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American Wedding Traditions – Part II Posted by Gabriele on Jan 9, 2014
Some American wedding traditions are almost universal, such as the bride wearing a long beautiful dress and the groom wearing a nice suit or tuxedo, the exchanging of rings during the wedding ceremony, the bride carrying a bouquet of flowers, and so on. But there are other wedding traditions in America that are more individual…
American Wedding Traditions – Part I Posted by Gabriele on Jan 7, 2014
I am sure you have seen American weddings depicted on TV or in the movies. Some American wedding customs are also now seen in weddings around the world, but have you ever wondered what the real traditions are for American weddings? That is exactly what I am going to write about in the next two…
A space and a hyphen can make a difference in meaning Posted by Gabriele on Jan 2, 2014
There are a number of words in English that are written with or without a hyphen or with or without a space, for example check in vs. check-in, and the space and hyphen makes a difference in meaning! Usually the difference is a change in the part of speech of the word, such as…
Let’s ring in the New Year with idioms using the word ‘new’ Posted by Gabriele on Dec 31, 2013
Another year is almost upon us, tomorrow is the first day of 2014! To help us ring in the New Year, today I am going to present some English idioms/expressions with the word “new” in them. First though, let me tell you about the expression “ring in the new year.” The expression ‘ring in the…
English word of the year: Selfie Posted by Gabriele on Dec 26, 2013
The Oxford Dictionaries has announced the English word of the year for 2013. It is ‘selfie’. So, what is a ‘selfie’? Well this “new” word is a shortened form of the word ‘self-portrait.’ Selfie is a word specific to our time in history when social media, cameras, phones (and camera phones), and sharing everything with…
Grandma got run over by a reindeer! Posted by Gabriele on Dec 24, 2013
Today is Christmas Eve, which is the day before Christmas. Christmas is a holiday celebrated around the world by Christians. The last post I wrote was about Santa Claus and some other Christmas characters associated with this holiday in the United States. Today I have a silly Christmas song about Santa Claus and his reindeer…
Santa Claus, elves, and reindeer! Posted by Gabriele on Dec 20, 2013
As the Christmas holiday quickly approaches (Christmas is on December 25th) I thought I’d take some time to write about an iconic figure at Christmas time: Santa Claus. I am also including information about some other characters associated with Santa Claus. Enjoy! Santa Claus – A legendary and historical figure in western cultures, who is…