Letter to the Editor: Choosing Vocabulary by Collocation and Word Form
Ravi is drafting a letter to the editor about a waste-segregation drive that has stalled. He has written this opening but is unsure about five choices:
'Sir, the residents' association has decided to (carry out / carry on / carry off) a survey of household waste. Last month, volunteers (gave up / gave away / gave in) 400 compost bins, but many residents (put off / put out / put down) separating wet waste. The collection van arrives (late / lately / later) and the bins are often (dismantled / disposed / decomposed) by rain. The contractor's (responsible / responsibility / responsibly) for collection has not been fixed. In the long run, the (compel / compulsory / compulsion) use of two bins will succeed only if collection is reliable.'
His teacher says the letter must be formal, collocationally natural, and free of word-form errors.
1. Choose the correct option in each bracket. Justify three choices by explaining the meaning or collocation that rules out the others.
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Choices: carry out; gave away; put off; late; decomposed; responsibility; compulsory.
Justifications: 'Carry out a survey' is the standard collocation meaning to conduct it. 'Carry on' means continue, and 'carry off' means to succeed in doing something difficult or to take something away, so neither fits a survey that is being started. 'Gave away' means distributed the bins free; 'gave up' means stopped trying or surrendered something, and 'gave in' means yielded, neither of which fits volunteers distributing bins. 'Put off separating' means postponed separating; 'put out' means extinguished or annoyed, and 'put down' means suppressed or wrote down, so they produce the wrong meaning. 'Late' is an adverb of time meaning after the expected time; 'lately' means recently, and 'later' is comparative. 'Decomposed by rain' is possible for organic waste affected by moisture; 'disposed by rain' is not a natural agent use, and 'dismantled by rain' is absurd. 'Responsibility' is the noun required after 'the contractor's'. 'Compulsory' is the adjective modifying 'use'.
2. Rewrite 'The contractor's responsibility for collection has not been fixed' to sound more natural in a formal letter. Explain what grammatical problem your rewrite solves.
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Rewrite: 'The contractor has not yet been made responsible for collection.' This is more natural because 'fix responsibility' is usually used with a person or authority as object: one fixes responsibility on someone, or makes someone responsible. The original uses an abstract noun ('responsibility') as if it were a physical object that could be 'fixed', and the passive leaves out who should have fixed it.
The rewrite changes the nominalisation into a verb phrase ('has not been made responsible'), which is clearer and more direct. It also adds 'yet', which fits the letter's complaint that the delay is continuing. A more forceful alternative is 'No one has yet made the contractor responsible for collection', but that introduces an unknown agent. In a letter to the editor, the passive 'has not been made responsible' is acceptable because the writer does not know which authority failed to act; the passive keeps the criticism general rather than inventing a culprit.
3. Explain why 'give away', 'give up', and 'give in' are not interchangeable, using one short example for each.
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They share the verb 'give' but the particles create different meanings. Give away means to donate or distribute something: 'The volunteers gave away 400 compost bins.' Give up means to stop doing or trying something: 'Some residents gave up separating waste after the van stopped coming.' Give in means to yield or surrender after resistance: 'The association gave in to the contractor's demand for a higher fee.'
In Ravi's sentence, the volunteers are distributing bins, so only 'gave away' fits. 'Gave up' would mean they stopped trying to distribute bins, which contradicts the number 400. 'Gave in' would mean they surrendered, which requires an opponent or demand. The test is not synonym memory but the object and the implied action: donation takes 'away'; cessation takes 'up'; surrender takes 'in'. A formal letter needs the particle that matches the intended action exactly.