language teaching

Catchphrase!

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

I briefly considered the word catchphrase today. Continue reading →

Going Vegan

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I’m not a vegan, nor am I planning to go vegan either. And I’m not a vegetarian either. I really like meat a lot. I did pretend to be a vegetarian once, though the pretence didn’t last long. But that’s another story. I really want to look at the word vegan. Continue reading →

Furlough

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This word has been in the news a lot lately, specifically American news stories. It’s mainly only used in American English, and for that reason I’ve actually never heard it spoken aloud. Continue reading →

The Jakes

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I’m still reading that Shakespeare book (work and househunting is time-consuming), and still learning interesting things. Well in this case, it was being reminded of something I’d heard about before: the jakes.

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Vavasour

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Huh? Vavawhat?

Vavasour. Never heard of the word?

Don’t worry, neither had I before this evening.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for me. I’ve learned a few new English words. First there was neck-verse, and now vavasour. Though this one has nothing to do with Shakespeare. Continue reading →

Le Dauphin

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What a glorious thing it is to have Henry V represented on stage, leading the French king prisoner, and forcing both him and the Dolphin to swear fealty.

The above are the words of the English Elizabethan writer Thomas Nashe, as quoted in 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, which I’m obviously getting a lot of inspiration from. What obviously interested me about that quote was… the Dolphin. Continue reading →

Universe

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Yesterday I shared with you my new favourite word: neck-verse. The first time I typed it, it sounded like an informal term for a group of films all tied together by featuring characters related to a superhero called The Neck.

And sadly, while such a series of films doesn’t (yet) exist, it made me think of the newly-obvious similarity between the words verse and universe. Could there be a link? Continue reading →