English as a Second Language/usage

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Expert: Nell Hunt - 11/4/2009


Question
Dear Nell,

I'm here again with another question: How do we use it/them correctly?

1. Crisp and crispy can be used as adjectives.  It seems that they have the same meaning.  Are they interchangeable?

2. He is only a "twelve-year-old" child.  Can we say, He is a "twelve years old" child?

3. She is worried about it.  It seems that "She Has worried about it since she came here." is fine.  Am I right?  What's more, I think "She is worrying about it" is OK, and it has the same meaning as "She is worried about it".  Correct?

Thank you.

Best wishes.

mmleft

Answer
Dear mmleft --

When you talk about using English and words correctly, really you are talking about "usage."  So you can just say usage for general items.

1.  Yes, crisp and crispy are two versions of the same exact thing, same meaning.

This is funny, because this has been a favorite adjective of mine since I was a child!  I'm trying to thing of some things that you eat in China that I eat here in North America too, which are crunchy.  Or, which have a nice crunch.

When I was a child, my mother would fry chicken, which had been coated in flour.  This made the chicken delicious and crispy!

Even though we left our crackers and cookies and biscuits outside on the patio, they are still crisp, and not soggy. (soggy = wet) (crisp = dry)


2. "twelve-year-old" child > CORRECT

  "twelve years old" child > WRONG (not years, but "year") (also, I like to put the dashes between twelve  (-) year (-) old, as you did in the first example.)

3. All of the below are correct:

She is worried about it.
She has been worried about it since she came here.
She has been worrying about it since she came here.
She is worrying about it.
She is worried about it.

Excellent, mmleft!  (You never make more than one mistake! )

You are always welcome to any help I can offer.  Thanks for your generous ratings; I appreciate this.

Be well,

Nell  

English as a Second Language

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Nell Hunt

Expertise

I can manage almost anything: vocabulary, grammar correction and practice, spelling (though I'll have to have my dictionary open), listening and pronunciation, writing practice and correction, practicing and familiarity with idioms and two-word verbs,assistance with the TOEFL. What I believe I'd have trouble with are: 1) remembering the exact term(s)(the entire vocabulary for English grammatical form) for various grammatical rules, and parts of speech. I'd either have to get out a few old workbooks from my ESL teaching days, or find a site that had most of the grammatical rules mapped out and marked for remembering what context they work in. 2) helping someone writing a paper or reading a textbook in math or natural sciences. I was never able to help students much who were writing math or science papers; when I had to deal with math and science English vocabulary I'm totally unfamiliar with, I just had no way to help the students move forward. (My subject background is in the arts and humanities, and the social sciences.)

Experience

I was a volunteer ESL instructor for six weeks one summer at The Southeast Asia Center here in Chicago, and during that time, worked with mostly seniora. From there, I found my first paying job as an ESL instructor at Truman College here, one of our City Colleges of Chicago. I taught ESL for 16 hrs a week, and English Composition four hrs a week for approx. 13 yrs at the Lakeview Learning Center branch of Truman College. I also taught a 4-hour pronunciation class on Saturdays. Very strong experience.

Organizations
No longer a member in any professional or writers' organizations.

Publications
Have published short fiction and poetry in many literary magazines over the years, never in a monograph.

Education/Credentials
BA in Creative Writing and American Lit - Univ. Washington, Seattle MLS in Library Science - Syracuse University - Syracust, NY MS in Human Development - Univ of Chicago School of Social Sciences - Chicago, IL MFA in Writing - Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts - Bard College - Avon on Hudson, NY Post-Grad work in Human Development - no degree received

Awards and Honors
All my awards and honors had to do with academics.

Past/Present Clients
Became ill/ disabled in 1995: continued to do tutoring with ESL students, mostly graduate school students working on term papers or thesis papers, for approximately six more years. Also helped students study for the TOERL exam in order to be accepted into the city college I used to teach at.

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