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In my last post, I looked at a range of collocations for the words ‘famous’ and ‘fame’. This week, I’m continuing the ‘fame’ theme but considering synonyms (and near-synonyms) for the adjective ‘famous’. As ever, I’m looking at the precise differences in meaning and use between them. Continue reading “Renowned and celebrated (Words meaning ‘famous’)”
inverse vaccine noun [C]
UK /ˌɪn.vɜːs ˈvæk.siːn/ US /ɪnˌvɝːs vækˈsiːn/
a type of vaccine that stops the body from attacking and damaging its own healthy cells and tissues
It will take time before inverse vaccines are available for patients, but initial trials have already been conducted on people with coeliac disease, with encouraging results … If inverse vaccines could be developed for all autoimmune illnesses, it would be a real revolution, as we have said, because we would be able to switch off inappropriate reactions in a highly specific and definitive way.
[ibsafoundation.org, 28 September 2023]
zero-dose adjective
UK /ˌzɪə.rəʊˈdəʊs/ US /ˌzɪr.oʊˈdoʊs/
a zero-dose child is one who has never received any of the routine vaccinations that most children are given
Since 2019, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of zero-dose children globally due to COVID-19 disruptions, increased economic crises and conflict, and declines in vaccine confidence … To turn the tide on this unprecedented increase in zero-dose children, it is essential to know who and where these children are so we can reach every child with life-saving vaccinations.
[data.unicef.org, April 2023]
tarmac-to-arm adjective
UK /ˌtɑː.mæk.tuˈɑːm/ US /ˌtɑːr.mæk.tuˈɑːm/
tarmac-to-arm refers to the process involved in getting vaccines and other medicines delivered to the place where they are needed and given to the people who need them
According to assessments by the charity CARE, the average “tarmac-to-arm” delivery costs for a single vaccine dose is $9.97 in South Sudan, equivalent to 40% of the country’s per capita pre-pandemic expenditure on healthcare.
[pharmaceutical-technology.com, 22 June 2022]
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by Liz Walter
In my last post, I discussed the importance of learning verb patterns. In this post, I will look at a few slightly more advanced points.
I’ll start with verbs of perception, such as feel, see, watch and notice. These are most often followed by -ing verbs, but bare infinitives (infinitives without to) are also possible:
I felt the sun warming/warm my skin.
We watched the children playing/play in the park. Continue reading “Forget doing it or forget to do it? Avoiding common mistakes with verb patterns (2)”
stochastic parrot noun [C]
UK /stəˌkæs.tɪk ˈpær.ət/ US /stəˌkæs.tɪk ˈper.ət/
a way of describing a large language model, because it can produce text that sounds natural but it does not understand what it is saying
ChatGPT is the latest version of a type of generative AI called large language models (LLMs). These models are very large (and deep) neural networks that are notoriously expensive to train. Such models have been called “stochastic parrots” because they have no understanding of what they say. They can’t tell you where their answers come from and will propagate misinformation if [they have] enough frequency and buzz.
[forbes.com, 6 June 2023]
anthrobot noun [C]
UK /ˈæn.θrə.bɒt/ US /ˈæn.θrə.bɑːt/
a very small robot made out of human cells
Scientists have created tiny living robots from human cells that can move around in a lab dish and may one day be able to help heal wounds or damaged tissue … A team at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have dubbed these creations anthrobots. The research builds on earlier work from some of the same scientists, who made the first living robots, or xenobots, from stem cells sourced from embryos of the African clawed frog.
[cnn.com, 30 November 2023]
See also xenobot
model collapse noun [U, C]
UK /ˈmɒd.ᵊl kəˌlæps/ US /ˈmɑːd.ᵊl kəˌlæps/
a situation where an AI system produces information of poor quality because it has been trained on information produced by other AI systems
AI models are computer programs that perform tasks such as language translation or image recognition by analyzing vast amounts of information, known as datasets. They identify patterns within this data to make predictions and enhance their performance and accuracy over time. However, AI systems can experience “model collapse,” a problem where they’re trained on data produced by other AI models without human-created data. This leads to a rapid decline in output quality due to a feedback loop.
[shortform.com, 7 December 2023]
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It’s said that the artist Andy Warhol once predicted that in the future, everyone would be world-famous for 15 minutes. We can’t say for certain what he meant by this. Perhaps he was reflecting on the desire that so many people have to be famous. Given this desire and the great level of interest in the lives of famous people, it is not surprising that there is a lot of vocabulary in this area. Continue reading “World-famous and newfound fame (Collocations of ‘famous’ and ‘fame’)”
teen-ternity leave noun [U]
UK /ˌtiːnˈtɜː.nə.ti ˌliːv/ US /ˌtiːnˈtɝː.nə.t̬i ˌliːv/
a period of time when someone chooses not to have a job because they want to spend more time with their teenage children
Increasingly, parents are choosing to take a career break as their kids reach their teenage years, for reasons including their children’s mental health, exam stress or other pressures that are part of teenage life. Known as ‘teen-ternity’ leave, the phenomenon has seen women with high-profile careers leave their jobs in order to devote more time to their children.
[goodto.com, 5 December 2023]
See also maternity leave
nepo parent noun [C]
UK /ˈnep.əʊ ˌpeə.rᵊnt/ US /ˈnep.oʊ ˌper.ᵊnt/
the parent of an actor, a musician etc. who achieves success because of their famous child
The rise of the nepo parent? Florence Pugh’s father may be making a leap into British politics … Pugh may be one of the first “nepo parents” to benefit from their offspring’s success as a springboard into a high-profile career, though Florence’s down-to-earth father would be the first to dismiss this.
[tatler.com, 25 October 2023]
See also nepo baby
inchstone noun [C]
UK /ˈɪntʃ.stəʊn/ US /ˈɪntʃ.stoʊn/
a small but important stage in the development of a baby or young child
Pinterest predicts that in 2024, parents will focus on celebrating inchstones, which they describe as “tiny triumphs” … Accomplishments like putting on shoes independently may not feel photo-worthy, but they still deserve to be celebrated. And parents who worked hard to help their children achieve those inchstones deserve to be celebrated, too.
[today.com, 12 January 2024]
See also milestone
Listen to the author reading this blog post:
by Liz Walter
Look at these two English sentences:
I agreed to pay for the damage.
He denied stealing the money.
You will see that each sentence has two verbs, but that the form of the second verb is different. In the first sentence, it is an infinitive with to (to pay), and in the second, it has an -ing form (stealing).
So how do you know which form to use? Continue reading “Infinitive or -ing verb? Avoiding common mistakes with verb patterns (1)”
super distruster noun [C]
UK /ˈsuː.pə dɪˌstrʌs.təʳ/ US /ˈsuː.pɚ dɪˌstrʌs.tɚ/
someone who thinks their country has many serious problems caused by politicians and other people in a position of power, and that these people should not be trusted at all
Almost a third of adults may be “super distrusters” who regard the system as broken and are highly suspicious of those they hold responsible, according to research. They defy traditional and demographic categorisation and are likely to opt out of supporting the main parties or voting at all.
[The Sunday Times, 17 September 2023]
vibecession noun [C]
/ˌvaɪbˈseʃ.ᵊn/
a period during which people feel very worried and pessimistic about the economy when in fact it is in a strong position
Oddly, surveys have consistently shown most Americans feeling pretty good about their own financial situation. But they insisted that bad things were happening to the economy — that is, other people. The commentator Kyla Scanlon coined the term “vibecession,” now widely used to mean a situation in which negative views about the economy don’t seem to match up with the data.
[nytimes.com, 22 January 2024]
p(doom) noun [U]
/ˌpiːˈduːm/
a humorous way, based on a scientific formula (where p = probability), of describing the chances that AI will kill all humans
The term that began as a half-serious inside joke on tech message boards to describe the odds that AI destroys humankind, has broken into the mainstream. The buzzword is p(doom), and it provides both AI experts and average know-nothings a common scale to describe where they stand on the question of whether AI is going to kill us.
[fastcompany.com, 7 December 2023]
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In this week’s post, I’m looking at words for fairly minor injuries – the sort of injuries that most of us get now and then as we go about our lives (even though we may try hard not to).
Let’s start with that most common of injuries, the bruise. A bruise is an area of the skin that is darker than usual as a result of falling or being hit with something. The adjective is bruised and if you have a lot of bruises on your body – or a part of it – you might use the idiom black and blue:
Her right leg is covered in bruises. / She has a very bruised shoulder.
My shoulder and arm were black and blue where I hit the pavement.
Staying with this injury, if someone has bruises around the eye area because they have been hit there, you can call it a black eye. (An informal word for this is a shiner.)
He’d got into a fight at the weekend and had a black eye.
You’re going to have a real shiner in the morning!
The word gash is used for a long, deep cut in the skin. It is a noun and a verb:
He had a nasty gash in his arm that needed stitches. / She’d gashed her leg on a sharp piece of rock.
Meanwhile, the noun scratch refers to a very shallow cut made to the skin with something sharp. Scratch is also a verb:
I had various scratches on my arm from the cat. / I scratched myself on the roses.
(To express surprise that someone was not injured at all in a bad accident, you can say that they emerged/escaped/walked away, etc. without a scratch: Amazingly, he escaped without a scratch.)
If you graze or scrape part of the body (typically the knee), you break the surface of the skin by rubbing against something rough. Worse, if you skin an area of the body, you rub off an area of skin in an accident. Graze and scrape are also nouns:
He’d fallen over and grazed his knee./ Her legs were covered with scrapes and bruises.
Unfortunately, she slipped on the rocks and skinned her arm.
When cuts, scratches and grazes start to heal, the hard, brown layer that forms over them is called a scab and an area of the body with lots of scabs is scabby:
She has a big scab on her knee. / Look at your scabby knees!
If you bump part of your body (typically your head), you hit it against something hard. An injury (often raised and bruised) caused in this way is a bump:
I bumped my head as I was getting out of the car.
He’s got a really nasty bump on his forehead.
Finally, a part of the body that is larger than normal as a result of an injury may be described as swollen:
My ankle is really red and swollen.
That’s it for minor injuries. I hope very much you get through the week ahead without so much as a scrape or a scratch!
coolcation noun [C]
/ˌkuːlˈkeɪ.ʃᵊn/
a holiday in a place where the weather is not very warm, usually because you do not want to go somewhere that has become too hot because of climate change
For the vast majority of folk, summer holidays used to be about following the sun, seeking the heat. With the intense, record-breaking temperatures of recent years, however, many are considering travelling in the opposite direction: booking “coolcations” in temperate destinations, which also benefit from being less crowded.
[cntraveller.com, 18 December 2023]
carbon bomb noun [C]
UK /ˈkɑː.bᵊn ˌbɒm/ US /ˈkɑːr.bᵊn ˌbɑːm/
a project to extract a fossil fuel from the ground that would cause carbon dioxide emissions of more than one gigatonne
Recent reports have revealed that banks pumped more than $150 billion (£124bn) into companies with “carbon bomb” projects that could destroy humanity’s last chance to stop the climate crisis in the past year. Together, the current oil, gas, and coal carbon bombs outdo the world’s total remaining carbon budget that was set in the Paris Agreement, which aims to get ahead of global warming.
[standard.co.uk, 1 November 2023]
climate mobility noun [U]
UK /ˈklaɪ.mət məʊˌbɪl.ə.ti/ US /ˈklaɪ.mət moʊˌbɪl.ə.t̬i/
moving away from an area affected by climate change to live somewhere else
Climate mobility was the most glaring omission at this year’s Summit. This encompasses both forced displacement, either due to sudden-onset disasters or climate change-induced shifts in environmental conditions, as well as the use of long-term migration or temporary mobility as proactive adaptation strategies by individuals or communities.
[justsecurity.org, 19 October 2023]