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This week, we’re looking at alternatives to the word advice, including single word near-synonyms and phrases. We’ll start by considering the noun ‘advice’ itself because it has some nice collocations. You give advice and you get advice. If you do what someone advises you to do, you take or follow their advice: Continue reading “Hints, hacks and pointers (Words meaning ‘advice’)”
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It’s been a while since we published a phrasal verb post on this blog, so we’re making amends with this round-up of phrasal verbs relating to a subject that most of us are interested in – eating. Continue reading “Tucking in and pigging out (Eating phrasal verbs)”
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Today, the Cambridge Dictionary announces its Word of the Year for 2023: hallucinate. You might already be familiar with this word, which we use to talk about seeing, hearing, or feeling things that don’t really exist. But did you know that it has a new meaning when it’s used in the context of artificial intelligence? Continue reading “Understanding AI jargon: Artificial intelligence vocabulary”
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This week we’re putting on our best clothes and grabbing a box of chocolates for the host because we’re going to a party! Well, okay, we’re not actually going to a party, but we are looking at words that we use to refer to social occasions where people meet up to enjoy themselves. You might be surprised at how many words there are. Continue reading “Reunions and housewarmings (Words for different parties)”
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Readers of our About Words blog often ask us for posts on currently used English idioms. One way that we make sure we give you up-to-date idioms is by looking at expressions used in current newspapers. This week, the idioms come from a range of national newspapers that were published on 5 October 2023. Continue reading “The calm before the storm (Newspaper idioms)”
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Today I’m looking at words that mean ‘very or extremely large’. You’ll already know several words in this area – adjectives such as enormous, huge and massive – so I won’t focus on those. Instead, I’ll look at a set of adjectives that you might not know. Most have rather similar meanings. The differences are mainly found in the register of the words, that is, whether they are formal or informal. Continue reading “Vast, mahoosive and monstrous (Words meaning ‘very large’)”
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I recently wrote a post on expressions that we use to convey that there is enough of something. Today I’m looking at the opposite – the way we talk about too little or too few of something. Continue reading “Scarce, scant and sparse (Ways of saying ‘not enough’)”
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One of various things that we like to do on this blog is consider the many different ways we express the same thing in English. (Of course, we are rarely expressing exactly the same thing and it’s the differences – sometimes very subtle – that make language interesting.) In today’s post, I’m looking at words and phrases we use to convey the basic meaning of ‘enough’. Continue reading “Ample and adequate (Other ways of saying ‘enough’)”
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Today’s post is the latest in my ‘newspaper idioms and phrases’ series. The aim of this series is to keep you supplied with up-to-date, frequent English idioms. As with previous ‘newspaper idioms’ posts, these expressions all come from a range of national newspapers published on the same day. Continue reading “A flash in the pan (Newspaper idioms)”
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In my last couple of posts, I’ve looked at the language we use to describe how and when we sleep (Part 1 and Part 2). In this, the third of my ‘sleep’ posts, I look at the language of not sleeping and stopping sleeping. Continue reading “Tossing and turning (Talking about sleep, Part 3)”
