‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you, Mr Frodo’… hats off, easily one of my favourite quotes. Not because it is brilliant, or ground-breaking, or particularly inspiring. It’s simply the loyalty and determination that Samwise Gumgee puts into these words. I love those little dudes! With their simple lifestyle, their little houses… and huge hairy feet. They provide an amazing bit of comic relief for the otherwise dramatic story. I appreciate it as much as the friendly banter between Legolas and Gimli or the lame jokes that ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ are full of. But more on that some other time.
Anyway… I do have a soft spot for Sam. He embodies a lot of qualities that I value in men… well, in people.
Modesty, decency, some kind of commonsensical wisdom, respect for all that’s around, and the love of simple life. Yes, I live in a considerably big city (by Polish standards, at least) now, but I definitely see myself living in a small house at the edge of the forest when I get old. Perhaps the round door is a little too much for me – call me old-fashioned, but I like my door to have a rectangular shape to it. Otherwise, I’d very much appreciate this idyllic lifestyle. The garden would have to be very intelligent and self-sufficient, though. I do tend to – through no fault of my own – annihilate any green thing that gives itself into my gentle carrying hands. And I’m so green and outdoorsy… Who would have thought?
Back to Sam and his heroic quote. I like it also because it contains a modal verb and I’m a sucker for modal verbs… and conditionals, and reported speech! OK, so I like grammar. Sue me! Most of my students react in the same way when I excitedly announce that we’re going to dedicate the last 30 minutes of our class to revising past tenses, or that our next class is going to start with a quick refresher on relative clauses. ‘I don’t like grammar’ or a more advanced version: ‘I’ve never liked grammar’ immediately follow. The words swiftly pierce the air in the classroom and linger until I issue an argument which has a certain appeal to the more motivated and/or goal-oriented among the group. Grammar rocks! No, it’s not the argument they fall for. If you want to be precise and seen as a professional, you will, at some point, need to master grammar. That’s it.
I remember many years ago, when I was still a proud student of English Philology, a friend who had been to the US of A asked me to help him out with his English. Clearly, he wanted to improve his – what was then – overwhelmingly basic skills. I was more than happy to serve – a text-book people-pleaser that I am. And so, without hesitation, but with all my knowledge, enthusiasm and strong belief in people’s learning capacity, I met him in his flat and off I went applying my diagnostic approach. I, very naturally, initiated an informal friendly conversation to create a welcoming comfortable atmosphere of trust and understanding. As a result, a professional but casual rapport was formed opening up a proper platform for his performance.
He was talkative alright. However, equally (and painfully) incorrect – and I don’t just mean grammar – as well as incoherent and super chaotic. I couldn’t quite make head or tails of what he was saying. All it was just some random words and phrases thrown together, some of which not entirely off topic, I suppose. But whether or not he was even remotely answering my questions, I really couldn’t tell. Don’t get me wrong, I was doing my best to understand him. After all, I was a good friend and an aspiring (hoping-to-be-good) teacher.
Regardless of my effort I was unable to make any considerable sense of this incomprehensible mumbling. Nevertheless, I was still determined to encourage and inspire him with a warm spell of constructive feedback. I started off gently with a few remarks about his general lack of vocabulary and total disregard for grammatical rules. In nice soothing words and calm balmy voice I laid down some apparent low points along with a suggested strategy for his development and our cooperation. Brace yourselves for the exchange that followed. Ready?
Him: But they would understand me, right?
Me: Well… (imagine the ‘e’ in ‘well’ dragged for quite a while)
Him : When I was in the States everybody understood me!
Me: … (in my head with a faintly audible voice from among the pieces of the shattered illusion of my actual role here) To myself: Just bow and head for the nearest exit.
As you may have already guessed, there were no follow-up classes.
Undoubtedly, there are many lessons I learnt from this experience. One of them being: Never try to teach English (or anything, for that matter) to a friend. I’m always ready to help with a CV in English, some proof-reading of an email to the CEO, or a set of tips on everyday expressions used when you travel abroad. If you need me, I’m there for you. However, don’t hire me as your teacher. This creates a whole new unhealthy relationship.
Anyway, the most crucial lesson came to me thanks to some serious considerations that resulted from this unfruitful teaching attempt. Namely, how important grammar really is in an act of communication. It turns out that very!
Just as my friend decided that it was enough to put together a few words to be communicative, I started to observe and analyse a variety of different linguistic exchanges to figure out what makes verbal communication effective. Now when I write about it, a few precious memories rush back to my mind. One of them is from a trip to London that I took with my friends after the first year of our studies. It was an amazing adventure and a priceless experience, no doubt about it. Staying in a hostel that was once a prison, speaking English in its natural environment, in London, sipping on Watermelon Bacardi Breezers, cracking jokes with a guy from New Zealand… Wait, what? Yes, that last bit – that was the moment that blew my mind.
No, not the guy from New Zealand who I’m still in touch with by the way. Shout-outs from Poland, Scott! OK, he’s a cool dude, I give you that. However, I vividly remember that underneath all the general merriment and unencumbered youthful joy, there was this incredible feeling of bewilderment that caught me by surprise and wouldn’t let go. I simply couldn’t get over the fact that I was talking to a guy who was from a place no less than 18,000 km away from where I was from and yet, by some inconceivable stroke of god-knows-what, we were talking and laughing. And it wasn’t entirely the effect of the Watermelon Bacardi Breezers.
Then, years later, when I was taking part in one of the most amazing summer school experiences ever, the International Summer School at Oslo University, a similar thing happened. I went there to learn Norwegian so that I would get sufficient language skills to move to Norway one day… A dream still to be checked off my list. What you need to know is that every summer ISS gathers about 550 people from all over the world for a variety of intensive courses for a period of 6 weeks. And it’s been operating in this form for over 60 years now.
So there I was, sitting on a neatly cut lawn on the Oslo University Campus with a girl from Palestine, a guy from Pakistan, a man from India, another one from Malawi, a boy from Lebanon, a woman from Kyrgyzstan, and a few young men from Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo, joking about current events, life and other stuff that we found amusing at the time. We used English as the common language and we were having enormous fun! And so the familiar feeling was back.
How incredible it was that a bunch of strangers from different parts of the globe, different cultural and social backgrounds, of various ages, heights, hair colours, having only one foreign language in common, could experience this unique level of camaraderie. Of course we all wanted to get to know one another which made it that much easier, still the language, and quite a good command of it, gave us a significant advantage.
One of the factors which cannot be dismissed altogether is context. We’ve all seen some silent movies or slap-stick comedy bits where no word was spoken, yet everybody could easily follow the plot and a few people even laughed at the sketches. Also… is there really that much said in soap operas? The impeccable acting skills of the cast speak volumes. You may skip some 137 episodes and still be in the middle of the ‘action’ when you resume the adventure of watching.
The circumstances of the situation, the body language, the gestures and facial expressions all add to humans’ ability to convey and comprehend meaning. Non-verbal cues, like the tone of voice and facial expression, have been mistakenly believed to make up for 93% of our communication. That’s probably due to a gross misinterpretation and overgeneralisation of Albert Mehrabian’s research on communication of feelings and attitudes, the result of which was the creation of the “7%-38%-55% rule”. Although we have to acknowledge the non-verbal communication as part of it, words and structure still play the main role when it comes to conveying precise messages.
Do you remember “Arrival”? Boy, do I love this film! Aliens, linguistics and non-linear perception of time? I’m so in! Remember Colonel G.T. Weber (Forest Whitaker great as usual) trying to push Dr. Banks to ask the Aliens what their purpose on Earth was? Think what you may, but how she dissected the question on the whiteboard easily proved to the Colonel how important each element of a language is. Is it a question? Is it a statement? How to negate? Are you talking about the past, the present, or the future? Is it hypothetical? Is it prohibition? When I simply say: ice-cream. What do I get? Apart from lots of drool on the keyboard…
Unless I’m standing with my interlocutor in front of an ice-cream parlour, pointing to the vendor and using a rising pitch which indicates a yes/no question, nobody knows what the flip I’m trying to say. Do I mean that I like ice-cream, I want ice-cream, offer ice-cream, or maybe I’ve left some in the boot of my car? So please, oh please, get over yourselves and next time the words ‘I don’t like grammar’ start crawling onto your tongue, take a sip of coffee or lick that ice-cream to wash it down.
And now to the main event.
Auxiliary modal verbs rock the party because they carry a wide range of meanings and express a variety of attitudes and concepts. There is expectation, ability, permission, prohibition, obligation, to name just a few. Are you as excited as I am? Wait, there is more!
As grammar goes, modal verbs are often called ‘defective’, for they behave unlike other verbs and to different degrees they are missing their typical grammatical forms. Sometimes it’s the past, or the negation, or the respective forms have a somewhat restricted use.
Moreover, in the case of auxiliary modal verbs:
1. there’s no -s in the third person singular: I must / he must; they can / she can, except for have / has
2. negative sentences are formed by adding ‘not’ after the modal verb: I can / I can’t; they should / they shouldn’t. For more on English negations check out: https://anglogeekus.com/2018/12/matrix/
3. questions are formed by simple inversion: They must / Must they?; We may / May we?
4. they are followed by the infinitive form of a verb without ‘to’, except for ‘ought to’, ‘need to’, and ‘have to’, which also performs some functions similar to modal verbs, but behaves like a typical verb, with -s and the whole shebang.
Compare:
She can go. They may leave.
But:
She ought to go. They need to leave. He has to leave.
OK, guys! Let’s look at can and its buddies – could and be able to. They have a lot in store for us.
| CAN | COULD | BE ABLE TO |
| GENERAL ABILITY (PRESENT) I can fight with a sword. I can’t fight with a sword. | GENERAL ABILITY (PAST) I could fight with a sword when I was 5 years old. I couldn’t fight with a sword when I was 5. | ABILITY IN SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES I am able to fight orks. (I’m big enough) I was able to fight orks when I was 5. (I was already good enough) |
| OFFER (PRESENT/FUTURE) I can help you with that. Can I carry it for you? |
SUGGESTION
(PRESENT/FUTURE)
You could try your new axe on him. |
OFFER
(FUTURE) IN SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES
I will be able to carry it for you, if you let me. |
| PERMISSION (informal) Can I continue on my quest now? You can open this chest. | PERMISSION (polite) – only as a question Could I use your bow? |
|
|
POSSIBILITY
(PRESENT)
You can die on your quest. |
POSSIBILITY
(PAST)
1. (PRESENT/FUTURE: less probable than with can) You could die in that cave. 2. (PAST) You could have died in that cave. |
|
|
REQUEST
(INFORMAL)
Can you hand me your sword? |
REQUEST
(POLITE)
Could you hand me your sword? |
REQUEST
IN SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES
Will you be able to hand me your sword when you finish your feast? |
|
CANNOT
(CAN’T) = PROHIBITION
You cannot / can’t behead him in front of the ladies. | CONDITIONAL FORM OF CAN – for all its functions You could behead him if the ladies weren’t looking. (POSSIBILITY) You could drink more mead if you weren’t riding Shadowfax home. (ABILITY/PERMISSION) |
To end on a wintery note, let me quote Samwise the Great: Snow’s all right on a fine morning but I like to be in bed when it’s falling. Yo! Drop the beat, Samwise!
And with that I wish you a wonderful time during the holiday season however you choose to waste spend it!
As for 2021, remember: Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.