Category Archives: Word of the Day

Word of the Day: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

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This saying first appeared in the 3rd century BC in Greek  and as you’ve probably guessed it means that different people have different ideas about what is beautiful, something I totally agree with. Don’t you?

But what is beauty? According to scientists, beauty has to do with symmetry combined with some gender-specific traits. For example, for women : full lips, large eyes, small jaw and nose ; and for men: squarer jaw, deeper-set eyes, full lips. Can you think of anybody with these traits? I surely have  some in mind. All right ! Time’s up! Stop daydreaming and go back to reading!

By the way, did you know that women’s perceptions of beauty change throughout their menstrual cycle? I know it sounds a bit weird and I don’t want to believe it but unfortunately this is what research shows.

Anyway, this is a brief (or rather not so brief) introduction to what I wanted to say from the beginning of this article  and this is  that beauty is nothing without brains  and the video below is proof of this.

I’m planning to use it with my elementary students, who are now studying the semantic field of FOOD.

Want to give it a go? Yes? Great!! So, now, watch it and then answer the following questions (if you want to do the hot potatoes exercise, click here)


1. What does the girl order?

2. Where  are they?

Word of the day: verbs from a song

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There are some verbs we never seem to use.It’s like when I tell my students not to use the verb “say” all the time when they are writing essays and  they invariably stare at me probably   thinking : What the hell does she want us to use instead? As if I didn’t know that, deep inside their brains , the verbs “claim” or “state” are there to use as substitutes for the mighty “say”.

So let’s widen our vocabulary by revising the meaning of some of the verbs used in this song. I hope that ,in the early future , you use some of them .

Let’s listen to this beautiful song by the country music group Lady Antebellum and focus on some verbs and expressions

-to scatter:to cause to separate and go in different directions scattering confetti from the upper windows

–to wonder:to feel curiosity or be in doubt  I wondered what happened

-To cross one’s mind:to be a sudden or passing thought; be thought of by

She looked so well it never crossed my mind that she was ill.

 To guess: to think; to suppose; to believe; to imagine I guess I can get there in time.

Word of the day: Tense and a Joke to Make you and me Smile

Word of the Day

An English teacher spent a lot of time marking grammatical errors on her students’ papers and was beginning to doubt whether she was getting through to them. One day as the stress got to her, she leaned over her desk and rubbed her temples.”What’s the matter, Mrs. D?” a passing student asked.

“Tense,” she mumbled.

The student hesitated a moment, then said, “What could be the matter? What has been the matter? What was the matter?”

Tense (adj) = feeling worried, uncomfortable, and unable to relax

Tense (noun) =any of the forms of a verb that show the time, continuance, or completion of an action or state that is expressed by the verb. ‘I am’ is in the present tense, ‘I was’ is past tense, and ‘I will be’ is future tense

Word of the Day: To Remind, To Remember and Tool to Send Reminders

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Today, this section Word of the Day, has a double aim. On the one hand, it is going to help my students see the difference between these two verbs “remember ” and “remind” and on the other hand, it is going to serve as an excuse for showing you a little tool to help you remember things.
Some of my students have problems seeing the difference between these two verbs, so here’s a written explanation and a short video explaining this difference. I recommend you to see the video first as it’ll definitely serve a double purpose, that of helping you improve your listening ability and at the same time solving your doubts regarding these two common verbs.

  • If you remind somebody about something, you make them remember it. It is a transitive verb, i.e. it always has an object which may be followed by to + infinitive or a that-clause.

                   Remind me to set homework at the end of the lesson.
                   Cristina reminded us that the exam  had been brought forward to Tuesday

When you say that someone or something reminds you of sth/so. you associate it with a memory from your past.

                       This boy reminds me of a boyfriend I had when I was at university .

  • If you remember, you have an image in your mind of a person, place or thing that happened in the past.It is very often used with a to+infinitive

                          I’ll always remember the first time I saw him

                         Remember to buy bread on your way home

In summary:

People ARE REMINDED of things. (it doesn’t appear in their head)
People REMEMBER things. (it does appear in their head)
REMEMBER = Person doing it themselves
REMIND = Other person making someone else remember

Click to do some EXERCISES . Link 1, Link 2

What is a good way to remind  people of things that need to be done without seeming like a nag? Is there a way to politely remind people to do things? Yes, there is: it’s called RemindPost and it is a simple, free service to let you send reminders to people or to yourself  and be notified when they’re done.

It works like this: You email someone a task. If they don’t mark it complete by the time you specify, both of you will be notified.

Hope you find it useful!

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Word of the Day: Turn over a new leaf

Word of the Day

The idea for this post came from the image of Lady Gaga at the MTV video Music Awards wearing  meat  and just in case wearing a dress meat was not enough, her hat, boots and purse were also made of meat and also, just in case her attire went unnoticed  she asked Cher, who was giving her the award, to hold her meat purse.

But what does the expression to turn over a new leaf mean?

It means to make a fresh start, to change one’s conduct or attitude for the better as in

Lady Gaga promised her fans she was going to turn over a new leaf and stop wearing fur coats

But what’s a leaf?  This is a leaf → 

So playing with the meaning of the expression “turn over a new leaf ” and the word “leaf” the rather provocative group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ) has launched a campaign seeking to stop the cruelty of the fur industry and has prompted designers to stop using fur in their designs. The photos below are part of this  campaig . I have put together images of Lady Gaga and models volunteering for PETA. You choose, the options is always yours!