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by Liz Walter
We all know someone who seems to have trouble with everyday life; someone who drops things, bumps into things, breaks things, and generally has more accidents than other people. There are lot of ways of talking about clumsy people like this.
Continue reading “Like a bull in a china shop: talking about people who are clumsy”
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Today, I’m looking at ways of saying that we don’t like a particular thing or person. This might sound like a rather negative subject for a post, but it is a useful one, I’m sure you will agree!
Continue reading “It’s not really my thing (How to say you don’t like something)”
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by Liz Walter
Today’s post is the last in a short series on the topic of crime and deals with words and phrases connected with what happens once a criminal is caught. Continue reading “Trial, judge, and jury: talking about what happens when a criminal is caught”
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by Liz Walter
My last post looked at some general vocabulary for talking about crime. Today I’m going to focus on the specific area of theft.
Continue reading “Robbing, looting, and embezzling: talking about stealing”
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by Liz Walter
Today’s post is the first in a short series on the topic of crime and it looks at some general vocabulary. Once again, I will be focusing on collocations, or words that go together. Continue reading “Committing, tackling, and solving: talking about crime”
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I recently published a blog post on the language that we use to describe the way things seem to be (Keeping Up Appearances). Today, I’m looking at a related subject – words that describe things that are definitely not what they seem to be. Continue reading “Fakes and forgeries (Things that are not what they seem to be)”
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by Liz Walter
It is common to see confusion between the words ‘worse’ and ‘worst’, so in today’s post, I am going to explain the difference and also talk about some useful phrases which contain these words. Continue reading “Worse than or worst of all? How to use the words ‘worse’ and ‘worst’”
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There’s an English saying You can’t judge a book by its cover, meaning that you cannot know what someone or something is really like by considering only appearance. However, we all make assessments based on how someone or something seems to be (even if we then find out that our initial judgment was wrong). This week, I’m looking at the language in this area, covering both single words and phrases. Continue reading “Keeping up appearances (Talking about how things seem)”
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This week, in the second of two ‘Talking about differences’ posts, I’m looking at idioms and other phrases that are used for saying that things or people are different. Continue reading “Apples and oranges (Talking about differences, Part 2)”
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by Liz Walter
My last post was about hiding things, and today I am writing about finding or discovering them.
Find is a very general word, used both for when you look for something deliberately or when you find it by accident. It is usually used to talk about an object or something you can see. For information, we are more likely to use the phrasal verb find out. Discover is used for objects and information, and tends to be used more when we find something by accident or for the first time:
I found my keys under a cushion.
How did you find out my address?
We discovered a secret door that led to a tunnel. Continue reading “Searching out and tracking down: talking about finding or discovering things”