Whose grammar is it?

Whose grammar is it?

I was  discussing  some  of  your English   lessons in a language  forum  and  some people  told  me your  words are a kind of odd to them and  ask  me  where were you  from?

what  I  posted  in the  language  forum  appears  bellow  this message, if you  want to see the discussion in the  forum use  this link:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=9659963#post9659963

Kind regards

Marco Uscanga

One of the meanings of the phrasal verb TURN BACK is
” to fold a part of something so that it covers another part” according to http://www.carolinebrownenglishlesso…sals1/menu.php
the same meaning is also defined as “To fold down” according to http://www.thefreedictionary.com/turn+back

Examples of this phrasal when takes this meaning are the following according with these references:

She marked her place in the book by turning back the page.
When we arrived in the room, the maid had turned back the bedcovers.
Turn back the page’s corner to save your place in the book

I want you to explain me the meanings of fold apart and fold down to understand turn back in the aforementioned sentences

Thanks for your help and attentions

Hi there,

Well I speak British English but my exercises are used quite a lot to teach native American speakers of English in junior schools in the US. Usually several teachers write to me if the expression is not used in US English and I add a note to this effect to my explanation.

However, in this case, I’ve just checked with the major US dictionary, Webster’s, and the same definition is given as I gave.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turn%20back

I checked out the thread and somebody posted, quite correctly, that in certain posh hotels a maid comes in the evening to ‘turn back the sheets’.  That seems such a clear illustration of the meaning that I am surprised that you are looking for further clarification.

As for the person who doesn’t ‘trust Caroline Brown’, all I can say is that that type of forum is full of arrogant people who think that ‘correct English’ is what they themselves speak and that ‘incorrect English’  is things that they do not say. In the last twenty years, we have made significant progress in linguistics because of our new ability to analyse huge quantities of written and spoken language thanks to computers. The days of introspection are long over, we now have mass data.

If you want real examples of a phrase in action, you should consult a concordancer, not the opinions of unknown individuals on forums. I looked at a Canadian concordancer examining the Brown (US) database and got

001.   gaze at her through the window. She had begun to TURN BACK toward the house, but his look caught he
002.  nd’s exhaust overhead. Sometimes the pilot had to TURN BACK if fully blocked by fog, but 85% of his
003.  lls on the Lincoln bed. At night, when Mama would TURN BACK the covers, she would have to take all t

As you can see, the third example corresponds exactly to our definition.

That was using

http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/concord_e.html

You could also use

http://www.edict.com.hk/concordance/

The general rule is to observe what happens rather than to rely upon individuals who are only ‘expert’ in the version of English they themselves speak 😉

Pearson Brown

2 Comments

Newman

Oct 10, 2010, 2:12 pm

A very good lesson.That will be useful if l teach my pupils.

nimal

Jul 7, 2011, 8:51 am

it is very intersting could you pl provid your serious this year also

thanks

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