Archive for August, 2012
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Posted by Liz Potter on August 31, 2012
This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a [...]
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Posted by Laine Redpath Cole on August 30, 2012
laugh (noun) Are you having a laugh?: an informal British phrase used to challenge something someone says or does that seems ridiculous or insulting to the speaker. “That’ll be twenty pounds please.” “Twenty quid for a bottle of shampoo? Are you having a laugh?“ (Submitted from the United Kingdom) The Brits are pretty subtle with [...]
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Posted by Liz Potter on August 30, 2012
In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult. Here is some advice about the prepositions that can follow the adjective independent: The usual preposition to use with [...]
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Posted by Orin Hargraves on August 29, 2012
Stan Carey’s recent post about irregular verbs reminded me of a topic that occurs to me from time to time; to be more precise, a topic that occurs to me every time I notice someone fail to vocalize a past participle when grammar requires it, and opt for the simple past instead. Of course this [...]
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Posted by Roberta Facchinetti on August 27, 2012
Our guest blogger this week is Roberta Facchinetti, who is a Full Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Verona. Roberta teaches courses in English for Journalism, and has published numerous books and articles on language, culture, and the media. While teachers of English are increasingly taking advantage of [...]
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Posted by Liz Potter on August 24, 2012
This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a [...]
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Posted by Liz Potter on August 23, 2012
In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult. Here is some advice about the verb agree: When you want to say that you approve of something or [...]
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Posted by Stan Carey on August 21, 2012
Irregular verbs can be awkward items for students, requiring to be learned (or learnt) by heart rather than by a simple rule. But they are also historical artefacts that have stubbornly withstood (not withstanded) the pressure to conform, and they shed light on the shapes and structure of English morphology – word formation – as [...]
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Posted by Gill Francis on August 20, 2012
In the run-up to the Olympics, several athletes were signed up to appear in advertisements for the products of one of the sponsors. One athlete was lucky, or unlucky, enough to be assigned a well-known anti-dandruff shampoo, and is now, declares the advert, “100% cool, 100% confident and up to 100% flake-free*”. (Forget that asterisk [...]
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Posted by Liz Potter on August 17, 2012
This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a [...]
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