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Death by Shopping!

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a man who died by drowning in chocolate. There was another unusual death in this article on the BBC website a few days ago. The article mentions that the lady was a ‘shopaholic‘. A ‘shopaholic’ is someone who is addicted to shopping. We often use the suffix ‘-holic’ to …

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Gazumping!

I saw a great word in the news today mentioned in this article in the Telegraph. ‘Gazumping‘ (also spelled ‘gadzumping’) is when a potential house-buyer has agreed on a price with the seller and put down a deposit, then someone else offers the seller more and ends up buying the house instead of the original …

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A Beer with Obama

This article on Reuters.com caught my attention today. I thought it was an interesting way to deal with a tricky problem and couldn’t imagine many other world leaders coming up with such a solution. There is some interesting vocabulary in the third paragraph: prompting an outcry from police groups and a resulting media blitz. A …

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Flu Vaccine

I think people all over the world are worried about Swine Flu. It’s a topic that has really had a lot of exposure in the news recently. I will be very relieved when there is an effective vaccine made available and that’s why this article on Reuters.com caught my attention. The first piece of medical …

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Windows 7

‘Paving the way‘ made another appearance this week in this article I saw on cnet.com yesterday. I don’t really use windows unless I have to but this article and the comments underneath it made me want to at least try Windows 7 to see what it’s like. Maybe I’ll give it a go over the …

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Tie the Knot

I saw a funny article on the BBC website today. Two people with the same name met on Facebook and decided to get married! There were some nice expressions in the article, too. The first one is to ‘tie the knot’: A couple with the same name who found each other through social networking website …

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