Mixed Blessings and Verb Patterns

Hello everyone! I wish I knew how and where you were. It is a little disconcerting writing and not knowing whether you will get to read it in the next few days and worse still, whether you will have chance to comment and ask questions. Our time together is running out.

Anyway, mustn’t dwell on what we have no control over. I hope you are not feeling too despondent about the technical hitches Marcos.

So, what’s been mixed about the last couple of days? Well, I heard that a good friend of mine is getting married and another old friend of mine has had a baby and Pankaj baked oatmeal cookies today made with chocolate and treacle. doesn't that sound yummy? :) Treacle is very big here in Sri Lanka. A common dessert is curd and treacle, which incidentally I just love. Well, that’s all the good news; the not so good news is that Isabel is running a high temperature and we are a little worried about her. I think we may have to take her to the doctor’s tomorrow as this is the second day of the fever and her temperature is not going down, except temporarily after calpol. The other thing that’s not so great is that it is only two days before we must say goodbye to Dad :( and then to each other as this month’s blogging will come to a close. :( Finally, to top it all, the cookies didn’t turn out so great and Pankaj is a little grumpy about that. I will have to go and cheer him up after this. It was his first attempt so he should not be so hard on himself, don’t you agree? Anyway, we have all decided to order in Chinese food tonight as we cannot face cooking after our cookie disappointment and the kitchen smells so fantastic I couldn’t think of replacing that smell with something else.

Our weather has been very sultry today following a thunderstorm and heavy rain last night. High temperatures coupled with high humidity is not a very comfortable situation I can tell you. The pressure is building again and I think that we can expect more rain in the near future.

Right I shall turn my attention to you now Marcos and talk about your pieces on the Amazon and the Pink River Dolphin. What a great legend! Your piece on the Amazon was very passionate and I can only begin to understand how you feel, especially as your region depends on it for its vegetation, rainfall etc. You write convincingly and fluently. Well done.

Now, here’s where the verb patterns come in. I would like you to look at the following examples of different verb patterns. I would then like you to try correcting some of your sentences by focusing on the verb patterns. What do I mean by verb patterns? Well, a verb does not usually stand alone in a sentence. It tends to go with a preposition or adverb, be followed by a gerund or infinitive, and require an indirect object or not. This is what I mean by patterns. If you start to take notice of them, you will soon see patterns and start to be able to recognise when you are not using the correct form of the verb or preposition to go with it.

To extend in a particular direction
To extend across borders/boundaries
To extend over an area
To extend into a county/country/territory

To sum up

To destroy something
Without destroying something

To dislike something (dislike must have an object)

To be like +gerund/noun – It was like coming home. It was like seeing for the first time.

To dress in something/to wear something – she was dressed in red/she wore red/she was wearing red.

Some believe that to kill/killing ….. (here you can use the gerund or the infinitive form of the verb).

1. The forest extends itself for nine countries

2. If you sum the plant species of North America and Europe, this number is inferior of the diversity of plants in this forest.

3. The second defends its exploitation by community in a sustainable basis, without destroy the jungle.

4. The politicians here dislike when an important vehicle of the media (like BBC or New York Times) criticizes their inability to deal with the problems of devastation in Amazon Jungle or any other forest.

5. For us is like to go to another country.

6. he dresses white clothes

7. Some believe that kill an Amazon River Dolphin is sign of bad luck.

8. I was thinking to stop here, but I couldn’t.

Well folks, I am off to have an early night now as I am sure we will be woken up by Isabel half way through the night in need of some comfort and relief from her suffering.

I hope to have better news for you next time.

Godd night,

Helen x

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