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Jackx writes:
I have been working for a trade firm as a sales for
almost 6 years. I use english English eveyday, no, every moment. I
suffered lots of confusion in some similar words
Today I am writing you
with a hope that you could tell me the defferences amongst below words:
despite(in spite of). Regardless (of). Irrespective of?
My comments:
Jackx, your
writing is fraught with missspellings (everyday, defferences), punctuation
problems (despite(in spite of). Regardless (of). Irrespective of) and
other small and negligible lapses (english English).
I say negligible because what your lines as a whole are clear and
intelligible. So therefore, DESPITE the problems, I want to encourage you
to keep writing. Only in practising will you be able to improve, which is
a point we'll come back to later on. Sometimes you'll perhaps get a lot of
criticism, but you must carry on REGARDLESS. Learn to take it on the chin
and move on. IRRESPECTIVE OF age (being young or old) and REGARDLESS OF
race (being Chinese or Chilean), everyone can master a foreign language by
trial and error, if they persevere in their efforts IN SPITE OF moments of
painful suffering such as you are having with those words set in big
letters and italic in this very paragraph, in addition to the criticism
mentioned earlier.
Speaking of criticism, there are no less than 15 places in your copy
that I can alter and improve on, but here I just want to point this out -
you can do the revising yourself. In future writing, you may want to use a
little discipline or rather self-discipline if you want to move to another
level in your correspondence, for instance, with foreign clients.
Putting thoughts into words on paper is a tricky business, a lengthy
process for anyone, a skill to be refined through practice, practice,
practice and constantly learning from good examples. Check how other
writers use particular words and copy them. George Orwell, opening an
essay on the author of David Copperfield, Great Expectations and other
literary gems, said: "(Charles) Dickens is one of those writers who are
well worth stealing."
From the same essay, by the way, I spotted this (see italics): "No one,
at any rate no English writer, has written better about childhood than
Dickens. In spite of all the knowledge that has accumulated since, in
spite of the fact that children are now comparatively sanely treated, no
novelist has shown the same power of entering into the child's point of
view."
By way of example, this is how you pick up things and learn how to put
"in spite of" into actual use.
If you don't read the Orwells and the Dickenses, the same purpose can
be achieved through reading, say, trade magazines and what have you. Just
do it.
Keep doing it and keep doing it till one day, the cobwebs are removed
from your eyes and you get that feeling of "Aha! Now I see!"
And don't stop there, either. Carry on regardless.
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