| Hi, everybody. Welcome back to "Ask Alisha." The weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe. |
| Let's get to your first question for this week. First question this week comes from Holy. Hi, Holy. Holy says, "What is the meaning of 'throwback Thursday'?" Awesome question. "Throwback Thursday." This is a social media term. Let's talk about it. So, "throwback Thursday" refers to a pattern of posting that happens on Thursdays, typically. "Throwback" refers to going back in time. A "throwback" is a look at a past point in time. So, this can be from your childhood, from a few years ago, from a special memory that you had, whatever. So, "throwback Thursday" is a common tag that people use on their social media posts. Like, especially, on Instagram or Facebook, perhaps Twitter as well. So, people will tag using a hashtag, the hashtag mark, people will tag their photos with "throwback Thursday," and share an image from the past. They'll share something that was special to them, a special memory, maybe something from their childhood or their hometown. They want to share something and mark it as not being a recent image. They're marking it as something from the past. |
| So, "throwback Thursday" is a fun way for people to share memories that aren't recent, but for some reason, they came up in that person's mind recently. So, "throwback Thursday" refers to this. So, we don't actually use "throwback Thursday" really in sentences. We typically just use it as a hashtag in our Instagram post or in our Facebook post perhaps. You might also see "#tbt" used. For some people, "throwback Thursday" is a long phrase to type. So, instead, they write "#tbt." So, "#tbt" means "throwback Thursday," or you might even just see people writing "#tb." So, that means "throwback." So, "throwback" refers to just going back in time, sharing some old memory. But, you don't have to post it on Thursday. So, if you don't want to post your throwback picture on Thursday, you can just write "throwback," or "tb." So, this is what "throwback Thursday" refers to, and this is what a "throwback" is. I hope that this answers your question. Thanks very much for an interesting one. |
| Okay. Let's go to our next question. Next question comes from Harry. Hi, Harry. Harry says, "What is the difference between 'raise' and 'raised'?" Okay. Let's talk about these two. First, let's talk about these two words in terms of verbs. So, "raise" is the present tense or the infinitive form of the verb, and "raised" is the past tense form. It's also the past participle form of this verb. So, depending on the type of sentence we create, we need to choose a different verb form for this word. So, the verb "raise," the verb "to raise," means to cause something to go up. Like, "to raise" your hand, you cause your hand to go up in a classroom or in a lecture setting, "to raise your hand." Or, another example might be like, "Let's raise a glass to our team!" So, that means cause your glass to go up, right? So, we're lifting something, right? So, "to raise" something means to cause it to move in an upward motion. So, when we use this verb in the present tense, we use "raise," as I just did in my first example, "Please raise your hand." If we want to express the same thing but in past tense, we would say, "I raised my hand," or "We raised a glass to the team." So, this is how we use this word as a verb. |
| However, "raise," with no D, can also be used as a noun. In American English, we use the word "raise" to talk about an increase in our pay, an increase in our income. The amount of money we receive in exchange for doing our job. So, when we receive a "raise," it's generally a good thing. We know that it's being used in this way because we always see it preceded by "a." So, that means an "a" always comes before this word. Like, "I got a raise last week, I'm so happy," or "I'm going to apply for a raise this year." So, this use of "raise" refers to getting more money for your job, and most people typically want one. Some people might talk about getting an "annual raise." So, an "annual raise" is a yearly "raise." So, every year, they receive an income increase. That is an "annual raise." |
| So, to recap, we can use "raise" as a verb or as a noun. As a verb, it refers to causing something to go up. As a noun, it refers to getting an increase in the amount of money you make at your job. So, I hope this helps you understand the difference between "raise" and "raised." Thanks very much for the question. |
| Okay. Let's move on to our next one. The next question comes from Nana. Hi, Nana. Nana says, "How do we use verbs as nouns? I'm a little confused about this grammar." Okay. So, using a verb as a noun, we have a word for this. It's called a "gerund." So, for example, when we say something like, "I like hiking," "hiking" is an example of a gerund. That's a verb that has been turned into a noun. So, when we do this, we take the base form of the verb, and then we use the -ing form of that. So, in my first example, "I like hiking," we took the base form "hike," and used the-ing form of that and created "hiking." So, we can use that not just as a progressive or the continuous form of a verb, but we can also use that as a noun. You could use other verbs in the same way. "I like cooking," "I like taking pictures," and so on. |
| So, to create a noun from a verb, you just need to use the-ing form. Of course, this doesn't mean that you can just take any verb and turn it into a noun and put it in any place in the sentence. You still need to follow basic grammar rules. You still need to make sure that your sentence makes grammatical sense. So, you need to use your new gerund, your new noun verb, in the same place that you would use a regular noun. So, for example, "Sleeping and studying are two things that take up a lot of my time these days." So, in this sentence, we have "sleeping" and "studying," right? So, these two things are acting as nouns. Yes, they do have the-ing form, so we might think, "Oh, is this a progressive tense? Is this a continuous tense verb?" But, they are acting as nouns. "A and B take up lots of my time these days," right? "Sleeping and studying take up lots of my time." We need to make sure we use them in the correct positions in our sentence. But, yes, simply to create a noun from a verb, you simply use the -ing form of that verb, and it is called a "gerund." |
| So, there are some verbs that we tend to use more in this gerund form, and some verbs that we tend to use more in their infinitive form, the "to" plus verb form. So, it takes some time to get an understanding of which verbs is natural to use the gerund form of, and which verbs is natural to use the infinitive form of. A really good way to kind of get yourself used to this is to read. So, pay attention to when you see an author using the -ing form of a verb, and note whether it's in a noun position or in a verb position. This can help you to identify which ones you can use yourself. So, I hope that this helps answer your question about how to use verbs as nouns. Thanks very much for sending it along. |
| All right, that is everything that I have for this week. Thank you as always for sending your great questions. Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of "Ask Alisha," and I will see you again soon. Bye. |
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