Compliments of the season and wishing you a beautiful New Year. May the coming season bring joy, sound health, prosperity and overall fulfilment.
I know many of us are in holiday mood already. Indeed, if this were a regular physical class, this lesson would not be holding again till January. Besides the festive mood that is now dominant, the COVID-19 panic has risen again, causing scare and disturbing the sanity required for quality academic engagements.
Based on my understanding of the situation, today’s meeting is thus going to be light. Just to point out one or two things. For instance, I want you to consider how I used ‘compliments’ above. Compliments of the season, not compliment, and not complement of the season. Do not be part of those who use complement in place of the greetings (compliments) they have in mind in this situation. And the ‘s’ is a must in ‘compliments’.
As I elaborately explained around this time last year, New Year is also a proper noun, referring to the name of a festival. So, the standard thing is to write capital N and Y:
Happy new year. (Wrong)
Happy New year. (Wrong)
Happy New Year. (Great)
Earlier in the year (2020) also, I brought to the class the issue of why ‘coronavirus’ has to begin with a small letter. That is why I did not write ‘Coronavirus’ in the opening paragraph of this article. Unless the word starts a sentence, it should simply begin with a small letter. The reason is that it is the name of a disease, like any other one such as malaria, cancer, tuberculosis and catarrh. No matter how dreadful or novel an ailment is, we need not respect it with a capital letter. That is why cancer remains with a small letter once it is in the middle or end of a clause. The same thing applies to polio and meningitis. The set of diseases whose names begin with capital letters are those named after places or people. These include Lassa fever, Asian flu and Ebola. Of course, there are upper cases in ‘COVID-19’ because it is an acronym.
Hope you also watched the way I used ‘besides’ in the introduction. You should always be conscious of the difference between it and ‘beside’. Often, ‘besides’ is a conjunction, joining different parts of a text, while ‘beside’ is a preposition – like on, in, at, around etc.:
She was not around. Besides, those who were there were not prepared.
The plate is beside the iron.
Another expression that is synonymous with ‘besides’ is ‘aside from’. But never forget to add the ‘from’ when you use it as a conjunction:
She was not around. Aside from that, most of the people present were not prepared.
While also urging you to take note of the spelling of ‘catarrh’ as I used above, I hope you observed that there is only one ‘l’ in my ‘fulfilment’. It is so because the British English spelling has one, while the American parades two. It is only in fulfilling and fulfilled that the two must be present.
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A revision?
Finally, let’s highlight something important about the word, ‘grassroots’. It is a plural word that requires the ‘s’ that ends it. A lot of people misuse it as ‘grassroot’. No. It is in the class of headquarters, crossroads, series, shambles all of which normally come with s, despite the fact that they are not necessarily plural.
Cambridge Dictionary defines it as the ordinary people in a society or an organisation such as a political party. Oxford defines it as ordinary people regarded as the main body of an organisation’s membership. The following examples are from both dictionaries:
The feeling from the grassroots of the party is that the leaders are not radical enough.
You have lost touch with the grassroots of the party.
In the same form, it can function as a noun or an adjective.
We need to take the campaign to the grassroots. (Used as a noun.)
If we can get the grassroots to buy into the idea, half of the problem will be solved. (Also a noun.)
A young lady is the leader of the grassroots movement.
The grassroots people are usually vulnerable. (An adjective)
The programme aims to develop grassroots football. (Adjective.)
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