Feedback on Warm-Up 2

I've just finished marking the Warm-Up 2 tasks and here's some general feedback (if you've submitted the Warm-Up, but not received feedback, let me know and I'll see what's happened; if you've not submitted yet, it's not too late!).

Firstly, nearly everyone worked out that the best way to get your money back is to be calm, dispassionate and factual. It's tempting to let off steam, but the only practical effect of that (in a letter of complaint) is to make things take longer! The recipient of this letter probably just wants to get rid of you by paying you off (the sums involved are tiny), so she probably wants to avoid bad publicity, more than anything else. On the other hand, she's not going to admit anything that might end up costing the company mega-bucks in a court case!

There were one or two cases where the letter came across as much too informal too. You're trying to impress on the company that they're dealing with a professional - someone who's angry at the moment, but could easily be placated by the insertion of money into her bank account! You need to be strictly formal in this letter, so using 'get', short forms or friendly closures like 'Best regards,' aren't a good idea.

Here are some specific points about language which cropped up in Warm-Up 2:

1. Defining and non-defining relative clauses

Sorry to get all technical on you!

Relative clauses often start with 'which' or 'that', and there are some of them that provide information essential to your reader's understanding of what you're talking about ('defining relative clauses') and some which add a little extra information, but aren't strictly necessary for your reader to understand the basic message ('non-defining relative clauses'), like these ones:

Defining relative clause:

He gave her the password which opened her computer account.

(I.e. out of all the passwords in the world, this one was the special one which did the job.)

Non-defining relative clause

She used the password to open her account, which meant that she was able to answer her new boss' mail on time.

(I.e. using the password is one thing - answering the mail is another.)

Did you notice the punctuation?

Non-defining relative clauses use a comma, defining relative clauses don't.

What this comma does is shows your reader what connections you're making between information in your sentence. There are cases where getting this connection wrong can make it extremely difficult for your reader to understand what you're saying.

In the defining relative clause example above, for example, putting a comma in says that the password somehow opened the account all on its own, without her needing to do anything. You can imagine other sets of instructions where this might really confuse someone. Let's say they have to carry out two operations. Making what you need to carry out the first one use a non-defining relative clause could easily make someone imagine that they don't need to do anything else, like this:

Take the key, which opens the security lock, and fetch the file from the filing cabinet inside the file room.

(Non-defining relative clause … so it's 'extra', unimportant information … so the person fetching the file could well end up standing outside the room with a key in his hand, not realising that he has to use it to get into the room!)

Take the key which opens the security lock and fetch the file from the filing cabinet inside the file room.

(Defining relative clause - it's much more clear what the person has do now, isn't it.)

This may seem to be terribly unimportant, but remember that famous Swedish example:

Avrätta ej vänta!

(Execute - not - wait)

Is that 'Avrätta ej, vänta!' (Don't execute [him], wait!) or 'Avrätta, ej vänta!' (Execute [him], don't wait!)?

2. In/on/at

Prepositions often cause problems - it's usually more or less impossible to explain why you use one, not another. In this case though …

When you're talking about time and place,

IN is for the big things (in Sweden/in 2012)

ON is for the middle-sized things (on Main Street/on Monday)

AT is for specific points (at the corner of Main Street and Lexington/at 3.00 pm).

Here's a diagram which could help:

3. Simple and Continuous Verb Tenses

Look at these two sentences:

A. The car broke down as I drove into New York.

B. The car broke down as I was driving into New York.

Which one is right?

Well … it all depends what message you're trying to convey! 

(A) is probably the best alternative in this particular context, because writing "drove" indicates that this is a situation which is finished and in the past.  What (B) conveys is the process and length of time the driving was taking. It provides a much more vivid picture of the problem you had … which is great when you're telling your friends over a cup of coffee or a drink what a traumatic time you had in New York, after you get home, but it introduces an element of emotive language which you're probably better avoiding in this letter.

Take these three possible witness statements about a bank robbery:

i) As I got out of my car, a man was coming out of the bank with a gun in his hand.

ii) As I was getting out of my car, a man came out of the bank with a gun in his hand.

iii) As I was getting out of my car, a man was coming out of the bank with a gun in his hand.

Experienced detectives often develop an instinct about which statement is most reliable, and this instinct is often based on grammar! Which one would you trust most?

Witness (i) saw the leaving of his or her car is a 'finished' action in the past, whilst the man coming out of the bank was something that he or she saw as an action which took time.

Witness (ii) saw the situation the other way: he or she was concentrating harder on getting out of the car, whilst the man with gun was a passing or fleeting experience.

Witness (iii) divided his or her attention between the two.

A detective would probably rely most on Witness (i)'s description of what the robber looked like, how he was dressed and which way he went. The detective probably wouldn't be able to say why she felt that … but a student of English grammar could supply some reasons for it!

4. Colons and Semi-Colons

Here's the general rule:

Colons split sentences into two unequal parts, whilst semi-colons split them into two or more equal parts.

Thus, everything that comes to the right of a colon is an example - or a consequence - of what comes to the left, like this:

There were several issues with the car: the lack of cleaning, the lack of washer fluid and the fact that it broke down on the freeway.

The national anthem of the UK is "God Save the Queen"; the one of the US is "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Sometimes colons are used to introduce lists with complex items in it, with semi-colons separating the items, like this:

The latest upgrade by Apple includes the iWork suite free of charge: Pages, which is the equivalent of Microsoft Word; Numbers, which is a substitute for Excel; and Keynote which is much more versatile replacement for PowerPoint.