Much appreciated! -> how to use? I got an email to confirm the solution of an issue that ended with the phrase "Much appreciated!" I would like to know if and when I can reuse it (or if I should avoid it at all). In the internet I found a discussion among native English speakers whether it is polite or not - but at the end that discussion was more confusing than clarifying for me. I seems it depends on the time it is used (you ask for an action and use it in advance - versus - you say thanks after the action was done). So can you please give me a clear and simple advice if and how to use that phrase?

I nice story from the radio Last week I heard that story in the radio. The host asked the audience for extraordinary experiences in traffic jams (the right word?). A young man called and told one. He was on the way to a party in his car together with some friends. He came home from work a bit late and knew about the traffic jam on his way to the party already from the radio, so he decided to shave in the car when they were standing in the traffic jam. Weird enough. But the story went on. It was a hot day and he had opened all windows. Next to him was a Porsche breezer. Its driver was amused by seeing the young man shaving and threw a bottle of after shave to him (who the hell has a bottle of after share next to himself when driving a car??). The young man used the after shave and wanted to throw it back. Right the moment the bottle was in the air the breezer sped up. The bottle landed in the back of the breezer and broke up. The young man ended his story with "My friends got a fit of laughter (?), but it sure wasn't that nice for the Porsche driver. At least it was a good after shave."

A Trip to a Museum Please do not only correct errors but also suggest better phrases and wording. Thanks a lot in advance. Last weekend me an my family went to a city near Frankfurt, called Mainz. Mainz has a lot of sights, but that day we went to a single museum, the Gutenberg museum. Gutenberg was a person and is said to be the first to invent book printing with letters for the European cultural area. In fact a lot of inventions towards his technology were made in Europe before but he was one of the first to apply a technology that was fast and cheap enough to print books at a reasonable price. In the museum we could see his technology, a lot of wonderful old books and the development of book printing until today. A big part of the museum shows book printing technology of Asia. Particularly the civilizations with ideographic writing (one sign for each word) had to face big difficulties developing book printing. The Gutenberg museum has some ancient Chinese type cases and a very nice illustration of the process of manufacturing books in ancient Korea. There are several places in the museum where real printing in Gutenbergs technology is shown. My elder son could help printing a page of the famous Gutenberg Bible in three colors and was allowed to take it home. Somewhere else people could print letters of indulgence.

The little sister of Oktoberfest - do you know it? Many people know about the Munich Oktoberfest, but I guess almost no one knows it's „little sister", the Dippemess in Frankfurt. It’s origin is a fair for household goods first documented in the 14th century. One of the most important goods there was pottery, especially stoneware pots. The German word for pots is „Töpfe“, in Hassian dialect „Dippe“. The word for fair is „Messe“, in Hassian „Mess“. That’s the origin of the name „Dippemess“ - a pot fair. Anyhow, nowadays it has about one third of the attendance of the Oktoberfest. It takes place two times a year, in spring and autumn. The Spring Dippemess is open for three weeks to enable big and thrilling fair rides to come. If it would be open briefer it would not be profitable to build up such rides. I've never been at the Oktoberfest until today. But if one believes in what is shown on TV it has a lot of drunken visitors. As it is not related to beer but to fun fair rides (particularly to thrill rides) that is quite different in Frankfurt. Even at night there aren’t many drunks at the Dippemess. You can’t ride if your’e drunken too much, maybe that’s the main reason. I like to go there with the Kids, we once even stayed until dark. They enjoyed to see all that illuminated rides very much. My kids are sensitive to noise. That reduces their fun on a fun fair a bit. But we despite spent about two hours on the Dippemess yesterday. Time flies when visiting a fun fair. I’d liked to ride the huge roller coaster, but it scared the Kids too much. So we had two rides on the Ferris wheel, the youngest enjoyed the bungee cord assisted trampoline jumping (how is this called in English?) and the eldest had some chocolate covered strawberries. Right before going home we had a ride on the „Wildwasser“ ride („whitewater“), because we didn’t want to stay on the fair after getting wet. (Which would not have been necessary. As we had unexpected 27°C that day we already were dry when we left the fair area.) Did you like learning to know about that unknown fun fair? On www.dippemess.de you can find some pictures.

How to write these two sentences in a good English? Can you please tell me how to write these two sentences in a good English? Many Tanks! I want to inform you that due to public holidays on Friday, 18th April, and on Monday, 21st April, neither me nor the helpline will be available. If there is anything already known that needs to be fixed in that time please inform me soon. Thank you.

any or some?

One question out of my son's last English test (he made it right but couldn’t explain me why). Here’s the text, he had to put in the “compounds with some and any”:

<em>I want to buy Ginny something for her birthday but I can’t think of anything. Has anyone got an idea? – Look in your magazine. Maybe you ca find something in there. – Has somebody got my magazine? I can’t find it anywhere. – It must be somewhere. You were reading it yesterday.</em>

Why is it “Has anyone got an idea”? Why would “Has someone got an idea” be wrong?

Why is “Has somebody got my magazine?” right and “Has anybody got my magazine?” wrong?

And why is it “somebody” and not “someone”?

And, also from the test: why “Can somebody help me, please?” but “Can anyone see my bag?”

 

Many thanks for explaining that to me!