Some English Tongue Twisters Posted by Gary Locke on Jun 18, 2020
Recently, one of our subscribers suggested that tongue twisters can be both helpful and fun when learning a language and I couldn’t agree more! Thanks for the suggestion, Amy! I also believe that tongue twisters are a great way to exercise your ability to enunciate, or pronounce, properly. You may know that actors and singers…
Black, with a Capital B Posted by Gary Locke on Jun 11, 2020
We appear to be undergoing a significant cultural moment. For the first time in 50 years, real and fundamental changes in how people think about race relations are taking place. This isn’t just happening in the United States, although the moment most profoundly affects our nation. The worldwide reaction has also been significant and is…
Affect or Effect? Posted by Gary Locke on Jun 4, 2020
Not long ago, I received a text from an old friend. “Hey!’ he wrote, “Which of these sentences is correct? “It doesn’t have the effect that we were hoping for.” “It doesn’t have the affect that we were hoping for.” I quickly replied that he wanted to use #1. His response was, “Thanks! This is…
Phrasal verbs and their opposites Posted by carol on May 31, 2020
Greetings, everyone! How’s life? A lot of people have been taking these unusual times we are living in as a chance to take a hard look at their lives and rethink their whole routines. Spending more time at home inevitably leads to dedicating more to our hobbies, exploring new ones or looking for ways to practice…
Tune In to Broadcasting Vocabulary Posted by Gary Locke on May 28, 2020
A long time ago, I was a disc jockey. In fact, I was a broadcaster on two different continents. It was an odd job because I could spend hours on the air playing music, reading news, announcing the time as it passed by on my shift, reading the occasional advertisement – never really being sure…
Arlington National Cemetery Posted by Gary Locke on May 21, 2020
Memorial Day is going to be very different this year. Parades are canceled. Those large community and family cookouts with horseshoe competitions and sack races are not going to happen. Baseball games and soccer matches are forbidden. Even the definition of national sacrifice has been forever altered. But the reason that we set aside the…
Fun with English Words Posted by Gary Locke on May 14, 2020
Let’s have some fun, shall we? Wordplay is generally defined as the clever use of words and their meanings. Puns are the best examples of wordplay, I think. But, sometimes, just finding something unexpected in words can make you smile. There’s even a word for wordplay. It’s called logology, or recreational linguistics. So, let’s dig…