So Lindsey Lohan wrote a post on her Myspace blog denouncing some comments by her father. I'm not going to get into details and the gossip. However, as the AP News reported, the post is "dash happy". It uses way too many dashes and not at all correctly.

Here's an excerpt:

If you have something to say to me, say it to my face- that's what i have believed my whole life- don't be a coward and say it to others first, let alone all the media in the world- i think we know where the rest of this blog is going...

If you guessed it had to do with my father- then you guessed right! It really hurts, because i have tried- after all that my mother and siblings have gone through, i really tried to make things work- For the hope of having a father again-wanting things to change- even though people have said, some people will forever remain the same.

Having said that- the people were right, and he is yet to change- but this time, without his daughter by his side- He has become a public embaressment and a bully- To my family, my co-workers, my friends, and a girl that means the world to me (its obvious who that is).

The problem is that she is using the dash as a substitute for a period, a semi-colon, and a comma. In limited uses, this is ok but when it is used too much, it looks like the author has no idea how to write well.

By the formal rules of Standard Written English a dash is used to mark an abrupt change of thought or subject, much like parentheses (). However whereas parentheses are used to set apart phrases or clauses that are somewhat related, dashs set out phrases or ideas that are much less clearly connected.

For example:
I went to Pizzeria Uno (the one in Harvard Square) today and had the most delicious linguine.

I use parentheses because "the one in Harvard Square" isn't vital to the meaning of the sentence, but the information is related to the subject. I'm letting you know exactly which one I went to, in case you care.

I went to Ali-Baba restaurant yesterday-I love those lights they have there that look like real torches--and had some awesome shish kebab!

OK, the fact that I love the lights at the Ali Baba restaurant is not really related to the main idea, so dashes are better.

Notice that in standard English, we have to close our dashes. That is, the dashes (and parentheses as well) should surround a clause. We cannot write:
I hate cockroaches-remember that huge cockroach we saw last summer?
Instead, we can say:
I hate cockroaches-remember that huge cockroach we saw last summer?-and spiders and other insects.
In informal writing, one dash is fine.

The worst paragraph by far of Ms. Lohan's post is the first one, which I repeat here:

If you have something to say to me, say it to my face- that's what i have believed my whole life- don't be a coward and say it to others first, let alone all the media in the world- i think we know where the rest of this blog is going...

Lindsey, darling, try this next time:
If you have something to say to me, say it to my face. That's what I have believed my whole life. Don't be a coward and say it to others first, let alone all the media in the world-I think we know where the rest of this blog is going...

The last dash is acceptable, in my opinion) because 1) this is informal writing and 2)the idea is slightly related to what came before but not so strongly that a comma or parentheses will suffice.

Also, Ms. Lohan should capitalize her "I"'s (Self esteem problems?).

Let me also finish by adding that I love to use dashes. My writing is definitely dash happy-and I get a lot of critiquing for that. Opps! I mean, "My writing is definitely dash happy, and I get a lot of critiquing for that." I use it as a substitute for semi-colons and even for colons. For informal writing, that's ok. Although it should never be overused! One a paragraph is too much!

And one way a dash should never be used is as a substitute for the verb "to be". In Russian, we do this: "She - teacher" or "The share of people with icomes over $100 000 - 6%" would be transliterations of a perfectly correct Russian sentence. Don't do this in English. Ever. Especially in long lists of figures. Please. It's really confusing!

And read my blog for grammar, not Lindsey Lohan's!

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Another writing tip that will help you on the TOEFL writing section or when writing an academic essay. Using words and ideas to transition from one sentence to the next and one paragraph to the next will help your reader to understand you. Without transition words, your essay can make little sense.

Transitions can be accomplished through the use of transition words.
Transition words that link similar ideas include: and, as well as, in addition to, furthermore.
Words that link contrasting ideas include: but, yet, however, although, whereas, even though.
To give examples use: for example, for instance, in one case.
To signal a conclusion or the result of something try: in conclusion, therefore, that is why, for this reason.
To make the order of ideas clear use transition words like: First, second, third or before that, after than, next, then, when, while.

Look at an example of a paragraph without transitions (This is a writing exercise, not serious advice!):

Eliminating computer viruses on your computer is not very difficult. There are a few things you can do. Turn on Windows Firewall. To do this, go to the Control Panel, click on Windows Firewall, the window pops up, you should click on the button next to "Turn Firewall on". Download a good anti-virus program like Kaspersky, Norton or Avast. Make sure you shut down all programs. Disconnect from the Internet. Some viruses can deliberately interfere with anti-virus programs by getting help from the Internet. Run a full scan with the program. Follow the recommendations of the program to delete or quarantine any viruses it finds. Back up your registry and make a restore point. This is important. I once forgot to do this and deleted an important file by accident. I had to reinstall everything on my computer. Consult with a professional computer technician.

Confusing, right? Is this a list of steps or are they various options? Do we have to do some things before we do other things? When do we back up our registry? Why do we consult with a professional computer technician? It sounds a bit like we woke up a computer geek in the middle of the night and he or she just started spouting advice at random.

Now, look at the paragraph with transitions put in:

Eliminating computer viruses on your computer is not very difficult. There are a few things you can do. First turn on Windows Firewall. To do this, go to the Control Panel and click on Windows Firewall. When the window pops up, you should click on the button next to "Turn Firewall on". Next Download a good anti-virus program like Kaspersky, Norton or Avast. Before you run itMake sure you shut down all programs and also disconnect from the Internet because some viruses can deliberately interfere with anti-virus programs by getting help from the Internet. Now run a full scan with the program. When the scan is finished follow the recommendations of the program to delete or quarantine any viruses it finds. But before you delete any files back up your registry and make a restore point. This is important. For example, I once forgot to do this and deleted an important file by accident so I had to reinstall everything on my computer. If these steps don't work, consult with a professional computer technician.

Doesn't that make much more sense. Now we know in what order to do what and we understand the connections between ideas.So don't forget to use transition words--after all, the reader doesn't know what is in your head so you need to give clear signs so they can follow you.

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Follow these rules and all will be well with your writing. Teachers, I highly recommend picking your top ten pet peeves from this list and putting them on your wall. Students, likewise, put your top ten most frequent errors on your wall. Because they are funny and illustrate the problem, these rules stick in your head better than a quotation from Warriner's Grammar.


1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually)
unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.*
10. No sentence fragments.

11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used unless you don't want to seem too formal.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not always apropos.
13. Do not use more words, phrases, sentences, or other linguistic elements than you, yourself, actually really and definitely need to use or employ when expressing yourself or otherwise giving voice to what you may or may not be thinking when you are trying to say how many words you should use or not use when using words.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, i.e. etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill excessive exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others elude to them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
27. Eliminate distracting quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have once remarked, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
And finally…
34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out

* My English teacher had "Avoid senseless repetition. Avoid senseless repetition" on his wall and I remember it to this day because I have never forgotten it.

There have been variations on these sorts of lists as long as I can remember. But this version I took from SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar.

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Lexophiles, a linguistic site that covers a wide variety of language questions and currently seems to be featuring idioms, has compiled a list of the 250 best language blogs. And this blog ranks 126.

My initial reaction was to be extremely pleased, of course. First, I didn't enter any contest or register my blog at their site, which means the authors picked these blogs themselves which means they found my blog on their own initiative. Second, this blog focuses on ESL, and to some extent international student issues. But the lexophiles list looked at the best blogs in the area of language. So I was competing not only with other ESL blogs, but also blogs on French, Greek, Russian, Chinese and Arabic not to mention blogs on linguistics and philology. So to be even mentioned in such a broad range is pretty exciting.

My second reaction was 126 out of 250 means I am below average. Slightly below average, it is true, but that only worsens the blow somehow. What was missing that I didn't rank 125 or 124?

All kidding aside, I am thrilled and if you're looking for other blogs to help you learn English, Check out some of these blogs on the list.

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I covered some Olympic vocabulary in a previous post and I am continuing the series now with Atheletics since that's the big event at the moment in Beijing.

Athletics or Track and Field, as it is sometimes called has a lot of equipment and therefore its own special vocabulary. Since it's easier to show you than tell, here is a list of events with pictures that should make it pretty clear, and some key terms:

• Discus The discus is thrown and the winner is the athlete who can throw it the furthest.
  


• Javelin The javelin is hurled.
  


• Shot PutLikewise the Shot put is hurled or heaved.
  


• HammerThe hammer, different from the tool we use to bang in nails, is thrown and the event is called the hammer throw.
  
• High Jump Athletes see how high they can jump.
  


• Long JumpAthletes see how far they can jump, not how long. We call it the long jump because the distance is (hopefully) long. There is also the triple jump where they jump 3 times before their final leap.
  


• Pole VaultThe pole is what we call the big long stick and the bar is the mark at the top that they must jump over or clear to win.
  


• Relay Race Two teams compete when each individual runner runs a part of the race. Each runner passes the baton or gives the stick to the next runner after completing his or her part.
  


• HurdlesRunners jump over barriers or hurdles as they run.
  

That's hopefully a good basis for you to follow along with NBC or the BBC as you watch the Summer Games!

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You may have noticed that English Advantage looks a bit different. I've decided to change around the format and the color scheme to take advantage of lots of new toys that are available these days. I hope it gives a little more functionality to your English Advantage experience.

First, If you look at the top of the sidebar, you'll see along with links to my other pages, and buttons to subscribe to my feed or the Share This button to submit my sites to Stumble, Digg, a button to print out pages. This widget lets you choose which posts to print and does away with the sidebar and other distractions so you get just the text. Below that, you can save some paper by emailing the page to yourself or downloading any page as a PDF file. It's really cool and I'm glad to have that function now. You'll also notice a print icon at the bottom of every post to print directly from the post page.

Below that are the badges which may be of interest to fellow bloggers, like my Entrecard and the who.among.us which gives you statistical information on this blog. My Alexa rank and Feedjit map, I moved to the footer because it's really only sponsors and bloggers who want to know that stuff.

I also added a nicer looking Google Translate widget and a Dictionary widget that searchens Dictionary.com or Wikkipedia or other sites for any word. So if my high-faluting language confuses you, just look it up [highfalutin: Informal Pompous or pretentious according to the widget]. Below that there's some navigation for finding posts by label, by popularity or by date. There's also a cool little English test thing; I didn't write it, but I really like it.

And then the usual links and blogroll and all that. Always happy to add any ESL or university related site, so let me know if you want to trade links.

There are a couple of ugly things going on. Right now Blogger is being weird and I can't update my template to work on those, but hopefully sometime this week I can get that all sorted out.

If you have any comments or critiques let me know. I usually shy away from busy layouts with lots of toys. I hate blogs that look crowded or distract me from the main text with buttons and badges, but I think the additions here are really useful.
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Since the Summer Olympic Games have opened in Beijing, I wanted to share some Olympics vocab in English. It's a fun topic and almost everyone watches or at least keeps track of what's going on. So take a chance to practice your English with native speakers by talking about the Olympics or follow the news in English. Here are some descriptions of key terms by sport to help you out.

• Archery is a sport played with a bow and arrow. The participants or archers try to hit the target by shooting the arrow with the bow. The highest score goes to those who hit the bulls eye in the center of the target.
  
• Boxing involves two boxers who punch each other. A quick sharp punch is a jab and an uppercut is a punch on the chin that moves upward. If one boxer falls down or can't continue to fight for a short time, it's called a knockdown and if one boxer gets knocked out it means he has been knocked down and is not conscious or unable to move.
  
• Gymnastics is divided into different events: The pommel horse looks a bit like a saddle and male gymnasts do different swings sitting on it. The vault is the event where gymnasts run and then jump over a platform with the help of a spring board. The balance beam is a long thin platform that gymnasts stand on and do flips, leaps and other moves. The uneven bars are two bars placed up high, one higher than the other. The high bar which is a male only event, is just one such bar. Still rings are similar but instead of a bar, the gymnast holds on to two rings suspended from a bar. Finally the floor exercises involve doing flips, jumps, twists and dance moves in a larger area.
  
• Tennis is played on a court with a net that divides the court into two. Players swing rackets to hit the ball. If they hit with their arm in front of their body, it's called a forehand shot. If they with their arm straight out, not crossing their body, it's backhand. The whole match is made up of sets which are divided into games.
  

That's a few of the sports and terms for now. I'll post some more later on this week. As usual if you have questions or problems, feel free to add them in the comments.Also, here are some awesome worksheets and puzzles on the Olympics you can print out. It's a great way to learn and test yourself on Olympics vocabulary.


If you're more interested in Athletics, jump to Athletics vocabulary

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This is another Sample TOEFL essay. Check out my first one on writing a persuasive TOEFL essay here.

Some students have issues with the description essay question. A description essay question looks like this:

Describe your favorite sport. Include details and examples to explain why you enjoy this sport
It's a really simple question, which is probably what confuses students. There are two common mistakes that people make:

1. Writing randomly all sorts of facts and opinions about their favorite sport
   The problem is that the TOEFL expects you to write an organized essay. That means an introduction, a conclusion and body paragraphs that have only one main idea each. That means choosing only the most important features of your sport. Most important, that means actually describing the sport. And telling in detail why you like it.
   
   
2. Underwriting
   Faced with this kind of simple question, some students write something like:
   
   My favorite sport is football.It is the most popular sport in the world. I like it because it is fun and interesting.
   They have no idea what else to add. But the TOEFL demands concrete examples, reasons and details. So let's look at an essay that hits the happy mean between writing too little and writing too much
   
   
   

---

Sample Essay

Baseball is called America's national pastime, and for good reason. It is an exciting sport in which anything can happen. I don't play baseball very well but when it comes to watching sports, I am addicted to the ballpark. While the action is not as fast as in American football or hockey and the sport is not as popular worldwide as football, it is still my favorite sport because it is fun to watch live and because it is a very strategic and complex game.
Baseball is an unusual sport and the first thing you notice is that the field is different. On a baseball field, there are four bases or plates at each point of a diamond. The base at the bottom is called home base and the goal of the game is to run around the diamond, touch each base and return to home. This scores one point. In the game, a batter stands on home base with a bat. A pitcher, standing in the middle of the diamond, throws the ball. The batter should try to hit the ball and then run around the diamond. Meanwhile the pitcher's team catches the ball and tries to touch the batter with it.

The game is a lot more complicated than that, with strikes and balls and fouls. For the first-time watcher, the game may seem far too complicated to understand. But it is also very exciting to watch. Every move changes the whole game. For example if there are men standing on every base (the bases are loaded), trying to go home, it is very important what happens with the batter and the pitcher. If the batter hits the ball very far, and gives every man a chance to run home, his team will score 4 points. Every time the batter misses the ball, it's one less chance for his team to score. In such a situation, the fans are holding their breath to see if the batter will hit or miss. Unlike other sports where the action is ongoing, in baseball you have a lot of time to anticipate what will happen and process what has happened and how it changes the strategy. A good play in football lasts 30 seconds. A good play in baseball can take 2 minutes to set up, happen and then be realized.

But even if you are a first time watcher, going to a baseball game will be the best day of your life. First of all, ballparks are often smaller than other sports fields so you are closer to the action. Second baseball fans are the most energetic in the world, screaming for their favorite players and insulting the other team. But you won't see hooligans at a ballpark. Fans are there to watch the game, not make trouble and baseball is the game of gentlemen still so fans try to be polite and considerate. In fact, it's the only crowd in the world where you can ask, 'What just happened?" and have a fan happily recap the action for you.

So baseball is the greatest spectator sport in the world because there is a lot of strategy in this complicated game and because it is simply fun to watch, especially live.

Evaluation

The strongest point of this essay, and what I really want you to pay attention to, is the second paragraph where I describe the game. Notice that I try to hit the most important details, without getting too complicated. Good descriptions should strike a balance between giving someone the outline of something without overloading them with information. It is often a good idea to use shorter sentences and to repeat the same word over and over. Notice how I repeat diamond so the reader can relate further details to my first description.


Now many of my readers are foreigners, so hopefully you aren't familiar with baseball. Do an experiment: Close your eyes and try to imagine baseball from this description. Can you do it? If you can, I wrote a good essay. If you can't, I suck!


For Americans, read the second paragraph. Do you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that's about right."? If so, good. If not, I need to rewrite.

The introduction is solid although I went back and inserted the word live into my thesis statement because I realized that I wrote about what it was like to watch live, not on TV. I would also reverse the order of that last sentence and make it: it is still my favorite sport because it is a very strategic and complex game and because it is fun to watch live. so it follows the order of my essay paragraphs. Notice that in the two paragraphs where I talk about why it is my favorite sport I try to give a lot of reasons and link those to concrete details, like when the bases are loaded.

So I hope this is useful for you. As usual I'm happy to take questions and comments in the comments section.
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A British professor faced with horrible spelling by students, suggests if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. In other words, professors should accept incorrect spellings as variants

He notably cites among the most common misspellings he sees:
ignor for ignore, occured for occurred, thier for their, truely for truly, speach for speech, twelth for twelfth and teh for the (Just kidding about the last one!)

There are acceptable variants in language--particular when it comes to foreign words: Koran or Qu'ran, Kazakhstani or Kazakhstany or Qazaqstany. And professors should probably allow either American or British spellings of such words as color (or is it colour?) and theatre (theater, anyone?). But by the time students get to university they should either know how to spell or drop out. I don't want these kids graduating and becoming doctors or lawyers or journalists or English teachers without knowing how to spell. And you have to wonder how stupid these students are who know how to program mobile phones, use Skype, ICQ and write blogs. But they don't know how to use spellcheck!
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from AP News

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq and the U.S. are near an agreement on all American combat troops leaving Iraq by October 2010, with the last soldiers out three years after that...

Throughout the conflict, President Bush steadfastly refused to accept any timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. Last month, however, Bush and al-Maliki agreed to set a ‘‘general time horizon’’ for ending the U.S. mission.

You may have seen this news item. While it seems pretty obvious that it is a significant event, you might wonder why I'm quoting it here on a blog for English language students. I cite it here because there's an interesting word play. Bush is now supporting a time horizon but not a timetable.

As you may know President Bush has always said it would be wrong to set a specific date for removing troops from Iraq. He has resisted calls from the people, from Congress, from generals and from soldiers to set an end to the US presence. Setting a timetable for troop withdrawals, he says, will mean defeat in Iraq by imposing arbitrary conditions on a serious and difficult situation. Bush has very steadfastly held this view.

Suddenly a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister of Iraq announced that he would like to see US troops leaving by 2010! Now Bush has a problem because he has to respect the wishes of the leader of the sovereign nation of Iraq. So how can he agree to withdrawing troops by a specific date without appearing to contradict his early position?

By calling the new agreement a time horizon. Timetable is like a schedule. Times are written down very clearly and specifically and next to that time there is a task to do. It sounds fixed, inflexible, official. A time horizon on the other hand is kind of vague. The horizon is way over in the distance, not at a specific location. It's the sort of thing you can see, but never actually reach because the horizon always moves away from you.

It's a very clever move on the US' part because it sounds like the US is still resisting setting a specific date for troop withdrawals. It's just making some guidelines, a general idea of when the US might think about leaving.

So that's a little bit of wordplay in the news today.
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Like everyone in the world, last night I watched the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing. I'm sure unlike everyone else in the world I was also eagerly waiting for the Kazakhstan team in the parade of national teams. As an expat I now have to root for two teams: the US and Kazakhstan. Well I was shocked to see their controversial choice of colors--turquoise and bright orange. Just like my color scheme here and on my homepage! Obviously, they've been reading this blog, using my lesson plans to learn English and became enamored by the perfect choice of colors I use! (EDIT: used!)

Actually, they probably did what I did. The turquoise comes from the Kazakh flag and bright orange is a perfect compliment since orange and blue are complimentary colors. Although I often worry that the colors together are too bright and obnoxious--not to mention hard to read--which is why I moved the color scheme to darker hues and will probably move to completely different colors in a new layout soon. I think the Kazakhstan Olympic delegation proves my point. The style isn't bad, but the combination is a bit hard to look at!

Fashion sense or no, I'll still root for my adopted home team!

Thanks to KZBlog for the picture.
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China has been taking great strides preparing for the Summer Olympics which open today. (In fact, why am I blogging when I should have the TV on, waiting for the Opening Ceremonies?) They've been cleaning the streets and the air, training the population on how to be polite to tourists and visitors, and teaching service professionals English. Even the private sector is showing great initiative in trying to make visitors welcome and also make a buck. So we should give this restaurateur an A for effort. In order to attract foreign business he wanted to put the name of his restaurant in English on his sign. So he typed the name of his restaurant into a web translator. And dutifully made a sign based on what the web translator said. We don't know what the name of the restaurant is. Apparently the web translator didn't know either--or just crashed suddenly. A for effort, F for execution!

Of course students and teachers of English are familiar with examples of funny English from textbooks. Sometimes you wonder if these are real or if someone just makes them up. I can't verify this one. But at least we have a big photograph which gives it some credibility!

So, I'd love to get feedback from anyone who speaks Chinese. Can you read the characters next to the English? What's the name of this restaurant. Also if anyone is in Beijing and sees this, please let us know. I'd love to get a confirmation. Also, if you want, comment and think of some other funny restaurant names this poor guy might have gotten.
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If you're the uptight student who is dead-set on Harvard so you can get a high-paying paper-shuffling job and buy your first Mercedes at age 21, stop reading this now. I realize the word ranking is like crack for people like you and I'm sorry I tricked you into clicking on the link that led you here. This post will not tell you anything you care about.

The Princeton Review rankings are great for students who want to find a university they will be happy at. Every year, Princeton Review surveys 120,000 students to find out what it's really like to be a student at the school. The guide covers lifestyle, how hard the student body studies, social and political leanings on campus, how many activities and social hangouts there are on campus, what the town is like. A lot of foreign students ignore these factors but they can make or break your experience in the US.

As a foreign student, you might be most interested in looking at the schools with the Most Diverse Student Population and the Most Homogeneous Student Population to see if you'll fit in.

You can buy the full guide: Best 368 Colleges, 2009 Edition (College Admissions Guides) at Amazon.com

Or check out some useful top ten lists:

• Top 10 Biggest Party Schools
  
• Top 10 Colleges for the Best Classroom Experience
  
• Top 10 Colleges Where Students Always Study
  
• Top 10 Colleges Where Students Rarely Study
  
• Top 10 Most Socially Conservative Colleges
  
• Top 10 Most Socially Liberal Colleges
  
• Top 10 Colleges Where Students are Happiest with Financial Aid
  
• Top 10 Schools with the Happiest Students
  
• Top 10 Schools with the Least Happy Students
  

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In an awesome summary of the situation, John Edgell, a public relations consultant, noted that "The country is probably 10 percent more productive today.". Why?
Scrabulous, a game on Facebook that closely resembles the board game Scrabble, has been taken down pursuant to a copyright law suit by Hasbro, makers of Scrabble. I guess Scrabulous is a little too close to Scrabble. Until further notice, users in the US and Canada are unable to play. But those of us in Kazakhstan are good to go.

That's right. Scrabulous works just fine for me. Enough blogging. Time to to go spell my way to glory over my friends!
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