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Introduction
Hi, Lori here welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from BetterAtEnglish.com. Today’s conversation is about some of the differences between American and British English usage when it comes to telling time. This conversation also marks the first appearance of my very own mom here on B@E. She give us her perspective on American usage, while my English friend Michael (whom you know from earlier podcasts) returns this episode to cover the British point of view. This episode follows directly from the previous episode, number 44, so if this is your first time listening to our podcasts you should listen to episode 44 first.

The pdf that goes with this episode contains the full transcript, the vocabulary list, the image of clocks that I used to elicit time expressions from my mom and Michael, and some usage notes about time expressions in British and American English. You can download it directly in iTunes, or visit betteratenglish.com and download from there. I think that’s enough introduction for today — let’s get on with the conversation!

Conversation Transcript

[Lori:In this informal language experiment, I showed my mom a picture of four clock faces and asked her to read me the times. This was to see what prepositions she would use, particularly if she would avoid the preposition past as Yvette's former teachers claimed Americans do.]

Mom: OK, well starting on the top left I have ten m minutes after nine, and then the next one to the right is twenty-five after seven, and then on the bottom left is five past six and the last one on the bottom right is a quarter past twelve.
Lori: OK! Perfect! You scored 100%
Mom: Wow, I got 100%! I do know how to tell time on a regular analog clock!
Lori: OK…now this is very interesting because you are a native American speaker, and you haven’t had…I doubt you’ve had much exposure to British English and definitely not ever had to teach English using British English materials or anything like that.
Mom: No, for sure.
Lori: Yeah, the problem is..is that sometimes when non-native speakers are learning English, teachers will tell them misguided rules that they maybe read in some outdated book somewhere saying things like, “In American English you have to use after when you talk about time; you can’t use past.”
Mom: Yeah, I think one time I said past..I think I said five past six. In fact I purposely said past because I was trying to give you some variety of the difference…we can tell time…because Americans will say past.
Lori: Yeah! That’s what I think as well, that I…maybe naturally I’d be more likely to say after but I wouldn’t think it was weird or strange if someone said past.
Mom: No…no, that’s exactly…’cause…I think the first couple of times I said after and then I thought, “Oh I’m going to give her a little variety,” so I’ll say five past six because we do say that, but it’s…I mean we wouldn’t think it’s odd.
Lori: OK, that’s great, and that’s really just the point I wanted to make… that often…
Mom: In fact I think we especially do it with with…on the half hour, we say half past twelve.
Lori: Right, right, half past twelve, definitely. Yeah, you wouldn’t say half after twelve.
Mom: Nuh-uh, we always say past for then. See, we use both.
Lori: And the interesting thing is I used analog clocks on purpose because I was worried that if I just wrote the times in digital time you would have said, for example, seven twenty-five.
Mom: Exactly, ’cause that’s what you see on a digital clock.
Lori: So anyway, that was my little experiment!
Mom: OK!

[laughter]

[Lori: After doing the experiment with my mom, I went on and did the same experiment with Michael to get the British perspective.]
Lori: …and read the times that you see on the clocks.
Michael: Yeah, it’s ten past nine… that’s from the top left. The top right is twenty-five past seven. The bottom left..err..five past six, and the bottom right one is quarter past twelve.
Lori: OK, cool! You’ve also scored 100%. You can tell time on an analog clock!
Michael: [laughs] Yay!
Lori: And the reason that I asked you to do this is…I had a discussion with Yvette the other day and she remembered learning when she was studying English, umm — she’s had both…been exposed to people, you know, trying to teach her British English and American English — and she somehow was told that if you’re going to speak British English you have to say past just like you just did, like, it’s ten past…
Michael: It’s true as well, it’s..in fact, I can tell you that…I mean she’s absolutely right. I mean, never mind the experimenting, that is how we are taught. And I’ve never heard anybody say ten after, you know, three or something like that until I met an American person.
Lori: OK! OK, but did you still understand it the first time you heard…did it cause any problems?
Michael: Oh it didn’t cause any any confusion… you say 10, you know five past, ten past quarter past, twenty past, twenty-five past.
Lori: Uh-huh.
Michael: And when it’s around it’s around, it’s twenty-five to, twenty to, quarter to, ten to, five to…
Lori: Right.
Michael: But I’ve heard some American people say ten till..
Lori: Oh yeah, ten till six, yeah quarter till, um-hmm.
Michael: You never ever ever ever ever say that in British English, it’s always past and it’s to and it’s drummed into you.
Lori: OK, that’s quite interesting.
Michael: There’s no variation whatsoever, but people can understand obviously, I mean you’d have to be a bit of a [bleep] jerk to…
Lori: Um-hmm.
Michael: Being deliberately obtuse if you’re going, “Huh? I don’t get it.” You know, because it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain, you know, what it means. But it is…it stands out as being unusual ’cause this is… yet we have this little clocks with the, you know, the movable hands.
Lori: Yeah, analog clocks.
Micheal: Yeah!
Lori: In fact, I was quite cunning when I made the picture to send to you. I made…I used analog clocks on purpose just to elicit the preposition past, ’cause if I had just written the times, like in digital format, you probably would have said things like…
Michael: Nine ten…yeah. But I don’t…I don’t say times like that anyway. I always do it the old-fashioned way. even after the advent of digital things because my dad would belt me if I said it, err, you know, the digital way, I’d… seriously, I’d get in trouble when my parents would yell at me.
Lori: Oh, that’s funny why, why…Did they ever say why they didn’t like it?
Michael: Yes, they felt it was dumbing things down, err, and it meant that you know you wouldn’t be learning you wouldn’t know how to tell the time properly. Err, because if you just read it out like that…err…and…I mean I think they had a very good point, because if you, you know, if you only knew how to tell the time like that and then you were at, oh I don’t know, some big train station somewhere where they had an analog clock and you’re going, “Oh, umm, let me work out bla bla bla,” you know, it’s…it’s not so good.
Lori: Yeah, it’s definitely, I think, everyone needs to know how to tell time on an analog clock but I wouldn’t go so far as to force people to use that every time they were talking about time because I think the digital system is so established now and it really makes perfect sense.
Michael: Yeah, and my, I mean, I can hear you hang on my parents are total [bleeping] Nazis when it comes to…
Lori: [laughs in disbelief]
Michael: But anyway… I love them but they’re…you know…misguided in the extreme.
Lori: You know I’m going to have to bleep you out now.
Michael: [laughs]
Lori: We’re not recording for Uncensored English!

Final Words

That’s all for this time. Of course, in these spontaneous conversations we can’t cover all of the usage issues that apply, and sometimes the examples we come up with on the spot might not be the best from a teaching perspective. So to make up for that I’ve added some extra usage notes to the pdf file for this episode. I hope you find them useful. Thanks for listening, and bye for now!

See the PDF for the Vocabulary list and usage notes.

Copyright 2008 L. Linstruth - www.betteratenglish.com.

Real English Conversations: Telling time in English 1

Transcript

Hi and welcome to the first grammar edition of the Better At English Podcast. Lori here, comin’ atcha from the humble B@E studios here in southern Sweden.
Usually I focus on vocabulary and conversational English in these podcasts. But even if you’ve got an impressive vocabulary and are an amazing conversationalist, you’ll still look like a total dork if you make careless grammar mistakes in your writing. And by “mistake” I mean things that are errors by anyone’s definition of standard English, not contested usage points where expert opinion is divided (for example, the serial comma).

Some grammar mistakes are surprisingly frequent even among educated native speakers of English. When it comes to written English, a lot of these mistakes involve words or phrases that sound the same but are spelled differently. Usually these mistakes are obvious when someone points them out to you, but when you are busy focusing on what you’re trying to say rather than worrying about grammatical accuracy, it’s easy to let the sound you hear in your head trick you into writing the wrong form. Unfortunately, if you make this kind of mistake, you run the risk of making a really bad impression with your writing. But luckily, some of these mistakes are really easy to fix if you just know what to look for.

One of the most notorious of these grammatical pet peeves is when people write the wrong form of its/it’s. That’s what I will try to help you with today. This may be a bit difficult to follow if you are just listening, so I suggest you go to the website and have a look at the transcript.

Its vs. it's: avoiding dorky grammar mistakes

Its/it’s has two forms. One form has an apostrophe, spelled I-T-apostrophe-S, and is a contraction of it is or it has.

Here’s an example where it’s means it is: “Hooray! It’s time for grammar!”

This means “Hooray, it is time for grammar.”

Here’s an example where it’s means it has: “Wow! It’s been a long time.”

This means, “Wow! It has been a long time.”

I can combine these two examples like this:

“Wow, it’s been a long time since I heard a student say, ‘Hooray, it’s time for grammar!’ ”

That means, “Wow, it has been a long time since I heard a student say, ‘Hooray! It is time for grammar!’ ”

The other form of its has no apostrophe, it’s spelled I-T-S, and is the possessive form of the pronoun it, which you can use when you’re talking about something of or belonging to an “it.”

Here are some examples:

1) Sweden is famous for its social welfare system and hot blonde chicks.
2) Volvo is famous for its boxy-but-safe car design.

Neither of those sentences would make sense if you replaced its with it is or it has.

Luckily, when you are speaking nobody can hear whether or not your brain is putting in apostrophes where they don’t belong. Writing is where you will get in trouble.

Here is how you can avoid writing the wrong form of its/it’s when you have an important piece of writing where you cannot possibly afford to look like a dork.

1) So here’s step one. When you write, ask yourself if the it’s/its you’re about to write means it is or it has. If it does, then you can use the it’s form WITH an apostrophe. If it doesn’t make sense, then you need the its form WITHOUT an apostrophe.

Here’s an example:

Sweden is famous for its social welfare. Can you say, “Sweden is famous for it is social welfare” or “Sweden is famous for it has social welfare”? Nope, it doesn’t work, so you know you need its with NO apostrophe.

If you are still confused, then try replacing the its/it’s with another pronoun: his, her, or their. If one of those make sense grammar-wise, then you need its with NO apostrophe. Here’s an example:

Volvo is famous for its boxy-but-safe design. You can try “Volvo is famous for their boxy-but-safe design.” Yes, it makes sense! So you know that you use its with no apostrophe.

2) The second thing you should do is use the find feature of your word processing software to search for all instances of its (no apostrophe) and it’s (with apostrophe). For each instance you find, perform the it is / it has test or the his-her-their pronoun test. If you take the time to do this, you will never risk turning in piece of writing containing this dorky grammar mistake.

Good luck! It’s been a lot of fun making this first grammar podcast for you. I hope you’ll find it useful for avoiding the dorky its/it’s mistake.

Before I sign off, just a little update on the two favors I asked of you in the last episode. Thanks to all who have recommended your favorite English books — I really appreciate your input! If you still haven’t made a recommendation, it’s not too late. I’ll be collecting suggestions for another week or so, and then summarize them on the website.

I had also asked you how you would feel about mild swearing in these podcasts. So far only one person has told me that it wouldn’t be a good idea. To make it easier for you to have your say, I’ve put a poll up in the sidebar of the website at Better At English dot com. If you have any positive or negative feelings about mild profanity or swear words in these podcasts, please take the time to let me know.

Finally, I have some really cool news. Recently I started guest podcasting with Ben over at Very Vocabulary dot com. It’s a 20-minute weekly vocabulary podcast that teaches a handful of advanced vocabulary words each week. It’s aimed mainly at native speakers, but would be good for upper-intermediate to advanced learners of English as well. I hope you’ll head over to Very Vocabulary dot com and check it out! Our first joint episode should be up in the next few days.

Thanks to all of you who have been writing in with feedback and kind words about the show. I really appreciate it! Special thanks to the nice person from Korea who left a review on the iTunes site. Reviews really help a lot to get new people interested in the show, so if you like what I do here, please take the time to leave a review on iTunes. If only one of every one hundred iTunes listeners left a review, there would be TONS of them, and it would totally make my day.

That’s it for this time. We’ll see you next time here at Better at English dot com. Bye for now!

Copyright 2008 L. Linstruth - www.betteratenglish.com.

Grammar mistakes that make you look like a dork: its vs. it's