1.2.3 Modification of noun-phrases
adjective The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster train running in the most adverse weather conditions. Premodifier ed-participle ing-participle noun a balanced budget, the emitted light one striking feature of the years 1929-31, existing structures application areas, performance characteristics, data transmission systems, high precision instrument relative clause students who have no previous experience to-clauses the solution to the problem of inflation, the question to be debated ing-clauses ed-clauses Postmodifier prepositional phrase adverb (phrase) adjective (phrase) The forces due to friction are called frictional forces. In this factory the only fuel available is coal.
1.2.4 Subordinate clauses 1.2.5 Passive verbs 2．Formality
Exercise 1 Avoiding informal language
Identify the informal expressions in the following sentences. Rewrite the following sentences, replacing the informal expressions with a more formal equivalent.
1. With women especially, there is a lot of social pressure to conform to a certain physical shape. 2. Significantly, even at this late date, Lautrec was considered a bit conservative by his peers. 3. It focused on a subject that a lot of the bourgeois and upper-class exhibition-going public regarded as anti-social and anti-establishment.
4. Later Florey got together with Paul Fildes in an experimental study of the use of curare to relieve the intractable muscular spasms which occur in fully developed infection with tetanus or
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A direct current is a current flowing always in the same direction. The results obtained must be checked. we need to bring to the box a special tool with a ready-compressed spring the road back, the people outside lockjaw.
5. When a patient is admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit, the clinical team should avoid the temptation to start specific treatments immediately.
6. Therefore after six months the dieter is behaving according to all twenty-six goals and she has achieved a big reduction in sugar intake.
7. Modern houses have so many labour-saving things that it is difficult for the person at home to have adequate exercise by doing chores, cooking, and looking after a family.
8. Simply making the effort to reclaim this wasted stuff for fertilizer would have a positive effect on greenhouse releases.
9. It is difficult to imagine exactly what is meant by saying that such a classification is natural as any collection of things could be classified in this way.
10. Unfortunately, since there are so many possible explanations, the correct one is most difficult to find out.
11. These exercises can easily be incorporated into an exercise routine, with each exercise done again a number of times.
12. Fleming did well in isolating a streptococcus from the cerebrospinal fluid of the patient. 13. Effective vaccines prevent such hazards, but only if a social organisation makes sure that all potential mothers are vaccinated in good time.
Exercise 2: Avoiding abbreviations
Rewrite the following sentences, replacing the informal abbreviated form with a more formal equivalent.
1. The radical restructuring of British politics after 1931 does't lie in the events of 13-28 August, but in the changing attitudes within the National Government.
2. This isn't easy to do since most historians persist in speaking of The National Government as if the same sort of government ruled from 1931 to 1940.
3. The first National Government wasn't intended to be a coalition government in the normal sense of the term.
4. These aren't at all original or exotic but are based on the ordinary things that most people tend to eat.
Exercise 3: Avoiding two word verbs
1. A primary education system was set up throughout Ireland as early as 1831 2. This will cut down the amount of drug required and so the cost of treatment.
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3. The material amenities of life have gone up in Western society.
4. The press reflected the living culture of the people; it could influence opinion and reinforce existing attitudes but it did not come up with new forms of entertainment. 5. Thus, he should have looked into how the patient has coped previously. 6. The aggregate of outstanding balances went up and down quite violently.
7. In 1947 the Treasury brought up the question of excluding South Africa (and India) from the sterling area.
8. Dieters often feel that they should totally get rid of high-fat and high-sugar foods.
9. Thus when a Gallic bishop in 576 converted the local Jewish community to Christianity, those who turned down baptism were expelled from the city.
10. Western scholars gradually turned out a corpus of translations from the Arabic and studies of Islam.
11. Ms Tucker, Lord White's 29-year-old companion, has since taken her statement back. 12. Discussion of the outcome of experiments that have used this method will be put off until Chapter 7.
13. They did not easily accept or put up with differences in others.
14. My high-school friend signed up for three years with the army so he could put away enough money to go to university and study law.
15. The solitary feeding of insectivores in forests was therefore put down to a foraging strategy involving the pursuit of cryptic and easily disturbed prey by singletons.
16. In style, the turn toward abstraction and simplification came about earliest with Anquetin and Bernard and next with van Gogh.
17. For Klein that cloudless day never arrived, but he never gave up his hope for a just world. 18. Eventually the Irish party was forced to go back to Westminster. 19. The court thinks it just and equitable to give back the property.
20. The English liked coal fires even though they do not always give off much heat.
21. The story told by German propaganda, however, gave away nothing of the mounting hopelessness of the 6th Army's position.
22. These exercises can easily be incorporated into an exercise routine, with each done again a number of times.
23. Marx took as one of his main tasks the understanding of how this system came into being and this was in order to find out why this system had such power.
24. This was before he had read the guidelines on how to carry out the research.
25. Still, the pressure to do well as an individual made most women believe that the problems they
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encountered were probably of their own making.
Exercise 4
It is often the case that formal words are longer than informal words, formal words are single words not multi-words and formal words are of French/Latin origin rather than their informal equivalents which are of Anglo-Saxon origin.
For example: “depart” is from French/Latin but “go” is Anglo-Saxon. Complete the following table: Formal Informal Formal Informal seem in the end climb at once help initially cease intermittently commence mainly use repeatedly decrease next demonstrate therefore depart go understanding want deficiency enquire opportunity end perspiration tell house obtain sight preserve understanding reject deficiency free opportunity mend perspiration require house live sight retain
3 Objectivity Exercise 1: Drugs
Formal Informal amiable whole energetic fortunate childish wrong inferior inexpensive dim insane laid back responsible enough better transparent empty 8
