Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[luciaC]

Are they correct? Thank you!

1. Child obesity is a serious problem now in American schools. Doctors suggested doing more exercises instead of playing video games and watching TV.
2. Sleeping could be catching. If you see one person sleeping in the class, you feel like sleeping, too.
3. A new report said coffee was good to your health.
4. Don�t open your e-mail if the sender is unknown because it may carry viruses that may damage your files.
5. Being overweight may easily cause high blood pressure.
6. High blood pressure may cause stroke.
7. Taking a shower everyday is personal hygiene. You don�t need to be taught by your teacher.
8. SARs is epidemic, but Mad Cow Disease isn�t.
9. Copying the whole book is ethically wrong. That�s stealing someone�s copyright.
10. To avoid getting fat, we shouldn�t eat too much chocolate and fast food.
11. The high housing price in Silicon Valley is due to the high demand.
12. Smoking is bad for your health because nicotine may infect your lungs.
13. Scientists concluded that nicotine may lead to lung cancer.
14. According to Darwin�s theory, human beings are from monkeys.
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Mimi

[ErwinR]

I would write them as following, but I am not a native speaker, so please, let somebody else check it too.

1. Child obesity is a serious problem nowadays in American schools. Doctors suggest doing more exercises instead of playing video games and watching TV.
2. Sleeping could be catching. If you see one person sleeping in the class, you feel like sleeping too. (without a comma before too)
3. A new report said coffee is good for your health.
4. Don�t open your e-mail if the sender is unknown, because it may carry viruses that may damage your files.
5. Being overweight may easily cause high blood pressure.
6. High blood pressure may cause stroke.
7. Taking a shower every day is personal hygiene. You don�t need to be taught by your teacher. (space between every and day)
8. SARS is epidemic, but Mad Cow Disease isn�t. (Everybody writes SARS in capitals, but one can find both Mad Cow Disease or mad cow disease, even in official documents. I don't know which is the official spelling.)
9. Copying the whole book is ethically wrong. That�s stealing someone�s copyright.
10. To avoid getting fat, we shouldn�t eat too much chocolate and fast food.
11. The high housing price in Silicon Valley is due to the high demand.
12. Smoking is bad for your health, because nicotine may infect your lungs.
13. Scientists concluded that nicotine may lead to lung cancer.
14. According to Darwin�s theory, human beings are inferred from monkeys.[/b]

[advoca]

May I throw in my two pennoth here in connection with capital letters? There is a difference between, Mad Cow Disease and mad cow disease.

If I have a cow that is mad it might also have a disease. You could say my mad cow disease is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or bovine leukemia, and so on. But if my cow has Mad Cow Disease it suffers from that specific disease. We use capital letters to denote a specific situation, person, or thing.

For example, in Britain there is a senior position in the government called the Foreign Secretary. He might employ a girl from France to do secretarial work for him. She would be foreign (not British). In other words, the Foreign Secretary has a foreign secretary.