THE NAKED EYE

Something that can be seen with the naked eye can be seen without a microscope, telescope or other device. (Although most of us have two eyes, we use “eye” in its singular form in this phrase. We would not say “the naked eyes.”)

 Examples:

 “ALMA is able to observe light that is invisible to the naked eye, allowing astronomers to view what is known as the ‘cold universe’ - those parts of space not visible using optical telescopes.”

 “Discovered in 1995 by amateur astronomers Alan Hale in New Mexico and Thomas Bopp in Arizona, the extremely bright comet became visible to the naked eye the following year.”

 “Antonie van Leeuwenhoek opened up a whole new world to us; he was the first to observe bacteria and other microscopic lifeforms which could not be seen by the naked eye.”


 Photo credit: Manfred Huszar (Creative Commons)

DESCRIBING HOW THINGS CHANGE IN RELATION TO ONE ANOTHER: using “the” with comparative adjectives

We can use the following construction to describe how things change in relation to one another:

 the + comparative adjective + clause + the + comparative adjective + clause.

 The author A A Milne uses this many times in his “Winnie the Pooh” books, e.g.
“And all the time Winnie-the-Pooh had been trying to get the honey-jar off his head. The more he shook it, the more tightly it stuck.” [1]

 Possibly the most well-known example is: “The more it snows (Tiddely pom), The more it goes (Tiddely pom), The more it goes (Tiddely pom), On Snowing.” [2]



 This construction can be useful in scientific writing. For example,

 “The larger the diameter, or aperture, of the telescope, the greater its ability to gather more light and the higher its resolution (or ability to image fine details).”

 Other examples:

 “And the more different pairs of socks you start with, the higher the odds of producing odd socks becomes.”

 “the more people who travel, the cheaper the journey becomes for everyone.”



 The construction is sometimes shortened to take the form:

 the + comparative adjective + the + comparative adjective.

 An example is the commonly used phrase, “the more the merrier,” meaning that a situation will be improved by more people or things, e.g. “It’s all about raising awareness so the more the merrier and if people wanted to get some sponsorship as well, that’s an added bonus.”

 Other examples:

 “The smaller the better, especially when it comes to carbon-rich fibrous materials such as cardboard, straw, newspaper, plant stalks, woody stems and autumn leaves which should ideally be shredded or chopped up before being added.”

 “Weddings are one of those days brides are expected to look as delicate as a flower, but when it comes to bows on your gown—the larger, the better.”

 [1] Milne, A. A.; Shepherd, E. H.; Winnie-the-Pooh (pp. 68–69). Egmont UK. Kindle Edition. 
 [2] Milne, A. A.; The House at Pooh Corner (p.4). Egmont UK Ltd. Kindle Edition.

 Photo credit: Marco Verch (Creative Commons Licence)

EASILY CONFUSED WORDS – FLUORESCENCE AND FLUORESCENT

This post is mainly aimed at scientific writers. The words fluorescent and fluorescence are frequently mixed up in scientific papers, and I suspect this is because, according to the dictionary, “fluorescent” is an adjective, while “fluorescence” is a noun.

 The adjective “fluorescent,” however, should only be used to describe something that emits fluorescence. If we want to indicate that something relates to fluorescence then it is conventional to use the noun “fluorescence” as an adjective.

 For example, we would write “fluorescent label,” “fluorescent molecule” and “fluorescent sensor,” since the label, molecule and sensor all emit fluorescence.

 However, we would write “fluorescence intensity,” “fluorescence measurement” and “fluorescence microscopy,” as the intensity, measurement and microscopy relate to fluorescence but do not emit it.


 If in doubt, you can check both forms of a phrase in Google Scholar. For instance, at the time of writing, “fluorescence measurement” returned 84,000 hits, while “fluorescent measurement” returned only 5,900.



Photo credit: James St. John