Jan 7, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: handsy Just before Christmas, Oxford dictionaries announced their word of the year for 2017: youthquake. For some reason, these annual announcements always attract a lot of media attention here and this time was no different. Articles in a wide range of newspapers explored the reasons why the word, which is defined as ‘a significant cultural, political, […]
Dec 30, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: resolution The tradition of starting the new year by making New Year’s resolutions is an ancient one. The Babylonians used to promise their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed goods and pay their debts, while the Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus, after whom the […]
Dec 26, 2017 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: Christmas cheer Despite my mutterings of Bah humbug! in the last post, I do actually like a bit of Christmas cheer. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been out quite a bit catching up with friends who I haven’t seen for a while, which is always nice. Yes, we should meet up more often, but sometimes […]
Dec 17, 2017 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: Bah humbug! The phrase Bah, humbug! comes from the Charles Dickens’ story A Christmas Carol and is said by the main character Scrooge, who doesn’t like anything about Christmas. People can be called a scrooge when they don’t like spending money. You might say ‘Don’t be such a scrooge’ or ‘He’s a right scrooge’ (and let’s face […]
Dec 14, 2017 Chunks, Intermediate word of the day Intermediate word of the day: struggle Today’s word is struggle. Struggle is all to do with difficulty, and with fighting or working hard to get what you want. Struggle is a verb: you can struggle with a problem (find a problem difficult or work hard to solve it). Struggle is also a noun – learning English can be a struggle sometimes! […]
