English tips

To many people’s surprise, in ‘normal’ (i.e., non-mathematical) English, the preposition used here is to, not of or for. So it’s the solution to a problem. Similarly, it’s the answer to a question or problem. However, when solution refers to the act of solving, then it can be followed by of:

The solution of that problem is going to take a long time.
I am working on the solution of genetic algorithm problems.

In such cases, the solution can be replaced by solving.

©2013 Baxter Publishing, Hilversum, The Netherlands

Do you ever use the word expertises in your English? I often see it in Dutch people’s English CVs, for instance, in job descriptions or on website navigation bars. It seems so handy, but it’s not actually an English word. So what should you write?

Many languages – including English and Dutch – make a distinction between ‘things’ that can be counted (like car, book and bottle) and ‘stuff’ that can’t (such as water, warmth and information). You can talk about a car and about cars, but not about a warmth or warmths).

Although languages generally agree on what is countable and what is not, they don’t always do so – and that gives rise to problems.

Take the English – and Dutch – word expertise (‘the skill, knowledge and judgement of an expert’). In English, this can only be uncountable. That means you can’t talk about an expertise or a number of expertises.

Here are some examples of the correct use of expertise in English:

We use our expertise to deliver better products and services for our customers.
The department is seeking expertise in engineering and landscape design.

If you want to be specific about the type of expertise – where in Dutch you might want to talk about een expertise or verschillende expertises – English uses phrases like area of expertise or field of expertise:

The two agencies will work together in their respective areas of expertise.
My principal area of expertise is talent management, so I focus on that.
Each tutor within the course has a different field of expertise.

Note that if you want to refer to een expertise, in the sense of a report drawn up by an expert, then you need to use expert’s report or expert report in English.

In an interview article, it’s important that readers are never in any doubt as to who said what: is the interviewer (or narrator) speaking, or are these the words of the interviewee? And the problem naturally gets more complex if several people are being interviewed. One of the more subtle ways writers in English guide their readers through an interview is by using punctuation.

In this article, we explain and exemplify what to do if a passage quoting the interviewee extends over more than one paragraph. It involves a rule that many native speakers are not consciously aware of, but which journalists, editors and publishers know and apply regularly.

When quoting someone in an article, it is normal practice to put quotation marks at the beginning and the end of the quoted remarks. But what do we do when the quotation extends over two (or more) paragraphs? For the sake of illustration, let’s assume that we’re interviewing someone called Fred about dealing with long quotations.

Fred reveals all
“In English,” says Fred, “a paragraph boundary is a substantial break. It often indicates a change of topic, and is shown visually by a blank line or a line break and indentation. It is at just such a moment that a new speaker might well come into the picture, or that the narrator might resume the story.

“It is therefore important that readers don’t get confused about who is speaking in the new paragraph – the original speaker, someone new or the narrator?

“To solve this problem, both UK and US English have adopted the following technique.

• To indicate the original speaker is still talking, the first paragraph is left open: no closing quotation marks are placed.
• To indicate that we are still dealing with quoted material rather than the narrator’s prose, quotation marks are placed at the beginning of the second paragraph.

“In other words, when dealing with quotations that extend over more than one paragraph, you need to put quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph but at the end only of the final one.”