Relax, Refresh your English knowledge 46
226. What is the difference between ‘breeze away’ and ‘breeze through’?
When you breeze through an assignment, you manage to do it quickly without too much difficulty. You find the task rather easy. I thought I’d be able to breeze through the test. I was sadly mistaken. After breezing through her chores, my mother went out for a walk.
The expression can also be used to mean ‘to travel through a place rapidly’. In this case, you don’t make a stop. It was getting late. The candidate just breezed through several small towns When you ‘breeze away’ from some place, you leave it quickly or abruptly. It has) more or less the same meaning as ‘breeze off’. Namratha breezed away without even thanking the hosts. The CEO stopped in mid sentence and just breezed away.
227. Is it okay to say ‘His resignation has been be sanctioned’?
No, it isn’t. Sanction is not a word that one associates with resignation. One can sanction someone’s leave, budget, project, etc. Resignations are either accepted or rejected.
228. When you are writing a cheque, which of the following is correct ‘Two hundred and fifty five’ or ‘Two hundred fifty five?’
Both are correct. It depends on which side of the Atlantic you are from. If you are British, then you would use ‘and’. Americans, I understand, tend to write the amount without the ‘and’. Most Indians tend to follow the British.
229. When do we say ‘Yours faithfully’ and ‘Yours sincerely’ in a letter?
What do you normally do when you are writing a letter of complaint to a company and don’t know the name of the person to whom the letter should be addressed? You invariably begin the correspondence with the salutation ‘Dear Sir’. If you are not sure whether you are writing to a man or a woman, you cover your bases by writing ‘Dear Sir/Madam’. When you begin a letter in this fashion, the standard complimentary ending is ‘Yours faithfully’. ‘Yours sincerely’, like ‘Yours faithfully’, is mostly used in formal letters. If you know the name of the person you are writing to, then the standard ending is ‘Yours sincerely’. If you begin a letter in the following manner, ‘Dear Dr. Raman’ or ‘Dear Mr. Gupta’, the usual formal ending is ‘Yours sincerely’. The standard ending in American English is ‘Sincerely yours’. Sometimes, they shorten it to ‘Sincerely’.
230. How is the word ‘rotund’ pronounced?
The ‘ro’ rhymes with ‘so’, ‘no’, and ‘go’, and the following syllable sounds like the words ‘fund’ and ‘stunned’. The word is pronounced ‘row-TUND’ with the stress on the second syllable. This is just one of the ways of pronouncing the word. The word can be used to describe both people and objects. When you describe someone as being rotund, you mean the person is….you guessed it….round in shape. In other words, he is rather plump. *They made an odd couple. She was tall and slim, and he was short and rotund.
A collection from the Open Page Supplement of The Hindu Newspaper
Courtesy: Sri Upendra, the writer of the above
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