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dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

There are many ways to correctly re-write these sentences which convey the same meaning. what is wrong with your initial answer of notice? Nothing.

The problem is in the instructions of the task or the person marking you. I have come across this many times where the teacher has an answer and one answer only and will not accept anything else.

coffeedrinker · Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 149

It may be a mistake to assume the error is just one wrong word - as others have said there are different ways of expressing the same idea - although it's true that students often assume mistakes take the form of one incorrect word or tense or whatever.

The second one could also be - It might rain today (or maybe It might not rain today, depending on the context). If the task is really to replace just one word, I'd be more inclined to say I'm not sure it will rain today (that's two words, isn't it).

The first one: she mentioned? a man...

I don't know that I'm necessarily right, but I think it says something about the quality of these questions if so many teachers have all these different answers! Smile

But - these answers were also not my first impression - so it's interesting to me that sometimes my own impression was to correct what was there rather than say it naturally...

Maybe it goes to show why it's hard to do appropriate on the spot correction in class!

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:02 am Post subject:

Some think that having more than one possible answer is a sign of bad test design, but I prefer to see it as evidence of a grasp of grammar, or at least viable alternatives, rather than avoidance, and hopefully this test allows for minor additions as well as substitutions.

BTW, 'remark' by itself can have the meaning of 'note, take note of' (to oneself, in one's own mind): He remarked the absence of policemen (Concise Oxford Thesaurus). But it seems infrequent, and the type of object might well not typically be of the 'a man doing something' type.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:12 am Post subject:

BTW it can be useful and fun to put the items that get thrown up by stuff like this into logical chains:

She noticed a man. She regarded him from afar for a while, noted how handsome he was and then later remarked to her friends that/how she was now in love.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

My wife often says "I have went..." she is a native speaker and I notice that most people in her family/area say this. (ontario) If my students say this I would correct them. Should I stop correcting them?

We are getting into the use vs usage debate here. Razz

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:56 am Post subject:

guty · Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 365 Location: on holiday

Obviously for UK based courses the correction is

I AM sure it'll rain today!

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:05 pm Post subject:

Or, I'm SURE it'll rain today (boy, am I sad for analyzing what's clearly a joke Cool

).

Sonnet · Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 235 Location: South of the river

The "sure" one has been dealt with pretty well - can anyone from our Spanish-speaking language colonies [sorry, markets, sorry, exiles, sorry, ...] confirm my initial feeling that the "remarked" sentence is based on a false friend, probably from a Latin/Romance-based language?

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

'remarked' is wrong; to 'remark' is to say something about something, to make an observation in words.

Noticed. observed or saw will all do.

The next example is more complicated.

'It is sure to rain' is perfectly good English.
"I'm sure it will rain' is perfectly good English.
"It's sure not to rain" might be a little stilted but still seems correct.

But for some reason "?it's not sure it will rain" or "?it's not sure to rain" are possibly incorrect.

The British National Corpus has eleven tokens for 'it is sure' and zero for 'it is not sure'.

I can't check with the Time Archive, and the problem is that Google will not give me a count for the whole string. There are however quite a lot of examples from impeccably native speaker sources of 'it is not sure' and I would have to say that the phrase cannot be considered incorrect.

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:38 pm Post subject:

Leaving aside the fact that 'certain' is acceptable will allow me to address 'sure' like it mattered. Smile

The doubling up of 'it' makes the first less of a mindless dummy (it will appear to have a mind and volition regarding itself in the second clause (compare "I'm not sure I'll go" and, interestingly, "?l'm not sure to go")); the flip side of the coin is that a 'to-' clause will allow the prior clause to assume aspect (edit: modality? See post below) rather than mind/intent - compare "*It's going it will rain" with "It's going to rain" (where imminent aspect can emerge in the latter).

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject:

SJ wrote: "Teejay, both your answers are correct. I suggest you find somewhere else to do the course."

Actually TJ didn't at first have the answers: the ones that you've quoted are what she's "borrowed" from us. So although she was marked wrong before, it was actually for the very reasonable reason that she was in fact wrong or had drawn a blank; that is, please read the FIRST page (again?).

Rolling Eyes

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:39 pm Post subject:

Actually 'be (not) sure to' is probably more modality than an aspect (I was preoccupied with 'be going to'/"imminent aspect" when I typed 'aspect') - right?

eslstudies · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 1061 Location: East of Aden

IMHO, the first one lacks a preposition, "on/upon", and the second a conjunction, "if". At a guess, correcting a sentence in this context wouldn't involve replacing key items, but more fine tuning what is there.
But then I'm Australian.