The Sunday News
Highway to Success, Charles Dube
BEFORE tackling spelling and grammar it is pertinent to offer more literary terms left out in last week’s piece. Here, I have in mind words like irony. Irony is a figure of speech which helps the writer to put across his or her feelings in a humorous, entertaining way. In simple terms irony is saying the opposite of what you mean. Experts tell us that irony is when the literal meaning of a piece of writing is the exact opposite of its intended meaning. On top of this, irony is often humorous or light-hearted.
Irony looks like this: “She is brilliant; she failed all the subjects she sat for at A-level.” This sentence does not mean that the girl talked about here is clever or intelligent. It really means the opposite of brilliant. Close to irony we have sarcasm, but it is less pleasant. Sarcasm literally means “flesh tearing.” Sarcasm is language that has a mocking or scornful tone hence nastier than irony. In the same vein, sarcasm is often intended to insult someone or make fun of them, or to show that the writer is angry or annoyed about something.
A point to note is that sarcasm writing often uses irony, but the tone is more aggressive and unpleasant. Sarcasm looks like this: “That was a great performance, you let in 10 goals as the team lost the match.” Not really intending to bore learners with too many definitions, sarcasm can also be defined as an ironic or satirical remark that seems to be praising someone or something but it is really taunting or cutting. It can be used to hurt or offend, or can be used for comic effect, to mock or convey contempt.
Furthermore, there is talk of rhetoric. Rhetoric is when writers use techniques to make language more persuasive and convincing. Generally, we come across rhetorical questions which do not need an answer especially in Literature when doing prose and poetry. Rhetorical questions are phrased to make the answer seem obvious not even worth saying. Repetition emphasises key points. Writers repeat words or phrases to emphasise their most important points.
Words or phrases are repeated in threes. It is unfair to expect such young children to walk 10 kilometres to school. It is also unfair to expect them to do well in class under the circumstances. On top of that it is unfair to expect them to have time to do homework. I believe from the bits given before learners are minimising weaknesses on spelling and producing better written work. Here is a recap on rules for plural words. When you have two or more of something you need to change the noun from singular to the plural form.
Most words add ‘‘-s’’ to make the plural. Usually nouns just add ‘‘-s’’ on the end to make them plural. Examples: place — places, pick — picks. Some words need ‘‘-es’’. Add “-es” to nouns ending in a hissing sound — ‘‘s’’, ‘‘ch’’, ‘‘sh’’, ‘‘x’’, and ‘‘z’’. The reason for this, is that you cannot just add ‘‘s’’ to these nouns because they would be difficult to say. “-es” is added to help you pronounce these words. Examples: match — matches, watch — watches, bush – bushes, box — boxes.
There are two plural forms for words that end in — ‘‘y’’. If the letter in front of the ‘‘y’’ is a vowel — the letters – ‘‘a’’, ‘‘e’’, ‘‘o’’ or ‘‘u’’ — just add ‘‘-s’’. For example, donkey — donkeys, key — keys, play — plays. The letters before the ‘‘y’’ in the given words are ‘‘e’’ or ‘‘a’’, a vowel, so in such cases you only need to add an ‘‘-s’’. If the letter in front of the ‘‘y’’ is a consonant — drop the ‘‘y’’ and add ‘‘-ies’’. Examples: battery — batteries, fly — flies, carry — carries.
In the above examples, the letters before the ‘‘y’’ are consonants. Learners need to drop the ‘‘y’’ and ‘‘-ies’’. Words that end in ‘‘o’’ can be tricky. Words that end in ‘‘o’’ usually add ‘‘-s’’ to make their plural. Words like, disco = discos, piano — pianos.
Some words ending in ‘‘o’’ are different as they take ‘‘-es’’ for the plural instead. Examples: volcano — volcanoes, potato — potatoes, hero — heroes, tomato – tomatoes. There is no pattern to this rule, so learners are encouraged to remember the exceptions.
Most words ending in ‘‘f’’, and ‘‘fe’’ add ‘‘-ves’’ to make the plural. For these words learners need to change the ‘‘f’’ into a ‘‘v’’, and add ‘‘-es’’. Leaf — leaves, loaf — loaves, shelf — shelves, life — lives. But there exceptions that keep the ‘‘f’’ and just add ‘‘-s’’. Examples: chief — chiefs, belief — beliefs, chef — chefs, proof — proofs. Some plurals are irregular and do not follow any rules. Instead of adding or removing letters you might have to change the spelling of the original word.
These words change the vowel sound when they become plural. Words which come to mind are: woman — women, man — men, tooth — teeth, mouse — mice, goose — geese, foot — feet. Some words stay the same in plural: sheep – sheep, fish – fish and many more.
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