english grammar

PARAPHRASING The word "paraphrase" (from the Greek, meaning literally "equivalent sentence") is defined as "'restatement of the sense of a passage in other words." It is "the reproduction in one's own natural idiom or style of the full sense of a passage written in another idiom or style." I. USES OF PARAPHRASING Someone has said, with a sneer, that paraphrase "usually takes the form of converting good English into bad." But this need not be so; and if in any case it is so, then the paraphrase in question is a bad paraphrase. It should be the aim of the pupil to improve his English by the practice of paraphrasing, and of the teacher to see that the English in which his pupil's paraphrases are written in good English. Paraphrasing has two important uses :- As an Exercise in Composition, (i) It is, first, a good test of a pupil's ability to understand what he reads; and is, therefore, an excellent