TEFL

Son of a Bitch

Niall O'Donnell 20 Comments

Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to get too political. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry’s got their hot take on Donald Trump, so I want to keep things focussed on language: grammar, etymology, stuff like that. Hang on, let me just have a quick look at Twitter before I write… He’s said what!?…

On Friday, Donald Trump, somehow President of the United States, weighed in on the controversial issue of professional American-football players protesting against racial injustice and police inequality towards African Americans. He naturally employed all the gravitas and diplomacy one would expect of his office, and said the following:

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Riding the Gravy Train

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

Did you ever wonder where this odd expression comes from? Why would gravy be associated with having an easy time of it? And where does the train fit into it?

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He/She/It: They all Float Down Here

Niall O'Donnell 16 Comments

I saw IT last week, only it was actually Ça, considering I saw it in a cinema in Liège. English-language films are generally dubbed here, but as it was a somewhat arty cinema, they were proud to offer the VO (version originale) with French and Dutch subtitles. Having two sets of subtitles taking up space on the screen is quite distracting, but it’s an interesting opportunity to compare English, French, and Dutch at the same time.

Watching a film with subtitles in a language you know is always a little odd, as they never translate things exactly, largely because such a thing is basically impossible. Even so, there are always one or two choices the subtitler makes which boggle the mind. I don’t recall anything like that in this case, but there was one necessary difference in translation that intrigued me.

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It’s the Little Things

Niall O'Donnell 25 Comments

Learning any language is never easy. It takes a lot of time, and patience, and practice. But above all, it requires mental readjustment. And that’s the part that a lot of people find the most difficult.

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Envision and Envisage

Niall O'Donnell 11 Comments

There’s a good chance you only use one of these words, if you use one at all, and it’s probably envisage. And that’s all you really need. Both can basically mean the same thing: to imagine something, specifically to conjure up a mental image.

There is a slight distinction between the two though, if you want to know exactly how to use them to impress a language nerd.

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Stranger Things

Niall O'Donnell 26 Comments

Strange can be a strange word. If I asked you to explain it, you’d probably have no problem. It means weird, unusual, not normal. Easy.

Now though, think of words related to strange.

You can probably think of strangely, stranger, and estranged. OK, strangely is the adverb form of strange, but what’s the link with the other two words?

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Can you be Ruthful?

Niall O'Donnell 14 Comments

You can of course be ruthless – having or showing no compassion or pity for others. I don’t recommend it, but it’s possible. Logically then, you can be ruthful – being full of compassion or pity of others. Normally when we add the prefix -less to a noun, we can add -ful as well to mean the opposite: careful/careless, hopeful/hopeless, and so on.

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