On and Off

It's not uncommon for Malaysians to say, "Please on the light", or, "Don't forget to off the fan." 

The words 'on' and 'off' are used as verbs in the two examples above. This is ungrammatical. If 'on' and 'off' can be used as verbs, then the following should be correct: 

1. "I am onning the light right now."	- 'onning': continuous (progressive) tense of 'on'
2. "I offed the fan just a minute ago."	- 'offed': past tense of 'off'

But they are not - because 'on' and 'off' are not verbs, and do not have tenses.

We use 'on' as a preposition ("The book is on the table"), an adjective ("The debate was on when we arrived"), or an adverb ("He looked on while others worked").

Similarly, we use 'off' as a preposition ("The ball is off the ground"), an adjective ("The other party can't come, so the debate is off"), or an adverb ("He ran off with the money when no one was looking").

But we don't use 'on' and 'off' as verbs.

So, don't say, "Please on the light." Say, "Please turn on the light."

Don't say, "Don't forget to off the fan." Say, "Don't forget to switch off the fan."  

How does the reading brain work?

Reading is a complex process. It requires different areas of the brain, namely temporal lobe, frontal lobe and angular gyrus,  to be activated in a coordinated and synchronised way.

We have made the following video to demonstrate the reading process of our brain. 




Click here for Chinese version of this video.

What's up?

I found this interesting write-up from the Internet about the word "up". The write-up is replicated on several websites, the following being just two of them: 

	http://wordinfo.info/unit/3039?letter=P&spage=12
	http://www.digitaltermpapers.com/b2809.htm

I don't know the original source, so I'm unable to give due credit to the author. The write-up is reproduced verbatim below, warts and all:

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'up'. It's easy to understand up, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake up? At a meeting, why does a topic come up? Why do we speak up and why are the officers up for election and why is it up to the secretary to write up a report? We call up our friends. We brighten up a room, polish up the silver; we warm up the leftovers and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and some guys fix up the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning: People stir up trouble, line up for tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed up is special. A drain must be opened up because it is stopped up. We open up a store in the morning but we close it up at night. We seem to be pretty mixed up about up! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of up, look the word up  in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes up almost 1/4th of the page and can add up to about thirty definitions. If you are up to it, you might try building up a list of the many ways  up is used. It will take up a lot of your time, but if you don't give up , you may wind up with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding  up. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing up. When it rains, the wets the earth and often messes things  up. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry  up. I could go on and on, but I'll wrap it up, for now my time is up  so ... it is time to shut  up!

Can you think of other ways the word  up is used?

Pronunciation gone awry...

The other day, I heard a newsreader use the word "awry" while reading the news on television. She pronounced the word as "awe-ree": /ˈɔ:ri/. I believe that's also how the majority of Malaysians pronounce the word.

Be honest, now - how do you pronounce it?

The correct pronunciation is "a-rye":  /əˈraɪ/.

The Reading Brain

For this topic, we have made a short video so that readers can easily understand the 'reading brain' and how does our brain acquire reading skill.



Click here for a Chinese version of this video.