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Mass surveillance is now a part of our social, economic and political lives-governments and companies snoop on us like never before. But are we really heading toward an Orwellian future? Antony Funnell investigates.
When George Orwell finished work on 1984 he was already a man without a future. Fading rapidly from tuberculosis, his most celebrated novel was to be his last.

He died shortly after its publication.

Yet more than half a century later, his dystopian vision of the future is alive and in rude good health.

The Shake & Stir theatre company is just completing a national tour of Australia with an adaptation overseen by noted director and dramaturge Michael Futcher.

We look the other way when Google is watching us, but when the government is watching us it makes our blood run cold, and in this last year, more and more people have had that moment of blood running cold.

Mark Pesce, author and futurist, University of Sydney

The play wasn't originally meant to tour, but for Futcher, its popularity with a contemporary audience is entirely understandable.

'The world of 1984 is a perfect metaphor for today,' he says. 'People want to understand the nature of the type of power which is wielded in this story and how it relates to our own society. I think the audience just get it, they get the parallels very clearly, because they are so obvious these days.'

'When we did the show here originally in 2012 we had packed houses pretty much every night and it was sold out almost before opening night. The whole season was sold out.'

As Futcher points out, sales of the novel on Amazon.com increased last year by nearly 9,000 per cent following the revelation by US whistleblower Edward Snowden that US security organisations-in particular the NSA-were engaged in global mass surveillance on an unprecedented scale.

'All of this space that we thought was open to us and was free for us to express ourselves in, suddenly seems very closed,' says futurist and digital culture analyst Mark Pesce, who believes the Snowden expose has not only made 1984 more relevant, but also caused many people to reassess the nature and direction of our digital world.

'For 29 years after 1984 we really thought we'd dodged a bullet, that western democracies were safe, powerful and we were all living in freedom. Then last year when the Snowden revelations came out it started to become clearer and clearer that in fact 1984 wasn't far off the mark; that the NSA and its associated organisations were all colluding in massive wide-scale surveillance of populations and specific targeted surveillance of world leaders.'
Read more: Why Facebook and Twitter are the Panopticons of our time

More troubling still, according to Pesce, is the fact that the governments cooperating with the United States in wholesale global surveillance include Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia-all nations with strong democratic and anti-totalitarian traditions.

'Everything that we projected onto the Stasi in East Germany as being this ultimate totalitarian state with its monitoring of the population has in fact become reflected back to us in the scale of what the NSA is doing.'

Complicating matters further, Pesce says, is the fact that the economic and social basis for much of our modern digital existence is now centred firmly around some form of surveillance; a social media platform like Facebook, for instance, only works the way it does because its users allow the company to trawl their personal data in return for recommendation-based services.

We may not always recognise this more benign form of surveillance for what it is, but Pesce believes its prevalence complicates our understanding of the difference between healthy data-tracking and unhealthy surveillance.

'Younger people share and share freely because this is the culture they've grown up in. Folks who are a little bit older, they're new to it and they do it, but it's something that they learned when they were a little older and they maybe have a bit more critical distance around it.'

'That critical distance can range from wide open "yes, I'm going to share everything" all the way to tinfoil: "I don't even own a mobile phone". You meet people like this, who are really that scared of the surveillance aspects that they don't own a mobile. You can't say that there's any one right reaction to this. This is all still very new. In some ways we are all learning together.'

'What we haven't really had is that moment of critical distancing. We look the other way when Google is watching us, but when the government is watching us it makes our blood run cold, and in this last year, more and more people have had that moment of blood running cold.'

However, Pesce sees a growing tension developing between those involved in surveillance for commercial reasons and those conducting surveillance on people's digital lives on the grounds of state security.

'This is a big dilemma, because surveillance for Google has a strong commercial component and that places them at loggerheads with the government where there's a security component ... So there's a fundamental tension there between the needs of commerce and the needs of state security.'

'You could imagine in some weird science fiction future that the NSA will be getting its data feed from Google. Oh actually, it turns out that the NSA was tapping Google's data feed, that's right! Or you could imagine a different science-fiction future where Google would be getting the NSA data feed in order to provide you with better products and services. Already half of that very weird science-fiction future has been proven to be the case. So you do have this situation where, although their aims are very different, it's possible for the state to subvert the aims of commerce for its own ends.'

There are clear signs of pushback from social networks and communications providers against being co-opted into an Orwellian security apparatus, however.

In June this year global communications company Vodafone went public with its disquiet over the encroaching nature of state surveillance. The organisation released what it called a Law Enforcement Disclosure Report accusing governments of all persuasions of pressuring online service providers into surveillance cooperation.

Speaking in London, Vodafone's Group Privacy Officer, Stephen Deadman, called on governments to be more open and transparent in their dealings with telecommunications operators; he also confirmed long-held suspicions that some governments operated on a 'direct access' basis when dealing with telcos. That is, they've set-up covert systems which allow them to access the communications data of citizens without first seeking a court order or warrant, and without even notifying the telco in question when the harvesting of personal communications data is taking place.
Listen: Future of drone strikes could see execution by algorithm
For legal reasons, Vodafone refused to name those governments involved in such a practice, but said at least six were employing the direct access approach.

'Technology companies don't want to be the proxy for government and then to take the blame for whatever surveillance is occurring, no matter how legitimate it is,' says data specialist Rob Hillard, a managing partner with Deloitte Consulting Australia.

Hillard speaks of increasing levels of frustration among social networks over the restrictions they face which prevent them from informing their users/customers about the nature of government surveillance activity.

He argues that in order to fully understand the true drivers of the 21 st century surveillance society, you have to focus not just on the tracking, but on what's being tracked.

'Data is all around us and we are constantly looking for ways to join it together. While we aren't being monitored visually, we are increasingly giving away large amounts of personal information in terms of our location,' he says 'This isn't a new phenomenon. The thing that's changed is that the volume of information that we are putting out about ourselves has created new opportunities. Then the question is "where is the balance?"'

While describing himself as a digital optimist, Hillard admits feeling troubled by last year's Snowden/NSA revelations and the implications they present for the future of personal privacy and freedom.

To better understand just how intermeshed our modern lives are with tracking and big data, Hillard recently set himself a unique task: to try and live for an entire day without leaving a data footprint. It was an exercise he dubbed his 1984 challenge.

'My life is so integrated with the digital world, and I really wanted to see whether it was possible for me to completely disconnect and still live a productive life,' he says.

'I very much benefit from the digital world in which I live, it makes me more productive. I believe that my data is used overwhelmingly for the purposes for which I want it to be used-to my benefit and to society's benefit. But I also want to know that it's in my control. So I set out to live for a day creating the smallest possible footprint that I could.'

Problems began to arise almost immediately: 'One of the things I got caught out on was when I logged in to work. I initially avoided using services that touched the internet,' he says. 'But, of course, like most people, my PC is connected to a whole lot of cloud services and automatically just the act of logging on left a digital crumb of when I logged on and what I did.'

For Hillard, the clear message is that it isn't all about government, that citizens need to develop a better understanding of their own digital behaviour and the importance of the data they generate.

'Many of George Orwell's fears are coming true,' he argued in a recent blog post, before adding: 'The cause is not an oppressive government but rather an eagerness by the population as a whole to move services onto new platforms without demanding the same level of protection that their previous custodians have provided for a couple of centuries or more.'

'There are a lot of benefits from connected culture, but what I think is becoming more clear to us is what the costs are,' agrees Mark Pesce. 'I don't think we are quite there yet but I think we are on that road.'

'I think as part of that journey people will learn how to modulate their own level of privacy and sharing. Right now it's hard to do that. There isn't a lot of opportunity in the marketplace or in human understanding for how you actually modulate your privacy in public. I think that as that demand increases we will develop cultural techniques and we will also develop tools that will allow us to modulate our privacy.'

Despite the global uproar which followed last year's Snowden spying scandal, governments all around the world are showing little interest in scaling back on their spying and tracking activities.

On the contrary, the Australian Government, with the agreement of the Labor Opposition, is currently pushing for increased surveillance powers for Australia's security services, including a foreshadowed requirement that telcos retain their customers' call data for up to two years, just in case that data is required for reasons of state security.

While there's bipartisan agreement in Australia on the need for an increase in state surveillance capabilities, in the United States, however, it's a different story.

Over the past year, many legislators have broken ranks with their parties to speak out against government snooping. That said, their attempts to curtail the surveillance state have so far proven less than effective.

Take the USA Freedom Act, for example: introduced in October 2013, the Act's sole purpose was to bring the NSA to heel. After months of negotiation, the bill finally passed the US House of Representatives in May this year, but not before being disowned by some of its original sponsors including California Representative Zoe Lofgren, who complained that the act had been so severely watered-down during the committee process it was no longer a protection against the mass surveillance of American citizens.

'Many members of Congress may not have realised that what they thought was a vote to end unwarranted spying against Americans with the USA Freedom Act was actually a vote to reauthorise the Patriot Act,' Lofgren was quoted as saying immediately after the bill's passage.

Listen to this episode of Future Tense to find out more.

More

This [series episode segment] has image, and transcript

The American Civil Liberties Union, however, has welcomed the act as a necessary 'first step', though they too say it has lost much of its bite.

Neema Singh Guliani from the ACLU agrees with Lofgren that the language used in the Bill is too elastic. It still allows for the mass collection of data by the NSA and affiliated agencies. She also says civil libertarians were disappointed that provisions aimed at forcing greater transparency were removed

'One of the key things that I think citizens felt and members of both parties felt was that we were shocked by the Snowden revelations, and that there needed to be increased transparency about what the secret intelligence courts were doing and what they were authorising,' she says.

'The original act had provisions that would have required some of these opinions to be declassified so that Congress and the American people could really look at what the government was doing and assess whether it was consistent with the law; and also consistent with what we as a country want to be done. Those provisions were severely weakened in the bill that emerged.'

The impact of state surveillance is not theoretical, says Guliani, who warns that its effects are already being felt by average citizens. As a consequence, behavioural change within society is underway.

'We see studies that have come out that say almost half of people are changing the way they use the internet because they think the government is watching them,' she says. 'We see journalists who speak to it and say, look, I'm no longer wanting to write about certain things or I'm no longer wanting to speak about certain things because I'm afraid that the government is watching me or that that's going to put me on a target list.'

'That type of change in behaviour really strikes fundamentally at the values of our society. So I think the companies pushing back on data retention, pushing back on efforts to facilitate government surveillance is really a part of a broader understanding and a broader push-back from the country to say that this authority has gone too far, we are sacrificing too much.'
Exploring new ideas, new approaches, new technologies-the edge of change. Future Tense analyses the social, cultural and economic fault lines arising from rapid transformation.

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1984 and our modern surveillance society

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Mass surveillance is now a part of our social, economic and political lives-governments and companies snoop on us like never before. But are we really heading toward an Orwellian future? Antony Funnell investigates. When George Orwell finished work on 1984 he was already a man without a future.

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The literary, tech and thinking worlds are mourning the loss of Ray Bradbury, the revered science-fiction writer who died Wednesday at age 91. Bradbury, best known for his 1953 novel "Fahrenheit 451," used his imagination to take a hard look at a world locked in a growing love affair with technology. His stories examined what humanity gained - and lost - by being plugged-in.

Here are some of Bradbury's more prescient predictions.

●The people in the "Fahrenheit 451" society sport " seashells" and " thimble radios," which bear a striking resemblance to earbuds and Bluetooth headsets.

●Members of that futuristic society are also as obsessed with their large, flat-screen televisions as are today's technophiles, and the viewing screens in Bradbury's stories often take up an entire wall.

●In fact, the novel mentions that people are talking to their friends through the digital wall - the same terminology that Facebook would use years later for the digital hub that enables friends to post and see messages.

●The loneliness that can come from constantly paying attention to the screens around you, rather than the life around you, is a prevalent theme in Bradbury's work. He explored it in his short story "The Pedestrian," in which protagonist Leonard Mead is arrested for the crimes of taking a walk and not owning a television.

Far ahead of the research and analyses that have spawned books on the effects of technology overload, such as Sherry Turkle's "Alone Together," Bradbury outlined how he feared that televisions would change the world.

In this passage, he compares a neighborhood of television-watchers to a tomb:

He "would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind he windows. Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomblike building was still open."

●"The Pedestrian" also features a self-driving - and self-thinking - car, which arrests and commits the protagonist to a mental hospital. While far less advanced and much less sinister, self-driving cars are on U.S. roads as part of a Google project. As of last month, Google's cars, which are clearly marked, can legally drive on Nevada's roads and highways as long as two people are in the vehicle during the tests.

●The idea of electronic surveillance also popped up in Bradbury's work way before closed-circuit television became a fixture in cities around the world. He was early in warning people about how surveillance could be abused - worries that echo today.

●Bradbury's criticism of the coverage of live media events in "Fahrenheit 451" is fodder for media critics' columns today. Bradbury disparaged constant, sensationalized news.

●Bradbury also envisioned automated banking machines in the novel. The machines bear a striking similarity to ATMs and provide 24-hour financial information to users.

●In "I Sing the Body Electric!" and other stories, Bradbury explored artificial intelligence and the philosophical implications of advancements in AI that could perhaps produce thinking, feeling machines.

●Books aren't banned - thank goodness - in today's society, but reading a paper-and-glue version of a story isn't as common as it once was. Bradbury loved physical books and did not allow "Fahrenheit 451" to be published as an e-book until November, London's Guardian reported.

Bradbury once said that e-books "smell like burned fuel," but he allowed his classic to be published digitally because it wouldn't be possible to have a new contract without e-book rights.

●Finally, Bradbury made an imprint on the future. In his story "Sound of Thunder," he portrayed how changing one small thing in history could have larger, unpredictable effects on what was to come. A man on a safari to the past steps on a butterfly, and the insect's death drastically changes the future.

After the story was published, its turning point entered the modern lexicon, referred to as the "butterfly effect."

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Dreams of Ray Bradbury: Predictions that came true

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The literary, tech and thinking worlds are mourning the loss of Ray Bradbury, the revered science-fiction writer who died Wednesday at age 91. Bradbury, best known for his 1953 novel "Fahrenheit 451," used his imagination to take a hard look at a world locked in a growing love affair with technology.

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opinion: we're living '1984' today - cnn

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Opinion: We're living '1984' today - CNN

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Lewis Beale says it's no wonder that Orwell's prescient book has seen a spike in sales. It's fictional surveillance state is alarmingly recognizable in our modern society

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Transcript

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

That's what world leaders who are gathering for the start of the World Economic Forum are being told this week.

The charity Oxfam says that by 2015, 50% of the world's wealth will be owned by the richest 1% of the population.

They say urgent action is needed to narrow the gap between the global elite and the other 99%.

Vocabulary

world leaders
presidents, prime ministers and other important people

charity
an organisation that helps people in need

urgent action
serious steps that need to be taken to solve a problem

narrow the gap
to bring two things closer together

global elite
the small group of people with the most power and money around the world

To do

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from news reports. Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.
global elite / world leaders / narrow the gap / charity / urgent action
1. Growing scientific evidence of accelerating greenhouse gas emissions, melting icecaps and the shrinking capacity of "sinks" to absorb emissions means we need bold, __________ by government to drive down emissions to zero.

2. "We also recognise the importance of helping the lagging regions __________ in growth rates."

3. While __________ were formulating an international response to modern climate change, archaeologists were discussing a serious shift in climate that happened 2,500 years ago.

4. Stephen Sackur asks "is it time we challenged the power of the __________?"

5. Filmmakers and __________ workers are joining forces to raise awareness of the dangers of childbirth in Bangladesh.

Answers

1. Growing scientific evidence of accelerating greenhouse gas emissions, melting icecaps and the shrinking capacity of "sinks" to absorb emissions means we need bold, urgent action by government to drive down emissions to zero.

2. "We also recognise the importance of helping the lagging regions narrow the gap in growth rates."

3. While world leaders were formulating an international response to modern climate change, archaeologists were discussing a serious shift in climate that happened 2,500 years ago.

4. Stephen Sackur asks "is it time we challenged the power of the global elite?"

5. Filmmakers and charity workers are joining forces to raise awareness of the dangers of childbirth in Bangladesh.

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BBC Learning English - Words in the News / Rich and poor

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The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. That's what world leaders who are gathering for the start of the World Economic Forum are being told this week. The charity Oxfam says that by 2015, 50% of the world's wealth will be owned by the richest 1% of the population.

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Past Simple or Present Perfect Exercise 3

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Choose the past simple or the present perfect.

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6 Minute English - Downloads - BBC Radio

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Learn and practise useful English language for everyday situations with the BBC

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Simple Past and Present Perfect Exercise | ENGLISH PAGE

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First of two exercises on the differences between simple past and present perfect.

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Conditionals

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Grammar Exercise - Conditional sentences (conditionals)

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English grammar exercises online. Free exercises on the use of conditional sentences.

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Conditionals

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Our Free Exercises are free to students for individual use only. They may not be copied, printed or used in a teaching situation without a licence. If you wish to copy, print or use them in a teaching situation, please contact us to purchase a licence.

Grammar, Vocabulary & Phrases

Use these exercises to practise your Grammar, Vocabulary and use of Phrases. They are organised into three levels:

Elementary: suitable for students from levels A2 to B1 on the CEF (Common European Framework)

Intermediate: suitable for students from B1 to B2 on the CEF

Advanced: suitable for students from C1 and C2 on the CEF

The exercises on these pages were all written by International House Bristol staff and you will not find the same exercises on any other site or in any coursebook.
See Grammar, Vocabulary & Phrase Tests

Cambridge ESOL

Practise for your Cambridge ESOL Exams with our free exercises. You will find various types of exercise from the Use of English sections of these exams to help you prepare for First Certificate in English (FCE), Certificate of Advanced English (CAE) or Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE).

These free exercises have an optional time-limit so you can test yourself in similar conditions to the exam. You will see a timer that counts down to zero. When it reaches zero your exercise will be automatically submitted. You can pause or switch off the timer if you wish.
See Cambridge ESOL Tests

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Our Free Exercises are free to students for individual use only. They may not be copied, printed or used in a teaching situation without a licence. If you wish to copy, print or use them in a teaching situation, please contact us to purchase a licence.

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Conditionals

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Tenses quiz

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Past and Participle Verb Forms 1 | Grammar Quizzes

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Identify the past tense and participle verb forms of common verbs: awake - lay.

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Verb tenses practice

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Game to practice different verb tenses in English - present simple tense, present progressive tense, past simple tense, past progressive tense, present perfect tense and future tenses - ESL War Game.

Games are great for motivating students to learn. By playing our fun educational games, students can practice and review key English vocabulary, grammar and sentences without the boredom which is usually encountered when doing paper-based gap-fill exercises. Play the game below and do not hesitate to share these resources with other learners. This is the philosophy behind our site - www.eslgamesplus.com.

This game is also excellent for classroom teaching. Teachers can engage students in a classroom grammar review for elementary ESL, EFL Learners. It can be used to energize a dull class, to review work that was done or simply as a reward for good classroom work. It is especially useful for teaching ESL pre-intermediate and intermediate levels. Practice the following verb tenses using this game: Present simple tense, present progressive, past simple, past progressive, present perfect, future tenses. Have fun teaching and learning English!

More Games

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Verb Tenses Grammar Game, Present, Past and Future Tenses ESL War Game

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Practice different Verb Tenses (Present simple tense, present progressive, past simple, past progressive, present perfect, future tenses and more) using this ESL War Game. This game is also excellent for classroom teaching. Teachers can engage students in a classroom grammar review for elementary ESL, EFL Learners.

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Predicting the future

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Future forms

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© British Council The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland). ICP#: 10044692

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Simple Past or Present Perfect - Exercise

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Grammar Exercises, Simple Past, Present Perfect, English tenses, Online Exercise

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Grad/Ungrad adj theory and practice

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There are two main reasons why knowing a bit about the gradabilty of adjectives is useful to students.

1. - it largely decides what intensifiers, adverbs like quite, very and absolutely, we can use before them.

2. - learning some strong versions of gradable adjectives will increase your vocabulary, and make your English more varied and interesting.

For this reason, I will only be looking here at those adjectives that we often use intensifiers with. There are a lot of ungradable adjectives like metal, married or pregnant, where we don't normally use intensifiers. I won't be discussing these here.

As usual in my lessons, I won't be telling you much, you will need to work it out for yourselves through the exercises. If you simply want an explanation, there are some links below.

Looking for a list of gradable and ungradable adjectives?

If you've landed here because you're trying to find out whether a particular adjective is gradable or not, you might not find the answer here, but you could try my newer post where I list a lot adjectives as being gradable, extreme or absolute. You can find it here.

Click and Drop where you see this symbol ? mouse over it for instructions

There are three main types of adjective we use intensifiers with: gradable, strong (also known as extreme) and absolute.

Exercise 1 - Gradable and non-gradable ?

Complete the descriptions of different types of adjective with examples from the box.

The most common intensifiers

Exercise 2 - Basic intensifiers (one or two perhaps not quite so basic) ?

Which of these words can be used with the following. Enter the pairs in the same order as they are in the box:

These are the most commonly used intensifiers. We shall be looking at a few more a little later.

The word really is a very useful word in informal English for two reasons:

1. As you can use it with both gradable and non-gradable adjectives, you don't have to worry about the grammar side of things.

2. It has more emotional content than very. Look at these sentences:

Thanks for the party, I had a very good time.

Thanks for the party, I had a really good time.

The first is polite enough, but the second sounds as though you really mean it. As if it came from the heart.

In formal writing, however, it is best to try and find more specific intensifiers.

How can we tell if an adjective is gradable or not?

There is no hard and fast way that we can tell whether an adjective is gradable just by looking at it, but there are a couple of tests we can do.

1. Can we make comparative and superlative versions of the adjective?

It's hotter today than it was yesterday. (gradable)

It's more boiling today than it was yesterday. (strong)

This house is more unique than that one. (absolute)

Usually we only make comparisons with gradable adjectives. So try using a comparative and if it sounds OK, then the adjective is probably gradable. But notice that:

Some adjectives normally considered strong or extreme, for example, tiny, do in fact have comparative and superlative versions, although they aren't used very often. - Smallest Frogs Found-Each Tinier Than an M&M (National Geographic)

We sometimes use a comparative after even with strong adjectives, especially when we are not directly comparing something with something else, but in a more abstract way. - The view from here is even more amazing than I remember it.

2. Can we use the determiner very before the adjective?

If so, it's probably gradable.

Exercise 3 - Gradable, strong or absolute?

Decide which category these adjectives fit into, using the selectors. Try using them with very and absolutely and see which sounds best.

Why do we use intensifiers with non-gradable adjectives?

Grading adverbs such as quite, very and extremely are used to put an adjective somewhere on a scale.

But absolute and strong adjectives cannot be given a degree like this. When we use intensifiers like absolutely, completely and totally, we are using them for emphasis rather then degree.

Exercise 6 - Cross out the wrong option. Click on an option to cross it out it. If you change your mind, click on one of the other options

More than one strong equivalent

Many gradable adjectives have more than one strong equivalent. Learning some alternatives will increase your vocabulary.

Exercise 7 - Divide these adjectives into six groups of four, according to meaning. You can copy and paste them into the six boxes.

In that last exercise you will have noticed we had the adjectives amazing and amazed and that their meanings were different. Although -ing and -ed adjectives usually have a similar meaning, eg: surprising / surprised, interesting / interested, some pairs can have different meanings:

amazing - really good

amazed - really surprised

stunning - really beautiful (also really surprising)

stunned - really shocked (also really surprised)

thrilling - really exciting

thrilled - really pleased, happy (also really excited)

Not all gradable adjectives have strong equivalents

Many gradable adjectives don't really have strong equivalents. These include:

describing people - busy, friendly, popular, rich

intermediates - warm, cool

attributes - fast, slow, strong, weak, young

dimensions - deep, shallow, high, low, long, short, tall, wide, narrow

Can we use both grading and absolute intensifiers with some adjectives?

The adjective certain is sometimes seen as a stronger version of sure. But I started thinking that we could use both very and absolutely with both these adjectives. And this turns out to be the case. It looks from this graph of use in books of fiction as though both words are in the process of changing from being gradable adjectives (the blue and green lines) to ungradable (red and yellow). So, for the moment at least, we can use both gradable and emphasising intensifiers with these words.

We'll look at a few others a bit later on.

Some more intensifiers

Exercise 9 - Decide whether these intensifiers go with gradable or ungradable adjectives. Try saying them with tired, exhausted and unique, and see which you think sounds better.

Bringing it all together

Exercise 10 - Underline the best option. Click on an option to underline it. If you change your mind, click on one of the other options

Afterthoughts and some Ngram links.

The more I do these exercises, the more I become convinced that it's not quite as black and white as some of the books make out. Earlier on we looked at sure and certain. Here are a few more examples, with links to Ngram graphs showing their use over the years in a selection of books:

Although I would say totally exhausted rather than very exhausted, I think I can also imagine myself saying rather exhausted, even though rather is normally used with gradable adjectives. Ngram

Satisfied seems to collocate equally well with very and completely Ngram

New - Although we can certainly use fairly, rather and very with new, totally and completely seem to be more popular. Ngram

Thrilled - Like sure and certain, thrilled also seems to be making the journey from gradable to strong. Ngram

Puzzled is another interesting case. More gradable than not, but emphasisers also possible.Ngram

And exceedingly appears to collocate with delicious (ungradable) almost as well as with tasty (gradable), even though exceedingly normally goes with gradable adjectives: exceedingly pretty, exceedingly fast, exceedingly thirsty etc. Ngram

Here are a couple more Ngram graphs from questions in the previous exercise:

This doesn't mean of course that the basic principle we have been looking at is wrong. After all, it only affects three questions out of the 25 in that last exercise, but it does suggest that there are a few grey areas where certain adjectives can be used with some grading adverbs and also with some emphasising adverbs.

But remember, when in doubt, really is usually safe enough. And as well as checking in a dictionary, you can always check possibilities out on Ngram. It's fun and very easy to use.

Here's how to do it. Enter two or more expressions, separated by commas (but no space). Try pasting this example into the box, then click on 'Go to Ngram':

made it very clear,made it absolutely clear

This little word raises passions like few others. Unique is relatively new to the English language (it was considered a foreign word until the middle of the 19th century). It's original meaning was being 'the only one of its kind', and therefore impossible to grade or compare, and so absolute.

In this use, I think emphasisers like absolutely and totally etc are OK.

Most people would also allow almost, nearly and practically with this meaning.

But there are some purists who believe that unique should remain totally unadorned - 'It is either unique or it isn't'!

From this came a secondary absolute with to, meaning - 'belonging only to somebody, something or somewhere'

In this use, I think any intensifiers, even absolutely or totally, would sound a bit strange, and so are best avoided.

Very soon, however, it started to be used with the sense of 'very special or unusual', and so to a certain degree, at least, gradable.

The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary allows the use of the words like more and very in this meaning, and Merriam-Webster says that ' In modern use both comparison and modification are widespread and standard'.

But I'd be careful. Not everybody accepts this third usage, and consider the use of expressions like very unique and more unique to be incorrect. I wouldn't go that far, but I have to admit they sound strange, and I wouldn't use them myself. But I'd happily use absolutely, totally and possibly really.

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There are two main reasons why knowing a bit about the gradabilty of adjectives is useful to students. 1. - it largely decides what intensifiers, adverbs like quite, very and absolutely, we can use before them. 2. - learning some strong versions of gradable adjectives will increase your vocabulary, and make your English more varied and interesting.

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Learn about strong and weak adjectives.

Practice 1: strong and weak (gradable and ungradable) adjectives

Click on the "ungradable" adjective for each of the adjectives you are given.

Choose the best word to complete each of the following sentences. There are four choices (these questions are similar to part 1 of the Cambridge B2 First exam, Use of English).

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Learn about strong and weak adjectives. Practice 1: strong and weak (gradable and ungradable) adjectives Click on the "ungradable" adjective for each of the adjectives you are given. Choose the best word to complete each of the following sentences. There are four choices (these questions are similar to part 1 of the Cambridge B2 First exam, Use of English).

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Formal vs. Informal Emails

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gorgeous (adjective) definition and synonyms | Macmillan Dictionary

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Define gorgeous (adjective) and get synonyms. What is gorgeous (adjective)? gorgeous (adjective) meaning, pronunciation and more by Macmillan Dictionary

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Network Solutions - Original domain name registration and reservation services with variety of internet-related business offerings. Quick, dependable and reliable.

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Adjective Gradability | Grammar | EnglishClub

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Adjective Gradability. Adjectives describe qualities (characteristics) of nouns. Some qualities can vary in intensity or 'grade', for example: rather hot, hot, very hot; hot, hotter, the hottest.

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Try this QUIZ on Indirect Q

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BBC World Service | Learning English | The Flatmates - Quiz 46

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The Flatmates, an English language teaching soap. The quiz page for episode 46

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There are two main ways of asking questions - directly and indirectly. Both have the same meaning but we use indirect questions when we want to be more polite, more formal or less confrontational.

We can ask a direct question - Where is Brighton Pier? Or to be more formal or polite, we can ask an indirect question - I wonder if you could tell me where Brighton Pier is?

When we create indirect questions, the question (What time is it?) becomes part of a longer sentence or questions (Do you know.?) and the word order changes from the order of a direct question. For example:

Direct: What time is it?
Indirect: Do you know what time it is?

Direct: Why was he late?
Indirect: Can you tell me why he was late?

Direct: What is that?
Indirect: Would you mind telling me what that is?

Direct: What car does she drive?
Indirect: Can you tell me what car she drives? Direct: How did you make that cake?
Indirect: Would you mind telling me how you made that cake?

If there is no question word (who, what, when, why, how) in a direct question, we need to use if or whether in the indirect question. For example:

Direct: Did she make it on time?
Indirect: Can you tell me if she made it on time?
or
Can you tell me whether she made it on time?

Direct: Is this the right bus for Oxford Street?
Indirect: Do you have any idea if this is the right bus for Oxford Street?

Direct: Is she French?
Indirect: Do you know whether she is French (or not)?

a pier:
a large platform which sticks out into the sea and which people can walk along

poxy (informal):
rubbish, not good

a spot:
a place

Last 3 episodes

Last 3 language points

Last 3 quizzes

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BBC World Service | Learning English | The Flatmates - Language Point 46

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There are two main ways of asking questions - directly and indirectly. Both have the same meaning but we use indirect questions when we want to be more polite, more formal or less confrontational. We can ask a direct question - Where is Brighton Pier?