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A concordance exercise for 'by no means' |
The following exercise was created online in response to a question from Webheads student Maggie:
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Maggie asks about the meaning of "by no means". It is hard for teachers to answer such questions because many expressions in English have many meanings and usages. The best way to figure out what an expression means and how it is used is to look at many examples taken from real English. For this, we use a concordance program. |
Go to this url: http://vlc.polyu.edu.hk/scripts/concordance/WWWConcappE.htm
Enter the following settings:
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Search string equal to means Format normal Numbering Yes Print collocates table: don't print (default settings) Select corpus: LOB Sort type: Sort left Line width: Default Stop after: Default concordances |
Here's part of what you see when you click on 'Search for concordances':
157 27 Glyndebourne canon. ^By no means a masterpiece, it is in many respe
158 litical factors. ^These were by no means always mixed in the same proportio
159 as as putty, and I myself am by no means blameless for not having given mor
160 ^It is, as we have seen, by no means clear that the decision to send th
161 nd certain aspects are still by no means clear. ^It is impossible to do mor
162 topic. ^Peasant poaching was by no means confined to humble quarry: another
163 r was noticing *'symptoms... by no means confined to one party**' of a *'st
164 The evidence against him was by no means decisive, but both judge and jury
165 returned from a lengthy trip by no means devoid of troubles. ^Now, in p
166 powers of a harpsichord are by no means directly proportionate to the numb|
167 nd the likelihood of such is by no means eliminated by the present advances
168 at the age *'streaming**' is by no means exact*- there is considerable over
169 mprovements of Clashnoir was by no means excessive in relation to the incre
170 , though, of course, this is by no means fast enough. ^The following ge
171 that wifely strictures were by no means ineffective since rates for both d
172 ^The Embassy Club was by no means my sole adventure in property deal
If you click on the expression "means" in each sentence, you can see the context for each example:
Study the examples:
Do the exercise:
Thanks to Charles Kelly for making the template for the exercise and for working with me to fine- tune the data for it!
I would like to encourage all true Webheads to make greater use of concordance sites to answer questions like this, which all students have from time to time.
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