I'm not a huge fan of Twitter, but one of the real pleasures of the service is Very British Problems, who – in their own words – tweet about how the inhabitants of these isles make "life awkward for ourselves,…
Phrase of the day: Shame on you!
The idea of shame is a strange one. Traditionally, shame was usually associated with an uncomfortable and unpleasant feeling of guilt because of our own - or someone else's - bad behaviour. The behaviour made you feel ashamed. In this…
Phrase of the day: not on speaking terms
Over the weekend I saw a friend of mine who last year had some similar experiences to me as he'd fallen out with his parents about Brexit. Jon is married to a Spanish national and like countless others across the…
Phrase of the day: It keeps me off the streets
I was chatting online with a friend in Ukraine the other day. She'd asked me what I'd been up to recently (What have you been up to? is a common way of asking about what someone has been doing recently)…
Phrase of the day: Onwards and upwards
The publication of this post marks the end of our first full week of WORD OF THE DAY over here on the Lexical Lab site and I've spent much of the last few days tying up loose ends - sorting…
Phrase of the day: Tell it to the judge!
A couple of weeks ago, as part of the ADVANCED LANGUAGE AND CULTURE course I was teaching at the time, we discussed recent literary trends here in the UK. We looked at the best-selling books in different genres and talked…
Phrase of the day: a weight off my mind
The last few weeks have been particularly stressful. Firstly, there's my father-in-law, who suffered a terrible fall at the end of last year. He hit his head as he fell, which caused bleeding in the brain. He had to have…
Phrase of the day: bite off more than you can chew
About a year ago, after a chance meeting with a friend of a friend, who had a beautiful Grade II listed building in Bloomsbury, a historic part of central London, we rashly decided that it would be a great idea…
Phrase of the day: against all odds / against the odds
If you haven’t heard already, Leicester City won the Premier League title this week against all odds. They have one of the lowest wage bills in the league and the cost of the whole squad was less than Manchester City…
Phrase of the day: come in for criticism
President Obama has come in for criticism from BREXIT campaigners after commenting on the upcoming referendum The government has come in for criticism for failing to spend enough on flood defences. The plan has come in for heavy criticism because…