Tipping in Restaurants in the United States: Necessary or Voluntary? Posted by Gabriele on Jan 19, 2012
Many visitors to the United States do not fully understand our custom of tipping* waiters and waitresses in restaurants. To help clarify this custom I’ve put together a brief explanation of the importance of tipping and some general guidelines on tipping in restaurant in the United States. The first thing you should know about tipping…
Having Some Fun With Puns Posted by heather on Jan 18, 2012
Recently we have had a look at homophones and homographs. Now that we have done all the hard work, we can have a little bit of fun by using what we have learned and practised to make puns. Puns are jokes that rely on homophones and homographs for their humor. For example: My pony is…
Red Velvet Cake – An American Classic Posted by Gabriele on Jan 17, 2012
I was discussing what constitutes “American food” with a friend recently and we were trying to come up with some foods that are truly American. This is harder to do than you would think given that the United States is such a melting pot of culture and food. So many foods that we Americans think…
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Posted by Gabriele on Jan 16, 2012
Today, January 16th in the United States, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This is a federal* holiday commemorating the life of Reverend Martin Luther King. This holiday takes place each year on the third Monday of January. This is a day to remember the life and work of Reverend King. Martin Luther King was…
Getting to Grips with Homographs Posted by heather on Jan 14, 2012
Last week we had a look at homophones. As a quick reminder, a homophone is a word that sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning and sometimes a different spelling. Today we are going to take a look at homographs. A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as…
Parts of Speech in English – Conjunctions and Interjections Posted by Gabriele on Jan 13, 2012
The last two parts of speech that we have to cover in our review of parts of speech in English are conjunctions and interjections. Here we go! . Conjunctions A conjunction is a word that “joins”. It joins two parts of a sentence together. There are two important ways to categorize conjunctions by their relationship…
Parts of Speech in English – Pronouns and Prepositions Posted by Gabriele on Jan 12, 2012
Today we continue with our review of the different parts of speech in the English language. The two parts of speech that I will review today are pronouns and prepositions. Pronouns Pronouns are words that take the place of nouns. You use a pronoun instead of a noun, that is, the pronoun replaces the noun…