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Opposites in English Posted by heather on Mar 7, 2012
Some Opposites by Richard Wilbur What is the opposite of riot? It is lots of people keeping quiet. The opposite of doughnut? Wait A minute while I meditate This isn’t easy. Ah! I’ve found it. It’s a cookie with a hole around it. What is the opposite of two? A lonely me,a lonely you. The…
Crossing Paths with a Pigeon Posted by heather on Mar 3, 2012
This week I am in the United Kingdom for a small trip. Today I had a meeting in central London and took the opportunity after the meeting to do a bit of shopping and wandering around with a friend. When we were done, we headed back to the station to catch our train back home…
Comprehension Practice: Being a Member of a Club Posted by heather on Feb 29, 2012
Yesterday evening I attended a meeting of a photography club that I am a member of. I thought it would be a good example to use for practising your English comprehension (the action or capability of understanding something), so I have included a mini-story about the evening with some questions at the end. I have…
I.E. Versus E.G. Posted by heather on Feb 25, 2012
Who knew two little letters could cause so much confusion? Yet, the mere presence of e.g. or i.e. is scary enough to make some people’s legs start to shake. I.e. and e.g. are both abbreviations for Latin terms. I.e. stands for id est and means “that is.” E.g. stands for exempli gratia, which means roughly…
It’s or Its? Posted by heather on Feb 18, 2012
If you spend a decent amount of time on Facebook, then you may have seen some of the posts about grammar that tend to make the rounds. Often these posts are sentences that highlight a regularly misused or misunderstood word, punctuation mark or grammar rule. For example, “Let’s eat Grandpa! vs Let’s eat, Grandpa! (Commas, they save…
Statements and Questions Posted by heather on Feb 11, 2012
Statements can be changed into questions. When we convert a statement into a question, we have to make some changes. One way of doing this is to change the word order by putting the verb at the beginning of the sentence and then adding a question mark at the end, like this: “He is interested…
Compound Words Posted by heather on Feb 8, 2012
If you have been learning English for quite some time, then you have probably come across the idea of compound words before. If you aren’t familiar with compound words, here is what you need to know. A compound word is formed by joining two words together to make a single new word. Some examples are…