In theory, English is a simple language; subject-verb-object with adjectives before the noun and adverbs wherever they make most sense! English does not have all of the complexity of genders of many languages, or of tenses.

Then we complicate it with all sorts of nuances, that sometimes confuse even the native speaker – what hope for those communicating in English when it is not their mother tongue

Part of the purpose of this site is to help people avoid inadvertently causing offense by either using the wrong words, or getting the word sequence wrong.

And don’t worry – native speakers make some very interesting mistakes. The Civil Service in the UK once sent out a memo to all staff about the potential health threat to women’s fertility emanating from the radiation from VDU screens. The memo read ” This memo will be of interest to those women who are pregnant, or who wish to become pregnant whilst at work.” We know what they meant, but that wasn’t quite it!

Another recent extract from a National Newspaper in the UK reported that “Yesterday, a meeting took place about the harassment of sheep in the secretary of state’s office” The keyword here is “proximity”. Make sure that if you have a sub clause that qualifies the subject of the sentence, that you place it by the subject and not the object!