11. What is the difference between ‘nervous' and ‘edgy'?
A person who is nervous or edgy is tense or worried about something. Of the two, ‘nervous' is the more general term. Someone who is nervous need not necessarily show that he is worried about something. He may be outwardly very calm, but on the inside, he may be extremely agitated. A person who is ‘edgy' shows he is worried; the tension is there for all to see. He is anxious and is therefore very irritable. Small things set him off; he may argue or fight with those around him.
*Gayathri said she was nervous, but
she certainly didn't look it during the presentation.
*The soldiers were edgy as they
waited for their orders from the Captain.
12. Is it okay to say, ‘She was terminated by her publisher'?
In terms of grammar, there is nothing
wrong with the sentence. It suggests that this person was killed by her
publisher! Of course, given the times we are living in, authors getting bumped
off by their publisher wouldn't be considered unusual. If you want to say that
the publisher didn't kill, but merely fired the individual, then the sentence
should be written in the following manner: ‘Her services were terminated by her
publisher.' Not all publishers are like Arnold Schwarzenegger; they are not
‘Terminator(s)'.
13. How is the word ‘auteur' pronounced?
The
‘au' in the first syllable sounds like the ‘o' in ‘go', ‘so', and ‘no', while
the ‘eur' in the final syllable is like the ‘ir' in ‘birth', ‘bird', and
‘first'. The word is pronounced o-TIR with the stress on the second syllable.
In French, the word means ‘author'; nowadays it is mostly used in relation to
films. We know that all well-known directors have a distinctive style of making
movies. It is possible to watch a couple of scenes from a film and guess who
the director is. Dictionaries define this distinctive style which enables a
director to keep creative control over his work as ‘auteur'. This is just one
of the meanings of the word.
14.
How is the word ‘chauffeur' pronounced?
There
seem to be different ways of pronouncing this word of French origin. One simple
way is to pronounce the first syllable ‘chau' like the word ‘show', and the
‘er' in the second like the ‘a' in ‘china'. The British pronounce the word
‘SHOW-fe' with the stress on the first syllable. A ‘chauffeur' is someone who
drives a car for rich people. When used as a verb, the word means to drive
someone around.
*The
Ambanis went to the airport in a chauffeur-driven limousine.
*The
mother spent the afternoon chauffeuring her son from one mall to another.
The
word ‘chauffeur', which in French means ‘stoker', was in use long before
automobiles came into being. A stoker was someone who worked in the engine room
of a ship, and his job was to shovel coal into the boiler. The first
automobiles did not run on petrol, but on steam. The engine had a firebox and a
boiler, and one of the functions of the driver was to keep the fire in the
engine going.
15.
What is the difference between ‘demise' and ‘death'?
While
both words mean ‘end or ending of life', demise is mostly used in formal
contexts to refer to the death of someone or something very important or well
known. One usually talks about the demise of a Prime Minister or a celebrity;
the word is seldom used with ordinary people.
*The
sudden demise of the Prime Minister created a political vacuum.
The
word can also be used to indicate the failure of an enterprise.
*The
demise of the well-known company had many investors worried.
‘Death'
is a much more general term, and unlike ‘demise', can be used with things and
animals.
*Neelam
became very upset when she heard about the death of her puppy.
*It
was the death of all her plans.
A collection from the Open Page Supplement of The Hindu Newspaper
Courtesy: Sri Upendra, the writer of the above
Nice to increase our knowledge.
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