Love and death are often closely related in English culture, from classic plays like Romeo and Juliet to modern romantic comedies like Four Weddings and Funeral. We even use the expression ‘to love someone / something to death‘ to talk about loving someone or something very much. That’s why I was interested to see this …
What is the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane? Hurricanes and typhoons are essentially the same thing. They are just different names for what meteorologists call a ‘tropical cyclone‘. The difference is that we use ‘hurricane‘ if the storm is in the Atlantic and ‘typhoon‘ if it is in the Pacific or other parts …
There was some interesting wedding vocabulary in this article in the BBC News today. The first interesting word is in the first paragraph: A Chinese bride has attempted to break the world record for the longest wedding dress by walking down the aisle in a 2,162m-long (7,083ft) gown. In this situation, the ‘aisle‘ is the …
I was browsing the BBC News archives today and this article caught my eye. I like a beer or two after work on Friday and Guinness is one of my favourite beers. The first interesting word I noticed in this article is ‘slogan‘ in the first paragraph. A slogan is a short phrase used in …
Have you ever dreamt of winning the lottery? I certainly have! That’s why I was so interested in this article on the BBC News website yesterday. There’s a great word in the title: Huge Italy jackpot still not won A ‘jackpot‘ is the biggest prize offered in a competition or lottery. We often use it …
I was very interested to read about Nissan’s new electric car in this article in the Guardian earlier this month. I like the idea of electric cars because they are clean and also very quiet. There were some really interesting words and expressions in this article right from the beginning: Sunderland in running to make …
There’s something I find exciting about hidden treasure and I’m sure a lot of people share the same feeling. Maybe that’s why computer games like ‘Tomb Raider’ and movies like the ‘Indiana Jones’ series are so popular all over the world. This article caught my attention over the weekend because of its links to hidden …
After my post on fears and phobias last month, a few people asked me if there was a specific name for the fear of scorpions. Scorpions belong to the arachnid family of animals so ‘arachnophobia’ would cover the fear of them and spiders, too. This started me thinking about what the most common phobias are …