Yes, it’s Hallowe’en again! Time to have a look at an appropriately spooky word. But first, a challenge:
Don’t be Afraid…
reading
A Touch of Diaeresis
Can you think of an English word, not borrowed from another language, that has an accent or other diacritic? (a diacritic is simply any glyph added to a letter: see here for examples).
Less or Fewer?
A pretty simple one today: this is something that many people are curious about. Both are clearly similar, but what’s the difference between them?
Mr, Mrs, and Ms
Teaching French-speaking teenagers recently, I was momentarily surprised when they started to call me Mister. Then I remembered that in French the word monsieur can be used like sir in American English. It doesn’t need to come before a surname, like Mister in English, so most students refer to their male teachers as Monsieur, as we use Sir in English. But they of course understandably translated monsieur to mister.
We use sir to refer to a teacher in most varieties of English too, but not to refer to a man in general when we don’t know his name. It’s only really used in that way in American English.
Mister though, is used in basically the same way in every form of English, as the standard honorific for an adult male. Isn’t it curious though, that for women there are three honorifics: Miss, Ms, and Mrs?
The Word Clock? Now that Rings a Bell…
The word clock has quite a long history, unsurprising for such a common and simple word.
A Dark Horse
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.
Some Thoughts on Subtitles
I’ve mentioned before how I prefer, while living in Belgium, to watch English-language films in English with French and Dutch subtitles, though that’s not always easily available.
I also mentioned recently that I was going to see Blade Runner 2049 (which is good, but could never be as good as the first film). One of the advantages of watching films with subtitles is that it reveals interesting differences between the two or three languages involved, or gives you interesting translation choices to ponder.
English-Language Thoughts 