Category Archives: Word of the Day

Word of the day: Flood /flʌd/

Word of the Day

Unfortunately , that’s the word I have most often heard today.

Used as a verb – if a river floods an area that is usually dry, it becomes covered with water

The Nalon river has flooded its banks, making some roads impassable
The Nalon river has flooded whole villages
The relentless rain in Asturias has caused the Nalon river to flood

Used as a noun – An overflowing of water onto land that is normally dry

Fortunately nobody has been killed in the floods in Asturias
The west of Asturias has been badly hit by floods
Tomorrow the flood water is expected to recede

And that’s where I live, Pravia . The  picture was  taken  3 hours ago.

 

Word of the Day : Damn

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“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” is a line from the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. It was spoken by Clark Gable, as Rhett Butler, in his last words to Scarlett O’Hara.

At home I was never allowed to use bad language or swearwords, not that my father didn’t use them more often than necessary but I swear to God I’ve never ever heard my mother utter a single rude word. My parents were brought up in the traditional way, which meant going to church on Sundays and even though my father then changed his mind about the Sunday ritual, my mother is still quite devoted to most church rites. I guess being educated at  a nun’s school ’til the age of 18 has a lot to say in this matter.

So as I said not a single taboo word was ever allowed at home although as you can imagine everything forbidden was used and overused when we thought we weren’t heard and also in the midst of some angry arguments among my siblings and me. Among the words we couldn’t use was the word ” Damn”and although we knew that it could only be used  in church ,by priests when preaching ( it is used in religious contexts to mean “To condemn to hell”) we liked to tease our parents by saying it as often as we could pretending we didn’t know it was popularly used as a cuss word.

Although it still maintains the religious connotations, the word Damn is used, nowadays, to express anger, annoyance, disgust…etc . Look at the word being used in context:
No, damn it, you wait a minute!
God damn it, the man said he’d write, so why doesn’t he send me a letter?
That car isn’t worth a damn ( worthless)
What is the Government doing to reduce global warming? Damn all (nothing at all)
Damn it all! (expressions of anger, annoyance or impatience)
I don’t give a damn about what they say ( I don’t care)

Now if you’re in the mood for more Damn, watch this video where  Beyoncé plays the role of a gorgeous housewife who can’t understand why her husband doesn’t love her:

�
Why don’t you love me?
Tell me, baby, why don’t you love me
When I make me so damn easy to love?
Why don’t you need me?
Tell me, baby, why don’t you need me
When I make me so damn easy to need?

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Google Set Labs: a language-based experiment

freeware, Resources, The English language, Vocabulary, Word of the Day

This little tool by google called Google Set Labs has lots of potential . It helps you to produce sets of items from a few examples so if you write a few items from a list of things it automatically creates a list of items from the same group.

I’ve decided to try with sports and personality adjectives and I wrote a few related-words as you can see from the pictures  below

Then , you can choose whether you want to a large set or a smalll set and it produces a massive list of words related to this area. It’s great for teachers to try to predict what sort of words related to a topic might be used in class and also great for students to try to extend their vocabulary.

Want to have a go at it??

Let’s go Shopping

Lesson Plan: Pre-Intermediate, Listening, Word of the Day, , , , , , , ,

I never say “no” when one of my friends phones me to suggest going shopping. I love it!!!

Although I like going shopping a lot I don’t see myself as a shopaholic: I am definitely not a compulsive shopper although I am one of those who sort of view going shopping as a hobby. It helps me relax but I certainly do not spend money I do not have and I am not drowning in debt because of my purchases. Well, this is what I tell my mother every single time she tells me off for wearing new clothes.

Anyway, this is a video from the film Pretty Woman, which I’m sure all of you have seen.

You can do three things:
♦ Just watch and enjoy it

For students in the elementary level
♦ Watch the video and do some exercises 
♦ Do a whole lesson plan on going shopping  Here

And now that we are on the subject what about learning some expressions containing the word shop?

→ talk shop
if people who work together talk shop, they talk about their work when they are not at work
Even when they go out in the evening, they just talk shop all the time.

→go window-shopping
to go about looking at goods in store windows without actually buying anything.
Joan said she was just going window-shopping, but she bought a new coat.

→shop around (for something)
 to shop at different stores to find what you want at the best price.
You can find a bargain, but you’ll have to shop around.

→be like a bull in a china shop
to often drop or break things because you move awkwardly or roughly.

Rob’s like a bull in a china shop – don’t let him near those plants.