Expressions with All but, none but, but for etc
You might occasionally come across sentences like these:
- The party was all but over when we arrived.
- All but one of the plates were damaged
The expression all but has
a couple of different uses, and from what I've seen on language forums,
this can give even native speakers some problems, so in this post we'll
look at this plus a couple of other expressions with but.
Exercise 1 - Decide which meaning all but has in these sentences:
| almost | all except | |||
| 1. | He spent all but the last two years of his life in Manhattan. | |||
| 2. | Nato all but rules out a no-fly zone over the war-torn country. | |||
| 3. | The newspaper has imposed a ban on all but the most essential travel in order to reduce costs. | |||
| 4. | The factories are all but gone but the noise remains. | |||
| 5. | These and all but a handful of other American companies. | |||
| 6. | The internet has all but destroyed the market for films and music. | |||
| 7. | All but one of the writers he mentions is a woman. | |||
| 8. | His name is all but synonymous with Wall Street. | |||
| 9. | It was a term Hollywood all but invented for her. | |||
| 10. | The mayor ordered all but emergency vehicles off the state's highways. | |||
| 11. | Congress seems all but paralyzed when it comes to raising revenue. | |||
| 12. | Hockey news - it's all but over for Smith. | |||
| 13. | She is a feminist in all but name. | |||
| 14. | Apple invitation all but confirms next week's iPhone 5 announcement. | |||
| 15. | He is already running for President in all but name. | |||
The Creators of Grammar
1 In paragraph 1, why does the writer include information about the Cherokee language?
No student of a foreign language needs to be told that grammar is
complex. By changing word sequences and by adding a range of auxiliary
verbs and suffixes, we are able to communicate tiny variations in
meaning. We can turn a statement into a question, state whether an
action has taken place or is soon to take place, and perform many other
word tricks to convey subtle differences in meaning. Nor is this
complexity inherent to the English language. All languages, even those
of so-called 'primitive' tribes have clever grammatical components. The
Cherokee pronoun system, for example, can distinguish between 'you and
I', 'several other people and I' and 'you, another person and I'. In
English, all these meanings are summed up in the one, crude pronoun
'we'. Grammar is universal and plays a part in every language, no matter how widespread it is. So the question which has baffled many linguists is - who created grammar?
At first, it would appear that this question is impossible to answer.
To find out how grammar is created, someone needs to be present at the
time of a language's creation, documenting its emergence. Many
historical linguists are able to trace modern complex languages back to
earlier languages, but in order to answer the question of how complex
languages are actually formed, the researcher needs to observe how languages are started from scratch. Amazingly, however, this is possible.
Some of the most recent languages evolved due to the Atlantic slave
trade. At that time, slaves from a number of different ethnicities were
forced to work together under colonizer's rule. Since they had no
opportunity to learn each other's languages, they developed a make-shift language called a pidgin.
Pidgins are strings of words copied from the language of the
landowner. They have little in the way of grammar, and in many cases it
is difficult for a listener to deduce when an event happened, and who
did what to whom. [A] Speakers need to use circumlocution in order to make their meaning understood. [B] Interestingly,
however, all it takes for a pidgin to become a complex language is for a
group of children to be exposed to it at the time when they learn their
mother tongue. [C] Slave
children did not simply copy the strings of words uttered by their
elders, they adapted their words to create a new, expressive language. [D] Complex grammar systems which emerge from pidgins are termed creoles, and they are invented by children.
Further evidence of this can be seen in studying sign languages for the
deaf. Sign languages are not simply a series of gestures; they utilise
the same grammatical machinery that is found in spoken languages.
Moreover, there are many different languages used worldwide. The
creation of one such language was documented quite recently in
Nicaragua. Previously, all deaf people were isolated from each other,
but in 1979 a new government introduced schools for the deaf. Although
children were taught speech and lip reading in the classroom, in the
playgrounds they began to invent their own sign system, using the
gestures that they used at home. It was basically a pidgin.
Each child used the signs differently, and there was no consistent grammar. However, children who joined the school later, when this inventive sign system was already around, developed a quite different sign language. Although it was based on the signs of the older children, the younger children's language was more fluid and compact, and it utilised a large range of grammatical devices to clarify meaning. What is more, all the children used the signs in the same way. A new creole was born.
Each child used the signs differently, and there was no consistent grammar. However, children who joined the school later, when this inventive sign system was already around, developed a quite different sign language. Although it was based on the signs of the older children, the younger children's language was more fluid and compact, and it utilised a large range of grammatical devices to clarify meaning. What is more, all the children used the signs in the same way. A new creole was born.
Some linguists believe that many of the world's most established
languages were creoles at first. The English past tense –ed ending may
have evolved from the verb 'do'. 'It ended' may once have been 'It
end-did'. Therefore it would appear that even the most widespread
languages were partly created by children. Children appear to have
innate grammatical machinery in their brains, which springs to life when
they are first trying to make sense of the world around them. Their
minds can serve to create logical, complex structures, even when there
is no grammar present for them to copy.
2 What can be inferred about the slaves' pidgin language?
3 All the following sentences about Nicaraguan sign language are true EXCEPT:
4 In paragraph 3, where can the following sentence be placed?
It included standardised word orders and grammatical markers that existed in neither the pidgin language, nor the language of the colonizers.
5 'From scratch' in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to:
6 'Make-shift' in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to:
7 Which sentence is closest in meaning to the highlighted sentence?
Grammar is universal and plays a part in every language, no matter how widespread it is.
8 All of the following are features of the new Nicaraguan sign language EXCEPT:
9 Which idea is presented in the final paragraph?
10 Look at the word 'consistent' in paragraph 4. This word could best be replaced by which of the following?
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