Here is a talking point: What popular saying do you find to be bullshit?
Reading Club: The Spy Who Came in From The Cold (1.4)
In the Reading Club series, we read books together, enjoy them, and learn from them. This is the fourth part of John le Carré‘s The Spy Who Came in From The Cold. Chapter 1: Checkpoint PART 4 That damned woman, thought Leamas, and that fool Karl, who’d lied about her. Lied by omission, as they … Continue Reading
The server is down
In this post we’ll have a look at a very short exchange between a customer and tech support about a server problem. Let’s first start with the word “server”…
What do you not care about anymore?
Here is a talking point: What is something that was important to you in the past, but you do not care about anymore?
Landing like a cat
Cats have a reputation for always landing on their feet, but is it true? Yes, as any cat-owner can tell you, this is mostly true. Cats have a natural balancing system called the “righting reflex”. This system allows cats to orient themselves and land on their feet, not always, but most of the time…
Which preposition to use with “corner”? At, in, or on?
In the Confusables series, we talk about English words and expressions that are easily confused with one another because of similarities in spelling, pronunciation, and/or meaning. This is a question I am commonly asked by my students. Even if there seems to be quite a bit of variation in usage, I think understanding the difference … Continue Reading
Bertrand Russell’s message to future generations
This is from BBC’s Face to Face interview with Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, in 1959. …
When you are around twenty…
The Talking Point series provides an opportunity to discuss things in English, exchange ideas, and learn from each other. Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as saying “To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.” What was going on in the world when you were around 20 … Continue Reading
Reading Club: The Spy Who Came in From The Cold (1.3)
In the Reading Club series, we read books together, enjoy them, and learn from them. This is the third part of John le Carré‘s The Spy Who Came in From The Cold. Chapter 1: Checkpoint PART 3 Leamas walked over to the car and said to the woman, “Where is he?” “They came for him … Continue Reading