Grammar for Writing Emails (1): Reply (1)

Summary: You are busy writing an email so that your boss Mr Big will get your reply soon.  But do you know that ‘I will reply your email soon’ is not English.  

A. What is wrong?

In the above two sentences, the persons (managers or Sam) make an effect on something (activities or the marketing department).

C. What is ‘make an effect’?

What does ‘make an effect on something’ mean?  

1. that the managers are ‘over’ the activities, and 
2. that both (managers and Sam) have some control over something.  In other words, when you have control over something, the thing follows the verb, your action.

D. More Examples

Want an extra example? ‘Ms Talk made a speech at a meeting’.  




In the sentence, Ms Talk has some control over the speech. Why? It is a speech she made and she can say it any way she likes.

E. Reply & Sentence Pattern

If you remember, this is a sentence pattern you have learned at school. What pattern is it? The pattern of ‘SVO‘.

Yet, your teacher might have forgotten to tell you one thing. In ‘SVO’ there is a special relationship between a subject and an object.  

By special, I don’t mean they have an affair. What I mean is in the pattern of ‘SVO’ a subject has some control over the object.

Put simply, in this pattern one thing is bigger. Which one is bigger?  A subject is bigger than an object. In other words, If a subject is a master, then an object is like a servant.  


And do you want to give the relationship a name? What about MS?  MS has nothing to do with any company. It means a Master-servant relationship.







F. Correct Usage: Reply to your email

However, in the case of ‘I will reply your email soon’, the word ‘I’ is not the master of ‘your email’.  

What does that mean? ‘I’ is not the one who wrote the email. In other words, ‘I’ write something, but not the email ‘I’ received.  It is Mr Big, not ‘I’, who wrote the email.  

In other words, Mr Big is the master (subject) of the servant (the email).    

So, when using ‘reply’ as a verb, stick to the following rule:

That is, when there is no MS relationship, a preposition is needed. This is why when you use ‘wait’, you have to add a preposition: Wait FOR me, but not ‘Wait me’.  




G. Quick Tip

So, the Feel Good Tip is ‘Re + Re‘. What does that mean?

       
 


 
H: More Examples from Everyday life

The same tip also applies to ‘I will write to you.’ or ‘I will talk to you‘.