Archive for 'Culture'
Jazz: America’s Homegrown Music Style Posted by Gabriele on Feb 7, 2012
Jazz is a style of music that originated at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in African-American communities in the United States (most notably in the state of Louisiana). Jazz is in fact an American invention, an invention in which many Americans have a great deal of pride. …
Texting in English Posted by Gabriele on Feb 6, 2012
If you have a cell phone (and who doesn’t these days?) chances are that you text. Texting (also called “text messaging”) refers to the exchange of short written messages between two cellular phones. Texting is not the same as calling, because texting uses the written word, while calling or talking over the phone uses the…
Super Bowl Sunday Posted by Gabriele on Feb 5, 2012
Today is Super Bowl Sunday in the United States. Although this is not a national holiday some people treat it like one. Today people all over the United States will gather around their television sets to watch “the big game.” On Friday I wrote a post that briefly reviewed how the game of football is…
How to Play Football Posted by Gabriele on Feb 3, 2012
With the Super Bowl (America’s national football championship) coming up this weekend I thought it would be a good idea to go over the rules of this game. The first thing I need to make clear is that when I say “football” I am not talking about soccer. Many people around the world refer to…
Knowledge is Light Idioms Posted by Gabriele on Feb 2, 2012
Idioms are expressions or phrases that have figurative* meaning that is different from the literal** meaning of the words that make up the expression or phrase. Generally idioms require some foundational information or experience within a culture to understand their meaning. Most of the time idioms are so culturally dependent that the same idioms do…
What is in a name? Posted by Gabriele on Jan 31, 2012
Yesterday I wrote a blog post about “the average Joe” and in that post I mentioned* how often the name ‘Joe’ is used in America to refer to an average or normal person or sometimes it is used to generically to refer to a person whose name you don’t know. I also mentioned that Joe…
An Average Joe Posted by Gabriele on Jan 30, 2012
“Average Joe” is an expression used in English to describe an average, typical, or normal American male. The expression “Average Jane” is sometimes used to describe the hypothetically average or normal American woman. We have other terms used to describe someone as average, normal, and like everybody else as well, for example: “Ordinary Joe”, “Joe…