Sep 3, 2017 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: I think not One of the courses we ran this July as part of our very first Lexical Lab summer school was ADVANCED LANGUAGE AND CULTURE, which lasted two weeks and which explored everything from the class system to education to Brexit to women’s issues to race and immigration. It was a wonderful course to design and write […]
Aug 30, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: off grid Like many people, I find it difficult to turn off and may even suffer from a mild version of what has been called nomophobia – the fear of being without a mobile device or out of mobile contact. What with smartphones and 24/7 Internet connectivity, I’ve got so used to being connected all the time […]
May 23, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: atrocity Like many of you, I suppose, I woke yesterday morning to the appalling news coming out of Manchester. American pop singer Ariana Grande, who’s very popular with teenagers and young people here, had been performing at the Manchester Arena. The concert ended shortly before half past ten at night and as fans started streaming out […]
May 21, 2017 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: rule of thumb My mother turned 70 last month and to celebrate we took her to Majorca for a week-long break. We rented a villa in Puerto Pollensa up on the north coast. It was just about large enough for my mum and her partner, John; my brother, his wife and their adopted kid, Jamie; John’s daughter from […]
May 16, 2017 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: go pear-shaped Last night I was at our local pub quiz. For anyone who hasn’t experienced this, basically it’s an excuse for people to get together and drink, but at the same time it allows ourselves to feel that we are not drunks or layabouts because we are actually proving our great intelligence and knowledge. Never mind […]
