The colon as we know it - two dots on a vertical line - was first recorded in English around the year 1600 and its use varies across languages worldwide. It has several related but distinct uses in English, mainly to inform a reader that two pieces of information are connected. Here are five example...
Read more ›English tutors come from a wide variety of backgrounds. John Donne once remarked 'No man is an island' and the same can definitely be said of English studies; the subject draws upon many other areas and lends itself well to complementary talents, including those of drama, writing and history.
Many ...
Read more ›There are two uses for an apostrophe: one, to denote a contraction; the other to denote possession.
Over the years, several words have contracted to make them easier to pronounce. "It's" is a contraction of "it is", just as "can't" is a contraction of "cannot". Apostrophes are inserted to mark the ...
Read more ›Private tutors don't need to worry too much these days about checking their students' spelling because most work is completed using programmes such as Microsoft Word that have built-in spell-checkers. As long as these are set to UK English (instead of the default American English setting!) they do a...
Read more ›If you are considering becoming an English tutor, you may find the following websites useful:
1) Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) provides a comprehensive library of out-of-copyright texts. The accurate and unabridged texts are a fantastic resource, and the easy search function mean...
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