, and we've answered some of her questions before.
AA: Recently Dianne was invited to help a group of four new students. Her question: "How can these students be corrected as a group （if so） without embarrassing anyone?"
RS: Well, as it turned out, Dianne answered her own question this time. She wrote back to say: "What I did with my new group of students was to ask them how they feel comfortable about being corrected as a group. They said I should just correct them and they would not get upset. So, we're trying that."
AA: Next a question from a listener in Bangladesh who's also written us before. Azmul Haque in Dhaka asks us to explain what's called an oxymoron.
RS That word —— which comes to us from Greek —— is a combination of words that seem to make no sense being together, yet, despite the contradiction people use them.
AA: Here are some examples: "healthy tan," "jumbo shrimp," "working vacation," "peace force" and "pretty ugly."
RS: These examples come from the "Top 20" at oxymoronlist.com. Number 20, by the way, is "government organization."
MUSIC: "Mister Ed"/Theme from 1960s TV show
AA: And now, the most unusual question we've ever gotten. A listener in China would like to know what we Americans say to a horse to urge it to move faster.
RS: "In my country?writes Pan Runzhou in Shanghai, people utter the sound like jar~jar~jar~".
AA: Well, for an answer we turn to a horse expert, Nancy Smart at Longevity Farm in Maryland:
SMART: "Actually this is kind of an interesting question, because we don't say much. If we say anything, we cluck at them [sound] —— you know, click, click, click, click. But really mostly the way we ask our horses to go faster is with our legs and our seats and our hands, non-verbal aids. If I'm asking my horse to move from a walk to a trot, I'll just squeeze gently with my calves, and he will move into a trot."
AA: "Do you ever use the expression 'whoa Nelly!'"
SMART: "Never. Never. I know what it means —— it means 'stop horse.' But it's not something that I've ever in my life used."
RS: Nancy Smart, accomplished equestrian and —— until she retired from VOA last year —— our editor on Wordmaster. But while serious riders like Nancy may bridle at the term "whoa Nelly!" it is used as slang …… to tell a PERSON to slow down, like if someone is talking too fast or coming on too strong.
RS: Listener Ahmed Mustaque sends this question by e-mail from somewhere in cyberspace: "Could you please tell me about the word 'being.'"
AA: "Being" is used as a verb when you talk about a continuous situation. For instance, the Irish-born playwright Oscar Wilde wrote a comedy called "The Importance of Being Earnest."
RS: It can also mean something that exists —— like a human being. There it's used as a noun. And it can modify a noun. When people say "for the time being," "being" serves as an adjective.
AA: "For the time being" means "for now," the present time —— in other words, until something changes. Some people also use "being" in place of "because" or "since," as in the phrase "being as how …… "
RS: Now, being as how we don't have much time, we move on to a question that should resound with teachers everywhere. It's from Dianne Gray in Moscow. She's new to English teaching, and we've answered some of her questions before.
AA: Recently Dianne was invited to help a group of four new students. Her question: "How can these students be corrected as a group （if so） without embarrassing anyone?"
RS: Well, as it turned out, Dianne answered her own question this time. She wrote back to say: "What I did with my new group of students was to ask them how they feel comfortable about being corrected as a group. They said I should just correct them and they would not get upset. So, we're trying that."
AA: Next a question from a listener in Bangladesh who's also written us before. Azmul Haque in Dhaka asks us to explain what's called an oxymoron.
RS That word —— which comes to us from Greek —— is a combination of words that seem to make no sense being together, yet, despite the contradiction people use them.
AA: Here are some examples: "healthy tan," "jumbo shrimp," "working vacation," "peace force" and "pretty ugly."
RS: These examples come from the "Top 20" at oxymoronlist.com. Number 20, by the way, is "government organization."
MUSIC: "Mister Ed"/Theme from 1960s TV show
AA: And now, the most unusual question we've ever gotten. A listener in China would like to know what we Americans say to a horse to urge it to move faster.
RS: "In my country?writes Pan Runzhou in Shanghai, people utter the sound like jar~jar~jar~".
AA: Well, for an answer we turn to a horse expert, Nancy Smart at Longevity Farm in Maryland:
SMART: "Actually this is kind of an interesting question, because we don't say much. If we say anything, we cluck at them [sound] —— you know, click, click, click, click. But really mostly the way we ask our horses to go faster is with our legs and our seats and our hands, non-verbal aids. If I'm asking my horse to move from a walk to a trot, I'll just squeeze gently with my calves, and he will move into a trot."
AA: "Do you ever use the expression 'whoa Nelly!'"
SMART: "Never. Never. I know what it means —— it means 'stop horse.' But it's not something that I've ever in my life used."
RS: Nancy Smart, accomplished equestrian and —— until she retired from VOA last year —— our editor on Wordmaster. But while serious riders like Nancy may bridle at the term "whoa Nelly!" it is used as slang …… to tell a PERSON to slow down, like if someone is talking too fast or coming on too strong.