I HAVE a few questions on grammar that I find confusing.  

1. What is the meaning of the word ever in Bahasa Melayu in these sentences from Dictionary.com:

a) If the band ever plays again, we will dance. 

b) How did you ever manage to do it?

2. The apostrophe “s” is used after countries, cities, towns, months and days. So can I say “It is Sunday’s news!”? What about a society? Let’s say the name of a society is Gemilang, which is organising a sports carnival. Do we say “Gemilang’s Sports Carnival” or “Gemilang Sports Carnival”? Is there a “the” before Gemilang?

3. There is a signboard at a local university for “Student parking”. Should there be an apostrophe “s” for “student”?

4. Do we say “a great experience” or “great experience”? “A good news” or “good news”? I know “news” is uncountable so there is no need for articles, correct?

What about “good information” and “good advice”? Is there an “a” before “good”?

5. According to a grammar book, we should use the definite article “the” before names of examinations, for example, the PMR, the SPM. But in one book I was reading recently, there is the sentence: “SPM examination is just around the corner.” Also, should it be examinations instead? – Khairul Anuar

Your questions are not confusing, and they are not all about grammar.

1. There is not always ONE word in Malay to correspond exactly with any of the senses of the word “ever” in English. It would make more sense to look at each sentence you quoted from Dictionary.com as a whole and try to work out an equivalent sentence in Malay:

The two sentences are meant to illustrate the 4th definition of “ever” in Dictionary.com, which is given as:

“in any possible case; by any chance; at all (often used to intensify or emphasize a phrase or an emotional reaction as surprise or impatience)”

In sentence a) “If the band ever plays again, we will dance.”, “ever” means “by any chance”, which suggests that the speaker thinks there is only a small possibility that the band will play again. The word “ever” here is used to intensify the feeling of uncertainty and convey a “hoping against hope” feeling in the sentence. This can be rendered in Malay as:

Kalau-kalaulah pancaragam ini bermain semula, kita akan menari.       

The doubling of the “kalau” and the addition of the intensifier “-lah” conveys the degree of uncertainty as well as the small amount of hope that remains.

In sentence b) “How did you ever manage to do it?”, “ever” just communicates the intense surprise (or astonishment) of the speaker at what the other person managed to do, presumably something difficult. The word cannot be substituted by any of the phrases given in the Dictionary.com definition. To render the sentence in Malay, we have to express the astonishment in some way, for example in:

“Macam manalah awak dapat membuat itu? Hairan sungguh!”

2. Yes, it is possible to say: “It’s Sunday’s news.” Have you heard the nursery rhyme that begins with “Monday’s child is fair of face / Tuesday’s child is full of grace”? And the line from the moving 1970s folk song, “Streets Of London” (by Ralph McTell): “Yesterday’s paper telling yesterday’s news.” You can listen to it on YouTube.

When it comes to societies with a proper name like “Gemilang”, we can use the apostrophe “s” after it, but we don’t use “the” before it. It is to be treated like a proper noun. So you can say “Gemilang’s Sports Carnival”. The British trade union representing professional entertainers also has a proper name, “Equity” and uses an apostrophe “s” after its name in such phrases as “Equity’s Manifesto for Theatre”, but no “the” before it.

3. The term “Student Parking” is used widely in British and American universities. It is also used on signboards. The picture (top) shows one example. The term just means “parking area for students”.

4. “Experience” can be either an uncountable noun or a countable one, depending on the meaning used. You can see these different meanings in the online Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at: www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/dictionary/experience

Your sentence uses meaning 3, in which the word is a countable noun. So, you have to say “I had a great experience in the US.” if you are talking only about one event that happened when you were there. But if you are talking about the effect of the country on you, you’ll have to say: “Living in the US was a great experience for me.”

As for “news”, you can say: “I have some good news to tell you today.” “Some” is very useful for uncountable nouns. So, you can say: “He gave me some good advice.” But we don’t normally say “good information”, do we? “Some useful information” sounds more idiomatic.

5. There should be the definite article “the” before the name of an examination. I looked up reputable British websites, and they use “the” before “GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) examination(s)”, the equivalent in England, Wales and Northern Ireland of our SPM here.

Looking at usage in Britain, some people write “the GCSE examination” and others “the GCSE examinations”. Those who use the singular form probably see the testing of the whole set of subjects taken by students in any given year as a unit making up one examination. Those who use the plural form probably think of each subject as having an examination of its own, so that the whole set is called “the GCSE examinations”. Both forms are acceptable, and so I think we should also accept both “the SPM examination” and “the SPM examinations”.

Below are some examples of the use of “the GCSE examination” and “the GCSE examinations” in some British websites:

“In 1987, Kenneth Baker, then Secretary of State for Education, announced that there was to be national testing of children at the ages of seven, eleven and fourteen, leading up to the GCSE examinations at sixteen.” (from a UK parliament publication)

“We argue that the importance of coursework in the GCSE examination is likely to be a key explanation for the emergence of the gender gap at age 16.” (from a publication of the London School of Economics)

“... this is the first time that Kingsley has entered an entire Year 10 class for a maths GCSE examination ....” (from the website of The Kingsley School in England)

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