A common question that comes up in the English-language classroom is, what’s the difference between seeing and looking? And sometimes watching is thrown in there for good measure.
Explaining them is pretty straightforward. Continue reading
I might not write that expression many more times in my life. I might actually have never written it before to be honest, but I’m probably less likely to use it from now on.
Just as I might not mention that yawning, for example, is contagious very often. And that would of course be due to the current coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading
Not a word you come across every day, this one.
If you’re understandably unfamiliar with it, it’s a term for a building reserved for the quarantine of lepers or poor people with other diseases. I was reminded of it while writing earlier about the word quarantine and its Venetian origins. Continue reading
Hello from quarantine!
Yes, I’m currently under quarantine here in Palermo, as part of the national lockdown in Italy to curb the spread of COVID-19. Continue reading
Have you heard any heartwarming histories about the letter H?
It’s a surprisingly interesting letter, and one you end up thinking about a lot if you deal with language like Italian or French, in which the letter is usually silent when it appears at the beginning of a word. Continue reading
If you’re reading this around the time of writing, then I don’t think I need to tell you too much about the coronavirus outbreak. Naturally enough though, I have wondered about the name of the virus. Continue reading
I’ve often wondered why we use the word derby to refer to a match between two sporting rivals (in most forms of English at least, as the term crosstown rivalry is also used in the United States), considering that Derby is also the name of a city in England. I’d always imagined there must be a connection between the two uses of the word. Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 