May 14, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: ransom Over the last few days, the news here in the UK has been dominated by the hackers currently holding the country to ransom! It all began last Friday afternoon, when computers in several hospitals around the country suddenly stopped working normally and instead started showing a pop-up message which demanded a $300 (£233) ransom per […]
May 12, 2017 Opinions, Vocabulary Choice When porridge is not porridge: dealing with culturally specific phenomena in English It happens to me almost every time I’m in Russia. In fact, it’s happened so many times now that I’ve stopped finding it strange and it’s something I rarely even bother to comment on these days. It’s only when other foreigners who’ve not visited the country as many times as I have are present at […]
May 9, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: landslide As you’ve probably noticed, France has elected a new president. From a British point of view, the French system is quite peculiar in that not only do the people directly elect the President, but there are also are two rounds of voting – unless one candidate wins an outright majority (more than 50%) in the […]
May 7, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: professional When I was in Norilsk, in the far north of Russia earlier this year, I was lucky enough to have a free day at the end of the teacher development course I’d been running there. We decided we were going to head off to Dudinka, a town on the mighty Yenisei river that serves as […]
May 4, 2017 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: a big If We use the phrase that’s / it’s a big if to show that we realise that what we are about to say – or what someone has just been speculating about – is really very unlikely indeed to actually happen. It’s a sign that we’re clutching at straws, which means we’re still clinging on to […]
