Nov 6, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: schlep In a recent post on the word pogrom, we looked at language connected to the dark human tendency to blame and attack others when things start going wrong in society. We mentioned the anti-Jewish pogroms that occurred across Eastern Europe and that by the end of the 19th century led to tens of thousands of […]
Oct 22, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: pogrom Recently, in a break from the norm, the Guardian newspaper here ran a whole series of features on the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, a megalopolis which is now nearing 30 million people! Jakarta’s a city I know pretty well as I’ve spent a fair amount of time there over the years. The article I found […]
Oct 3, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: march A march is when a large group of people walk down the streets protesting against something – or in support of something – or as a show of strength. You can go on a march or join a march. So why are we talking about marches today? Well, last week saw the 82nd anniversary of […]
Oct 2, 2018 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: the all-clear As anyone who has ever watched a loved one fight against it will know, cancer is a truly horrible disease. It affects both patients and their families in such a traumatic way that no-one will ever be able to look at life in quite the same way again. Even mentioning cancer is something of a […]
Sep 23, 2018 Chunk of the day, Chunks Chunk of the day: dark horse A week or so ago, I gave a talk at a conference for English language teachers in Liestal, in the north of Switzerland. While I was there, I bumped into an old friend of mine that I hadn’t seen each other for quite some time. Luckily, we managed to find time for a coffee and […]
