Bonus English Lessons » Grammar

Complimentary and Complementary

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:04:31 +0000

Hello again,

I made a mistake in yesterday’s exercise. Luckily, it’s a mistake you can learn from.

There are two different words, complimentary and complementary.

One comes from compliment – “saying nice things”.

He complimented her on her presentation.

Many people paid him compliments.

She was very complimentary about his work.

One comes from complement – “goes well together”.

This new system complements the existing system, it doesn’t replace it.

The jewellery complemented her dress beautifully.

We make a great team. Our skills complement each other perfectly.

So which form is better to use to mean a *free* drink?

In American English, the answer is clear. It’s a complimentary drink.

In British English, I’ve seen both forms used. Look, for example, at this Web page from a language school in Oxford.

http://www.oxfordenglishexperience.co.uk/index.php/courses-and-pricing

However, I think I was wrong to write ‘complementary drink’. The expression certainly started in the United States and I think that we should use the US form. I’ve checked up in the new Macmillan online dictionary and it says the correct term is ‘complimentary drink’.

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/complimentary

I hope you found that useful.

Pearson

Getting your emails right

admin — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:38:36 +0000

Hello again,

Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to write to me
about my idea of lessons in International Commerce.

In fact, the demand for Inco terms and suchlike was quite small. I
couldn’t justify spending the time producing the exercises.

A lot more people asked for lessons in ‘Business English’. I found
that a bit strange because we already have a complete website that
does that.

www.business-english.com

This site doesn’t get very many visitors compared to our grammar
sites. We’d like to develop it more but we can only do that if we
can attract the advertising support it needs and that means many
more visitors.

The one frequent demand was for more letter and email writing help.

I’m trying out some new exercise types to help with this and you
can try them out here.

http://www.better-english-test.com/unit1/

Let me know if you have any technical problems.

For those of you more concerned with revising your grammar, try
this exercise.

http://carolinebrownenglishlessons.com/throwphrasals/menu.php

That’s all for this week. Thank you again for all the feedback.

Pearson

Zero Conditional

admin — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:36:31 +0000

Hello again.

The poor summer weather here continues. I love watching the Tour de
France cycle race on my television but it’s frustrating to see how
much better the weather is in France.

Today’s exercise is about the zero conditional.

http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/type0/exercise5.html

Many people wrote to me thanking me for the links to Canterbury
Cathedral. Others have written to me asking for more listening
activities. Combining the two, here is one of Caroline’s listenings
about a visit to another beautiful place in Kent.

http://carolinebrownlisteninglessons.com/leedscastle/menu.php

You can see more about Leeds castle here.

http://www.leeds-castle.com

Have a nice week.

Pearson

Need any help with your grammar?

admin — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:38:16 +0000

Send your questions for the Grammar Teacher to pearson@better-english.com