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by Liz Walter
Today’s post covers vocabulary, and particularly natural-sounding collocations (words that often go together), for talking about things we want to do in our lives.
Continue reading “Pursuing aims and meeting targets: talking about things we want to achieve”
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I recently heard a journalist complaining that she didn’t understand the government’s position on a particular issue. It was, she said, as clear as mud, meaning, of course, that it was not at all clear! This humorous idiom made me think about the various ways in which we say that something is difficult or impossible to understand. Today’s post, including both single words and idioms, is the result.
Continue reading “It’s as clear as mud! (Words and expressions that mean ‘difficult to understand’)”
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by Liz Walter
In my last post on words for being clumsy, I included the phrase all fingers and thumbs. This made me think about how many phrases we have that contain the word ‘finger’. This post covers some of the most common and useful ones.
Continue reading “A finger in every pie: phrases with the word ‘finger’”
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This week, I’m looking at the language we use to refer to sources – that is, the places, things, or people that provide or produce a particular thing. (That ‘thing’ can be a physical object or something abstract, such as knowledge or an idea.) As usual, I’m including both single words and phrases in the post. Continue reading “Treasure troves and endless supplies (Words and phrases meaning ‘source’)”
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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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Today I’m looking at idioms and phrases from a range of national newspapers published on the same day. This is something I do every couple of months in order to provide you with up-to-date, common idioms.
Continue reading “Never say die! (Idioms and phrases in newspapers)”
On September 20th, four million people across the globe expressed their concern and anger about climate change by demonstrating (=gathering or walking in a public place to show their opinion). We thought this a good time to look at the language of demonstrating.
First up, the verb protest is a synonym for ‘demonstrate’: Employees are protesting against the cuts. In US English especially, ‘protest’ is often used transitively: Students protested the laws. A phrase that is frequently used, especially in newspapers, to mean ‘protest’ is take to the streets: Millions took to the streets in the largest environmental protest in history. Continue reading “See you on the march! (The language of protests)”