Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[lucy_ever]

hi,do me a favor ,thanks, here i have some questionsthat i'm not sure which one is right.
1,i don't feel well.mum asked me___this morning.
A. what the matter is B what is wrong
Cwhat was the matter Dwhat wrong was
2, what's her nationality? She is____
A English Ban English C an Englishman D the English

[damon@English24/7]

Hi,

1. I don`t feel well. Mum asked me what was the matter this morning.

You could also use "Mum asked me `what is the matter` this morning."

2. What`s her nationality? She is English.

C would be acceptable if the subject were a man "He is an Englishman" but the suffix "-man" really isn`t used anymore to refer to women. "She is an Englishwoman" would also be acceptable.

Also it is important to note that most nationalities when used as a noun are gender neutral and don`t require any distinction and that they are usually not any different from nationality when used as an adjective. "He/She is Canadian" and "He/She is a Canadian" are both perfectly acceptable. English/Englishman/Englishwoman are probably the trickiest examples you could find.

damon

[lucy_ever]

thank,damon.but i still can't understand why i can use "what is wrong"as you said what is the matter is properly

[damon@English24/7]

Hi,

You have to pay careful attentiion to the punctuation. In this case pay attention to the small quotation marks ('). As an aside, when you quote you should use double quotation marks ("), but when you quote inside a quote the outside quote gets a double (") and the inside gets a single ('), as I did in my last post.

The reason it is ok to use "Mum asked me 'what is the matter' this morning" is that the speaker is quoting your mom directly. At the time of the conversation (in the morning), did your mom say "what was the matter?" No, she said "what is the matter." So if you are quoting directly, then your would use the exact words.

If you are not quoting directly (as is the case in your example because there are no quotatiion marks," then you need to conjugate the verbs as normal: Mum asked me what was the matter this morning.

In writing we use quotation marks; when speaking we use different inflections (different tones of voice) to mark out when we are using someone else`s words.

In summary, it is ok to use "what is the matter" when it is a direct quote.

I hope this didn`t confuse you further.

damon

[lucy_ever]

thanks damon,your explanation is very clear.