Metaphorical Usage and Scare Quotes

Metaphorical Usage and Scare Quotes Metaphorical Usage and Scare Quotes Metaphorical Usage and Scare Quotes By Mark Nichol Writers often mistakenly believe they are being helpful when, in the act of using a word or phrase in a nonliteral sense, they frame the term in quotation marks intended to alert readers, â€Å"This usage is not being employed in its original sense!† However, because readers generally are able to make the cognitive leap to understand that the use of a word or phrase is metaphorical, such symbols- in this role called scare quotes- are almost invariably a distracting and even condescending device. As recommended in the discussions following each example and as demonstrated in the accompanying revisions, avoid such extraneous hand-holding except when coining a new metaphorical word or phrase. 1. In this regard, many companies are starting with a â€Å"clean slate.† It’s clear from the context of this sentence that the businesses in question are beginning with no expectations, records, or some other factor or component, not with a writing surface that has just been wiped: â€Å"In this regard, many companies are starting with a clean slate.† 2. If a combination of these and other â€Å"red flags† are noted, the board should investigate them. Brightly colored rectangles of fabric are obviously not under discussion here; the reference is clearly to abstract warning signs such as incongruous data or odd behavior: â€Å"If a combination of these and other red flags are noted, the board should investigate them.† 3. The board should be informed of matters related to financial reporting raised by â€Å"whistle-blowers.† The reference to employment of a loud noise-making device is obviously an allusion to the desire of a person to get the attention of authorities and/or the media when he or she discovers institutional wrongdoing: â€Å"The board should be informed of matters related to financial reporting raised by whistle-blowers.† 4. Employees can be tempted to â€Å"cut corners† and act in an unethical manner. It’s obvious that the workers under discussion face the temptation of figuratively, not literally, avoiding negotiating right angles as they navigate their way through the workday: â€Å"Employees can be tempted to cut corners and act in an unethical manner.† 5. Such policies are discouraged because they can create a â€Å"slippery slope† in practice. Readers will understand that no unsafe inclines are implied by the use of the scare-quoted phrase; the wording refers to the potential difficulty of controlling or halting something once it has been allowed to begin or occur: â€Å"Such policies are discouraged because they can create a slippery slope in practice.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Mostly Small But Expressive InterjectionsUsing the Active Voice to Strengthen Your Writing20 Ways to Laugh

The Future Perfect Tense in Spanish

The Future Perfect Tense in Spanish The future perfect tense is normally used to refer to an event or action that hasnt happened yet but is expected or predicted to occur before another occurrence. In a sentence such as By this time tomorrow, I will have left, will have left is in the future perfect tense. In English, the future perfect tense is expressed, as in the example above, by using will have (or shall have) followed by the past participle. The Spanish future perfect tense is formed in much the same way as Englishs: the future indicative form of haber followed by the past participle. So I will have left would be habrà © salido. An Example: Estudiar in Future Perfect Tense Using the past participle of estudiar (to study) as an example, here is the full conjugation of the future perfect tense: habrà © estudiado - I will have studiedhabrs estudiado - you (informal singular) will have studiedhabr estudiado - he, she, you (formal singular) will have studied)habremos estudiado - we will have studiedhabrà ©is estudiado - you (informal plural, seldom used in Latin America) will have studiedhabrn estudiado - they, you (formal plural) will have studied Examples of the Future Perfect In these sample sentences, the Spanish and English perfect tense are used in much the same way. Habrà © visto  pronto esta pelà ­cula un millà ³n de veces o algo asà ­. (I soon  will have seen this film a million times or something like that.)La universidad habr perdido ms de 6.000 alumnos en el 2016, segà ºn un estudio. (The university will have lost more than 6,000 students by 2016, according to a study.)Si defendemos nuestro paà ­s habremos ganado el futuro. (If we defend our country, we will have gained the future.)Casi 50 millones de trabajadores habrn muerto de sida en este aà ±o si no mejora el acceso a los medicamentos. (Almost 50 million workers will have died of AIDS this year if we dont improve access to medicine.) Suppositional Use of the Future Perfect Because the future tense in Spanish can sometimes be used to indicate likelihood or supposition, the same is true when haber is used in the future tense. In such cases, the future perfect tense can often be translated as must have, may have, or might have to refer to something that has already occurred: Paula habr sabido nada de à ©l. (Paula must have known nothing about him.)Habrs visto la nueva pgina web que escribà ­. (You must have seen the new web page I wrote.) ¿Adà ³nde habrn ido mis caros amigos? (Where might my dear friends have gone to?)No sà © lo que ha pasado. Se habr roto el motor. (I dont know what has happened. Perhaps the motor got broken.)  No sà © que habr pasado. (I dont know what could have happened.) Note that in these suppositional statements, the grammatical future tense is used to events that happened (or might have happened) in the past. In the negative form, typically by using no, the future perfect forms a sort of rhetorical statement or question. In other words, the statement or question becomes less speculative and assumes agreement by the listener. No habrn perdido la esperanza en este mundo. (They couldnt have lost hope in this world.)No sà © de dà ³nde habrn salido estos datos. (I dont know where this data might have come from.)No habremos comprendido la importancia de las instrucciones. (We couldnt have understood the importance of the instructions.) A Related Tense: The Conditional Perfect In Spanish, the future and conditional tenses are closely related; in fact, the conditional tense is sometimes known as the future hypothetical. As such, the conditional perfect is often used in sentences of the type shown in these examples to indicate a conjecture. Si hubià ©ramos comido la pizza, habrà ­amos tenido ms energà ­a. (If we had eaten the pizza, we would have had more energy.)Si fueran inteligentes, habrà ­an sabido que era una broma. (If they were intelligent, they would have known it was a joke.) As with the future perfect, the conditional perfect as a speculative tense can refer to past events (or supposed past events). Key Takeaways The future perfect is formed by using the simple future tenses of haber followed by a past participle.The Spanish future perfect can be used in much the same way as the English future perfect, which takes the form of will have verb participle.Because the simple future tense can be used in Spanish to make speculative statements, the same can be done with the future perfect.