Julgamento dos Nardoni

Interessante, olha o nome da faculdade na imprensa, assim como seus ex-alunos de direito.

Um tentará acusar o casal e outro tentará inocentar os réus, o canal Nardoni.

É bom saber que a faculdade FMU tenha tal reputação, embora o meu curso seja da área de Letras (Tradução & Intérprete). A matéria na íntegra encontra-se aqui:

http://www.fmu.br/imgnoticia/n1751Agora.pdf (jornal Agora São Paulo)

Abraços!

IDIOM: out of the blue

It has always triggered my curiosity to know from where the idiom out of the blue sprung.

Eventually, its origin explanation popped up at me.

out of the blue or out of a clear blue sky is an idiom to denote "without warning", "totally unexpectedly". Time and again we bump into this idiomatic expression, but what really makes me scratch my head is its origin.

Analyzing out of a clear blue sky itself, it leads us to think that nothing is expected to happen in a clear blue sky, once everything is at reach to our sight. Thus, if even so something happens, that's completely unexpectedly, or yet, out of a clear blue sky, or even more commonly heard, out of the blue.

I hope you've enjoyed this breakthrough such as I have :)

Phrases with "far"

I've come across some interesting phrases with the word far, some of them I do like and it may be of your interest too:

as/so far as I know

used to say what you think is true, although you do not know all the facts

He isn't coming today, as far as I know.

as/so far as I'm concerned

used to say what your personal opinion is about something

She can come whenever she likes, as far as I'm concerned.

as/so far as I can tell

used to say what you have noticed or understood

There's been no change, as far as I can tell.

far be it from me to

I certainly would not

Far be it from me to tell you how to run your life.

far from sth

certainly not something

The situation is far from clear.

far from it

certainly not

He's not handsome - far from it.

from far and wide

from a large number of places

People came from far and wide to see the house.

so far

until now

So far we've made thirty-two thousand pounds.

so far so good

used to say that an activity has gone well until now

I've found a tin of beans. So far so good, but where is the opener?

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as far as I know and as far as I'm concerned were never crystal clear to me, but that's just changed.

I'd like to dedicate some attention to far be it from me to. In Brazilian Portuguese, it is a common phrase amongst people:

Far be it from me to reveal the secret to him. (English)

Longe de mim revelar o segredo para ele. (Portuguese)

Credits to: Cambridge online dictionary

Each other VS One another

You may probably have come across a situation wherein you kept asking yourself whether each other or one another.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, each other should be used when we know the number of items / persons in question, usually a low number.

Marcos and Eliane met each other last month. (2 persons)

But

They were at a party where people didn't know one another. (unknown number of people)

Besides it, I've already seen a more simplistic explanation stating that one another is the preferred choice when we have more than two choices.

Perhaps, another explanation would be where the focus is given, if you want to emphasize and give focus on the individuals or not. In case the individuals do not matter, if you just want to be informative of the situation, my feeling would lead me to choosing one another. Conversely, each other.

I keep on using it according to my knowledge of the number of choices involved. If the number is known to me, I use each other; rather, I opt for one another.

Do you have an opinion on it? Let us know!

Exception to the rule???

When we talk about pronouns and possessive adjectives with someone, somebody, anyone, anybody, no one, and nobody, we all have in mind that they take singular personal pronouns (he/she) and possessive adjectives (him/her).

1) When somebody feels thet need...

Based on the stated above, we could complete the sentence as:

1.1) When somebody feels the need, he / she contacts the emergency service.

However, to avoid the awkwardness of saying his or her when the gender in unknown, we resort to they and their instead:

1.2) When somebody feels the need, they contact the emergency service.

We can clearly see that both 1.1 and 1.2 are possible; nevertheless, would any of the two be an exception to the rule? Which of them would be the rule?

That's still an unsolved question... have you any idea?

Thanks!

A note about distributive adjectives and pronouns: each, every, and all

1) every compared to all

Technically, every means a number of people or things considered individually while all means a number of people or things considered as a group. But in practice every and its compounds are often used when we are thinking of a group.

2) each (adjective and pronoun) and every (adjective)

each means a number of persons or things considered individually. every can have this meaning but with every there is less emphasis on the individual. Every man had a weapon = 'All the men had weapons', and implies that the speaker counted the men and the weapons and found that he had the same number of each. Each man had a weapon implies that the speaker went to each man in turn and checked that he had a weapon.

each is a pronoun and adjective: Each (man) knows what to do.

every is an adjective only: Every man knows...

each can be used of two or more persons or things, and is normally used of small numbers. every is not normally used of very small numbers.

Both take a singular verb. The possessive adjective is his/her.

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Taking into account the very last phrase of the explanation, that's the reason why we write the speaker went to each man in turn and checked that he had a weapon, instead of ... each man in turn and checked that they had a weapon. each, when it happens to be a pronoun, it is always a third person singular one.

That's a small mistake we can commit, passing unnoticed.

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Credits to: "A Practical English Grammar", published by Oxford University

A note about comparisons with adjectives

dark	darker	the darkest
tall	taller	the tallest
useful	more useful	the most useful

Well, you probably know what we are talking about, Comparatives and Superlatives. However, I want to point out that we have got 3 degrees of comparisons, not only the 2 aforementioned.

My question is: besides Comparative and Superlative forms, how is it called the other one, expressed in the example above by the adjectives dark, tall, and useful?

The answer is: Positive degree

dark (Positive) darker (Comparative) the darkest (Superlative)

You probably did not know about this note...