LET'S POLISH OUR ENGLISH ADV. BALRAJ “ADWITIYA” PRAKASH PANDE No.8, 3rd Cross Street,CIT Colony, Mylapore, Chennai, Tamil Nadu-600004 Copyright © Adv. Balraj Adwitiya Prakash Pande All Rights Reserved. This book has been published with all efforts taken to make the material errorfree after the consent of the author. However, the author and the publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. While every effort has been made to avoid any mistake or omission, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that neither the author nor the publishers or printers would be liable in any manner to any person by reason of any mistake or omission in this publication or for any action taken or omitted to be taken or advice rendered or accepted on the basis of this work. For any defect in printing or binding the publishers will be liable only to replace the defective copy by another copy of this work then available.

ISBN : 978-1-63714-209-7

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This book is dedicated to my better half !

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Contents Preface Acknowledgements Prologue

vi vii viii

1. Introduction 2. Tense

1 6 7

Present Tense Simple Present Tense Continuous Present Tense Perfect Present Tense Perfect Continuous Present Tense

Past Tense

7 14 17 20

24

Simple Past Tense Continuous Past Tense Perfect Past Tense Perfect Continuous Past Tense

Future Tense

24 26 29 32

35

Simple Future Tense Continuous Future Tense Perfect Future Tense Perfect Continuous Future Tense

More About Tense

35 39 42 45

48

3. Parts Of Speech

50

Noun Pronoun Adjective Verb Adverb Preposition Conjunction Interjection

51 69 87 102 131 142 153 159

Sticking To Basics Always Helps [v]

161

Preface This book is an important one to understand English in a better way. The title of the book is “Let’s Polish Our English”, in this title the word ‘polish’ is a Verb. It stands for an act of making English language shine. Like we apply polish to furniture, cars and rub the polish for hours and hours together, then the furniture or car shines brightly. It glitters ! Why ? The reason is simple because a good quality polish is applied to it. Just the same way round, this book will work as a polish to make your English language shine. In almost all four professions where I worked with different personalities, what I realized that even the higher authorities commit trivial mistakes in grammar which is not spotted by the speaker, reader or the listener. This book is not a critical approach to correct the mistakes being committed by such professional individuals, but to help them to improve English Language. Then one may ask the utility of this book! This book will help to avoid those unrecognizable mistakes. Since English has acquired an important place in India, and we Indians speak English as per our convenience, still neither being overshadowed by English as English nor underestimating Indian English this book simply provides an insight of basics to understand English correctly, speak English fluently and write English effectively. A Very Big Thank you ! Adv. Balraj “Adwitiya” Prakash Pande

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Acknowledgements This book is an outcome of many years of continuous hard work. Since schooling days till the middle of the professional life, I came across many different personalities. Bonding with different personalities who came from different strata of life gave me an insight of necessity of going back to basics. I acknowledge efforts of all those individuals who shaped my personality what I am today. Experience of different professions helped me understand the day to day difficulties of English Language in almost every profession. All those difficulties guided me to complete this grammar book to strengthen basics of English Language. I thank all my friends, colleagues and well wishers who ushered me to complete my dream of writing a book on English Grammar. To all my family members who stood behind me, even when I committed mistakes! . . . And that is because I love my family.

Thank You ! Adv. Balraj “Adwitiya” Prakash Pande “Shree”, H. No. 1-2-27, Near Shitala Mata Temple, Begumpura, Aurangabad. 431 004 Maharashtra. Cell No. +91 9923 135 007 Email Id – [email protected]

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Prologue It is said that in India at every kilometer a language changes. In my perception it is not the language that changes, I think the people who live in different geographical

location

use

language

as

per

their

convenience which eventually change the language making a wrong notion that language changes. Finally it is to be appreciated that language might change at every kilometer, but the rules of grammar remain the same everywhere. This book tries to make an honest effort to simplify the difficulties of English Grammar. Therefore there are only two important topics discussed extensively. I as an author sincerely think that once we understand the Tense and different Parts of Speech of English Language then it becomes a lot easier to understand the complex things too. In this modern day, work culture has changed drastically, a professional individual has to write so many Emails, daily reports, monthly reports and so on, while doing so unintentional mistakes are committed accidentally by them in Grammar. Most of the times the higher authorities ignore grammatical structures of sentences because they require data and they get correct data from their subordinates! That’s where everything starts to go wrong, because that particular individual does not know [viii]

what mistake he had committed in Grammar and he keeps going on without improving on it. This book will come to help those who realize that they need to improve grammar. . . . and they made a right choice to refer to this book; so Let’s Polish Our English! Thank You ! Adv. Balraj “Adwitiya” Prakash Pande

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________________________________________________Adv. Balraj “Adwitiya” Prakash Pande

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction Language is one of the most effective medium of communication. It could be casual or formal, we use language to express our feelings. A child who is born and brought up in an environment of certain language, he does not need to focus and learn grammar of that particular language, it is but natural he speaks that language which he listens the most. But the same child who grows up and desires to and needs to learn different language than that of the language he is surrounded by, he naturally needs to learn the grammar of the new language. Therefore the Non English speaking individuals who are not surrounded by English language, they certainly need to learn grammar of English language. In the present day scenario English language has attained such a unique rank that almost all the professional courses, are in English medium. While studying these courses, students face difficulties of English language and though they are very bright in their studies they could not fare well only because of fear of English Language. Grammar is such a vast topic, its scope is boundless. Especially grammar of English Language to the NonEnglish

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Let’s Polish Our English__________________________________________________________

speaking individuals terrorizes them. Therefore this book targets only two important chapters from the ocean of English Grammar. They are Tense and The Parts of Speech. These are the basics of English Grammar and once we make our basics strong then there would be no doubt that one can not build a magnificent skyscraper. This book targets to strengthen the basics of English Grammar and more importantly those who are well acquainted with English language and doing their professional works. They are not aware that sometimes they commit unintentional mistakes accidentally only because of not being aware of tense and the parts of speech. In the life of a professional employee, he has to write something to his superior or the other way, some higher professionals need to command or direct their subordinates but while doing so they flatly failed to understand that their writing skills need to stick to basics of grammar. Once I visited school of my daughter and I was shocked to see the notice on the board – “Examination is commencing next week, students are requested to clear their fees or they will not allow to appear in the exam” 2

______________________________________________Adv. Balraj “Adwitiya” Prakash Pande

Then a spy in me was woken up ! I approached to the teacher of my daughter and firstly asked the meaning of the notice. The teacher simply explained to me what all the teachers were instructed by the Head Master. Then I asked meaning of the last sentence “or they will not allow to appear in the exam”. The teacher gave me a big smile and told it is simple if fees is not paid, that particular student will be restricted from appearing in the examination. But I tried to make the teacher understand that in this particular last sentence “or they will not allow to appear in the exam”, it is an active voice in Simple Future Tense and in this sentence where in ‘they’ is a subject and it refers to “students”, the teacher said “Yes!”. Then I explained to her the real meaning of the sentence which means “The Students will not allow (you) to appear in the exam”. I replied her that if it is so then the sentence should have been “or they will not be allowed to appear in exam” The other day I received post from one of my friends who was very elated because the University has awarded him doctorate degree in his favorite subject after undergoing tremendous hard work. He circulated this news on all social media platforms. He captioned his photo in the following way –

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Let’s Polish Our English__________________________________________________________

“Hurrah !! Happy to announce that I have awarded Ph. D degree from this University” This post was made viral by him on social media accounts and he was getting Congratulatory notes from hundreds of his netizen friends. Then I called him and asked the meaning of the message he posted on social media, obviously he told that he received Ph D, then I tried to convince him that the message he posted giving the meaning that he has awarded the Ph D degree to the university. His post should have been “Hurrah !! Happy to announce that I have been awarded Ph. D. by this University” Such a small mistake of not using proper Tense and putting wrong preposition changes the whole meaning of sentence. Such kind of mistakes is so normal routine of the day that, nobody realizes them and the life goes on without any mess. The objective of this book is to avoid such grave mistakes. These mistakes do happen because in school and college curriculum Tense and The Parts of Speech are either not taught dedicatedly or not learned seriously, or 4

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these topics are not given importance by the education system of India at all. Therefore this book is not intended to a specific standard or class of students. This book targets those who already learned English and tries to make their English language more shiny and glittery by applying polish of basics of grammar. So in the next two chapters, Let’s Polish Our English!

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