Episode: 2751
Title: HPR2751: Battling with English - part 3
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2751/hpr2751.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 16:20:10

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This is HPR Episode 2,751 entitled Battling with English Part 3.
It is hosted by Dave Morris and is about 14 minutes long and can remain an explicit flag.
The summary is misunderstanding about English drama, spelling, punctuation, etc.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
Hello everybody. Welcome to Hacker Public Radio. This is Dave Morris and I'm doing the third
episode of the series I started a little while ago called Battling with English.
I've got a list of some words which are used in wrong places or a bit or are confused with one
another and well we know that English is confusing and these ones tend to catch out
people who are not English speakers as their first language. So the first couple of words we
want to look at are the words B-W-N and B-E-I-N-G. Now these two words sound similar,
though when you see them on the page you can see they differ from their different spelling.
They are confused by people who are learning English quite often. They're both forms of verb to
be. So let's look at B-E-B-W-N and it's the past participle of the verb to be and it's often
used after half. So I've got four examples here. First one I have been enjoying this week's
output from HPR. That's a past tense they see. Second one the children were excited to find out if
Santa Claus had been and left gifts. Next one where have you been? I was expecting you 30 minutes
ago. Like the last example I've been there and done that. People don't say that as much as they
used to. Been there and done that but the second one is being which is the so-called present
participle of the verb to be and present participles usually end with I-N-G. So there's a collection
of four I've got four different meanings here. I haven't always gone into tremendous detail about
meanings. I've just picked out some which I think might be relevant. If you want to find out more
about these words you need to go and follow the links to see further references to to their use.
That first meaning it's given example he was being propositively rude. Second meaning means
is a noun meaning existence being alive or living. Three examples Hacker Public Radio
came into being at the end of 2007. Example two the unbearable lightness of being that's a book title
is a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera which I have read and I've seen the film too. I don't remember
much about the film. Pretty hard going as I recall but it's an interesting book. Example three
and I'm currently reading Charles Dickens novel called Little Dorit and I just happened to
stumble across this sentence in there and of course Dickens writes really long and convoluted
sentences but I thought you might enjoy it. Some of my readers he says may have an interest in being
informed whether or no any portions of the martial sea prison are yet standing. See how they say
whether or no now we say whether or not at least I do. Meaning three is the nature or essence of
a person. Both of my examples use the same phrase actually. Here's the first one my father was the
business brains behind it and this affected every fiber of his being. Example two I oppose the
reinstatement of the death penalty with every fiber of my being. That's a pretty common phrase
expression that people use. Meaning four is a real it's a noun a real or imaginary living
creature or entity especially an intelligent one. Example it is also a matter of how all living
beings not just human beings live side by side. Example two the motif of alien beings
people in our planet is a very common one in science fiction so living creature or entity.
Just just to help to make it very very clear the difference between these I hope anyway. So I've
got one example of what you shouldn't write and here's a sentence it ended up being a waste of
money that's BWN. You will see people writing this by mistake but they actually meant to write
was being it ended up being a waste of money. The meaning is that it was a waste of money or looking
back it has been a waste of money. So if you used that form you'd need to need a has in front of it
has been. The form of being here is the present participle of the verb to be whereas being is the
past but hopefully that's helped to convey the the differences. Now the next group of words is five
of them which are very similar and confusing but I wanted to just drill down a bit in case you
were not aware of the difference. So we've got where I'll just say what the other spell
I might as I go. Weather weather and weather and wither and wither. Yeah okay English is at
pain sometimes. So first three weather weather and weather sounds the same they're spelling
the different you can see from the notes the long notes they mean very different things and the
similar sort of thing with wither and wither they can also be confused and they mean pretty
different things. Let's start with weather that's W-E-A-T-H-E-R so I've got five meanings here.
First one is a noun the state of the atmosphere of particular place and time
regards heat, cloudiness, dryness, sunshine, wind and rain etc. It's the thing that you that
you get somebody telling you about on the television or on the radio or whatever. For example
Scotland's weather was remarkably hot in the summer of 2018 meaning two is a little bit more subtle
cold wet and unpleasant or unpredictable atmospheric conditions related obviously.
Example the band of trees on the hill provides some protection from the weather so it's um
it's not like what is the weather like today but just a sort of generic form of bad weather meaning
three denoting the side from which the wind is blowing especially on board a ship
windward side. I've got one example the side of tree trunks facing the prevailing wind and rain
comma the weather side comma can maybe colonize by most you loving mosses and lichens. I found that
in a we repeat your article I think talking about things that grow on trees. It's a side facing
the the wind and rain so it's wetter and therefore most you're loving things like to grow there
meaning four is a verb meaning two with stand or endure the ship weathered the storm at anchor
in a sheltered bay so weathering a storm means to be able to withstand it or endure it.
Fifth meaning is a verb meaning two erode the cliff was being weathered by the rough sea during
the storm so to weather something is um is a process of erosion so that's weather I'm sure everybody
knows as much as there is snow about about its use as a word. Now we've got weather which
which is w-e-t-h-e-r this one is a farming type word relating to sheep or goats so it's a male
sheep or a goat that's been castrated and the reason that that's done is to often to to control
their aggression and that type of thing and the thing I discovered was that a sentence non-weathers
that is um sheep or goats that haven't been castrated non-weathers tend to be smelly due to
their scent glands that's useful for some reason. Third word is weather with an h-w-h-e-t-h-e-r and
first meaning is expressing a doubt or choice between alternatives and it's similar to if
example no one has even taken the trouble to inquire whether I was alive or dead
that's a quote from some like I remember I got that from so inquire whether you might also say
inquire if meaning to you expressing an inquiry or investigation often used in indirect questions
example she poured the milk into a mug inquiring as to whether he would like some as well
so that's quite an involved way of putting it but you might come across it meaning three
is indicating that a statement applies whichever of the alternatives mentioned is the case
example nor had she given any indication by letter whether she admitted or denied the charges
next we come to with her w-i-t-h-e-r first meaning is a verb to become dry and shriveled
it's usually relates to a plant so by example is after all flowers have withered cut off the entire
stem so that would be you know your um your flowers your plants fall shriveled up and you want to
cut them down to stop them looking uncertainly and rotting or whatever meaning two is a verb meaning
to become shrunken or wrinkled from age or disease and it would relate to a part of the body
so the example I found was his body was wrinkled and withered slightly bent over and hunched
third meaning is to fall into decay or decline it's a verb and the quote is rather I quite like
this quote it's sort of statement that people would stand up and declaim for creativity is a muscle
that must be worked or it will gradually atrophy and wither good day everybody talks like
out these days meaning four is a verb to humiliate someone with a scornful look or mana by
example was she withered him with a glance you know if you've read books that use a term like a
withering glance I certainly have okay that's wither then we've got another wither wither with
an h w-h-i-t-h-e-r and it's an archaic word in in the two forms that I've got here so you might say
well you're asking to what place or state so my example is wither are we banned which is an archaic
way of saying where are we going so the meaning is to which we'd reference to a place so it's not
that different from from the other one actually here's one found this one I'm not sure where I
found it but I certainly found this example it's quite well said one finds oneself walking mechanically
to the tower of Belvedere Castle wither all other park visitors have gravitated like the ghouls
in night of the living dead I don't know how that would have come from but it sounds really
bit of pompous action that sort of thing so nobody nobody uses wither in that sense very much these
days I think we did have a family competition at one point to see if we could come up wither with
a poem or something using all of these wither words but it turned out to be so silly
that we gave it up so here's some examples of mistakes that you can make with these words example
one well nobody would ever do this lovely wither we're having I've never seen anybody do that but I
had to put it in nobody would use that wither is obviously the wrong word that's w-i-t-h-e-r
you meant lovely weather w-a-t-h-e-r not the not the sheet and goat one and here's one I picked up
by doing a search through hbr notes and stuff and it came from show one four one six and
it's an element in a bulleted list duck goat discussed and whether it personalises searches
but unfortunately the weather that was used is the is the sheet one w-e-t-h-e-r should have been
weather with an h-w-h-e-t-h-e-r and the last example is another quote from hbr shows
you don't have to worry about wither you check your feeds on a desktop pc or on your phone
so the wither is w-h-i-t-h-e-r so it's that archaic word meaning where are you going or whatever
that I was talking about that should have been weather w-h-e-t-h-e-r if you're writing this sort
of stuff quickly would be amazingly easy to type the wrong one so it's good to be aware of these
things and to keep an eye out for them that's really the point of this so that's my list there's
lots and lots of links to all of the words and their etymologies and all that sort of stuff but
I'll leave you to dig into that it's not not something that I should really be telling you about
in a in a podcast I feel all right that's your lot okay then bye bye
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