How’s what going exactly? Obviously you don’t really need to think about that if someone asks you this question.
The correct answer is of course, Fine thanks, how are you? It’s just a greeting, so you don’t really need to tell the person how you are, though I sometimes do, especially if I have something interesting to tell them. Still, the question remains: how’s what going? And where?
Both are correct, regardless of whether you’re speaking British or American English. If that’s all you wanted to know, you can now go about enjoying your Sunday. But if you want to know how goats, Greek, a sign of the Zodiac, and stuffed animals fit into the equation, then please, read on.
He’s a dark horse, isn’t he?
How would you describe the expression a dark horse to somebody who’d never heard it before? After thinking for a moment, you might say it’s a person of hidden depths or secret talents/opinions, someone who achieves something when no-one expected that they might. You might give an example of a quiet student in a language class who suddenly speaks confidently and fluently in an oral exam.
Are you into vintage clothes, or perhaps accessories? Maybe, if you can afford it, you have a vintage-car collection. The meaning of the word vintage is fairly straightforward. It basically means old, or old–fashioned, but also stylish and of good quality. It’s also an interesting, and straightforward, word in an etymological sense.
Writing about the four humours yesterday, something struck me: the word humorous isn’t really very humorous.
Are you in good humour at the moment? You are? Good! If I’d asked you that question a few hundred years ago though, it would’ve had a somewhat different meaning.
There may be one advantage to Donald Trump being President of the United States (only one!), though it’s quite a selfish one: he certainly gives me a lot of food for thought. Sometimes I really don’t want to write about him, or even think about him, or exist in the same universe as him, but he can be hard to ignore, particularly when he demonstrates his unusually dysfunctional relationship with the English language.
Last week he gave us another addition to the evergrowing list of did-he-actually-just-say-that? moments:
English-Language Thoughts 