Dec 3, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: nippy After an Indian summer – a period of warm weather in autumn, a time when it’s usually pretty cold – that seemed to last for ever, London has suddenly turned really cold. Over the last few days, temperatures have plummeted and at night it’s regularly dropping below zero out there. It’s so cold that there’s a dusting […]
Nov 12, 2018 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: When I win the lottery Almost everyone who has learned English in class has probably had that lesson where you study second conditionals. In a second conditional, we use a past tense to describe an imagined, unlikely or impossible situation and would to describe the result or subsequent action that follows on from this imagined situation. And quite probably, the example […]
Nov 6, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: schlep In a recent post on the word pogrom, we looked at language connected to the dark human tendency to blame and attack others when things start going wrong in society. We mentioned the anti-Jewish pogroms that occurred across Eastern Europe and that by the end of the 19th century led to tens of thousands of […]
Oct 22, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: pogrom Recently, in a break from the norm, the Guardian newspaper here ran a whole series of features on the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, a megalopolis which is now nearing 30 million people! Jakarta’s a city I know pretty well as I’ve spent a fair amount of time there over the years. The article I found […]
Oct 3, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: march A march is when a large group of people walk down the streets protesting against something – or in support of something – or as a show of strength. You can go on a march or join a march. So why are we talking about marches today? Well, last week saw the 82nd anniversary of […]
