I am an Indian, to be precise a Keralite (a person from the state of Kerala, where the native tongue is MALAYALAM - the longest palindromic language in the world). In my state as well as in other states of India, people commonly ask What's your good name? instead of What's your name? No Englishman will ask such a question. Indians think that it is a polite question. But the insertion of good does not make the sentence polite. A teacher will ask their student What's your name? but a student should not ask the same question to the teacher because What's your name? is not a polite question. A student should be polite to his or her teacher. A student may ask the teacher May I know your name, please? because it is a polite question. The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary says that What is the name, please? and What was the name, please? are the polite ways of asking someone's name.

So many people have asked me what the best grammar book in English is. To tell you the truth, there are many grammars that are well worth mentioning. One of the grammars worth mentioning is A PRACTICAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR by Thomson and Martinet from Oxford University. The language used in this book is very simple. You can learn English grammar very easily and elaborately from this title.

A COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE by Quirk, Greenbaum, et al from Pearson is the most comprehensive grammar book available now.

LET'S is not the contraction of LET US.

LET'S is used for a suggestion. When you tell your father Let's go to the cinema today, you are just giving a suggestion. Here both you and your friend go to the cinema. 

But when you tell your father Let us go to the cinema today, you are just asking the permission of your father to go to the cinema. Here your father does not come with you to the cinema.

The us in Let's is inclusive of the person who you are talking to but the us in Let us is exclusive of the person who you are talking to. 

So many people have asked me about the question tag that is to be used for a sentence that begins with Let us. They know that shall we? is used for a sentence beginning with Let's. They would like to know whether the same shall we? can be used for Let us. Let's is used for a suggestion. Then shall we? is the correct tag. But Let us denotes a permission. Then the correct tag is Will you? With all imperative sentences, regarless of negative or positive, you can use Will you? Only Let's is an exception. 

I have read in a book written by a professor of English that the question tag for a sentence that begins with Let me is shall I? He is completely wrong. The correct tag is none other than will you?

I still remember that day, the day of more than three decades ago. That time I used to go to a barber's near my house daily in order to read newspapers. It was a time when people would visit this barber's for reading papers in addition to getting their hair cut. That day while going through a Malayalam newspaper, the readers' letter column caught my special attention on the grounds that there was a letter that contained a useful bit of information about a particular type of words in English. It was then that I thought about the longest words in English. The reader said in the letter that the longest word in English was none other than pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. This 45-letter long word is the name of a lung disease prevalent among the coal mine workers. Just by reading twice, I was able to memorize this word. Later on, having been attracted to recreational English, I collected many long words from various sources and put them in the pages of my books about the English language. It is interesting to note that the word hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian means "of long words".

Someone once said jokingly that the 'real' longest word is SMILES because there is a MILE from the first S to the last S. But he or she then did not remember that in this respect BELEAGUERED is the longest word because there is a LEAGUE (three miles) between BE and RED.

I have wondered why the English language with the greatest number of words of all the languages in the world is missing many words from her vocabulary. One such word is how manieth. You know when you ask someone "how many children do you have?", he will answer "three" or any other number. The number that you get for 'how many' is a cardinal number. But if you want to get an ordinal number like third, tenth, sixteenth as answer, what question word will you use in English? To tell the truth, there is no ordinal number question word in English. 

Some people in India are said to ask this question: "What's the ordinal number of Dr Manmohan Singh as the prime minister of India?" Some others: "What's the rank of Dr Manmohan Singh among the prime ministers of India?" But they do not have the flavour of the natural English style.

An Oxford professor has said that one can use what number in speech as an ordinal number question word:

                       What number prime minister of India is Dr Manmohan Singh?

                             What number president of America was Abraham Lincoln?

The same professor says that the following type of sentence can be used in written English:

                      Where in the chronological order of prime ministers does Dr Manmohan Singh                                    come?

I really wish there was a word like 'how manieth'  or 'how manyeth' in the English language. 

I have just joined Englishclub only because I am a keen lover of the English language. I have taught English to college students for more than twenty years. I have authored more than twenty books on the English language including dictionaries. I have a facebook page for the lovers of the English language. You can log it on www.facebook.com/oabootty. I will share my knowledge of the English language with you and if possible I will clear up your doubts about the English language.