The English Blog

Video: The Meanest Player in Women's Soccer

2009-11-14T13:08:58+01:00

Elizabeth Lambert, a defender on the University of New Mexico's women's soccer team, has been suspended indefinitely for playing too violently. This Newsy video looks at how the media are reporting her actions. Transcript here.

COMMENTS
Vinnie Jones would be proud of her. I'm reminded of George Orwell's famous quote about sport: "Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting." And that was in 1937!

To pee or not to pee

2009-11-14T08:30:48+01:00

From The Guardian's Gardening Blog:

Have you heard of a "pee bale"? It's the latest measure adopted at the National Trust property Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire to both save water and ensure efficient composting.

As the name suggests, a 3m-long series of straw bales has been installed alongside the compost heaps in the walled gardens so workers (well the male ones anyway) can relieve themselves. Urine has been long-established as a free compost "activator" (aka "liquid gold"), because it's full of nitrogen, but there are other benefits too. Tamzin Phillips, the NT's "compost doctor" is quoted in the press release as saying: "What's so great about the pee bale is that it's using a natural solution to help the garden while saving flushing the loo for only when it's really necessary." Full story >>

WATCH AND LISTEN
• Pee to help make your garden grow (BBC News—brilliant interview with head gardener!)

COMMENTS
1. Apparently, the pee bale is only used outside visitor hours because they don't want to scare the public.
2. Could pee bale be a surprise contender for Word of the Year?

VOCABULARY
To relieve oneself is a polite alternative for pee; but you wouldn't say "I'm going to relieve myself" or "I need to relieve myself" (well, not if you're normal). Urinate is the 'medical' term (but sounds ugly). Wee is more commonly used by children (and women?). Piss is impolite, and would be considered rude by some people. Your safest bet is to say "I need to go to the toilet" or "loo" (in the UK), or "I need to go for a pee" (which still might offend certain squeamish people). Alternatively, you could use a euphemism such as 'I need to spend a penny' (though it's now 30p in London mainline railway stations).

Words in the News: Timebomb

2009-11-14T07:00:08+01:00

Today's 60-year-olds are the first modern generation to be less healthy than their predecessors—that's according to the Daily Mail. Full story >>

VOCABULARY
If you describe something as a time bomb (or timebomb), you mean that it is likely to have a serious effect on a person or situation at a later date; especially if you think it will cause a lot of damage. • Thousands of work computers infected with trojans could be a ticking timebomb, according to security researchers.

Video: How Can U.S. Unemployment Be Solved?

2009-11-13T20:41:24+01:00

10.2% of Americans are unemployed. Another 5.3% are underemployed. Now President Obama faces criticism that he lost focus on creating and saving jobs. This Newsy video uses multiple media sources to report on the story. Transcript here.

French and Irish fall out over ‘box’ incident

2009-11-13T14:55:54+01:00

A series of letters were leaked today showing a major breakdown in communication between the French Government and the Irish over the upcoming World Cup qualifying play-off. There's now a full-blown diplomatic row brewing.

FOOTNOTE
Rumours that President Sarkozy will be replacing the injured Franck Ribéry are thought to be unfounded, despite his leading France to victory at the 1998 World Cup.

Cartoon: Obama's Big Cannon

2009-11-13T12:14:59+01:00

This cartoon by Peter Brookes from The Times provides a graphic illustration of President Obama's delay in deciding how many extra troops to send to Afghanistan.

The cartoon shows Obama as a a gunner preparing to fire a cannon crammed with soldiers (cannon fodder?) He is counting down: five, four, three, two, one ... but rather than firing the cannon, he then starts counting in fractions: a half, a quarter, an eighth, etc. Clearly, he wants to put off firing that cannon for as long as possible.

MORE CARTOONS
Christian Adams (Daily Telegraph)
Martin Rowson (The Guardian)

Words in the News: Conflict

2009-11-13T08:03:57+01:00

The Independent claims there are bitter divisions in the Obama camp over Afghanistan policy as the US president rejects all four options presented to him for increasing troops. Full story >>

VOCABULARY
A conflict is a period of fighting between countries or groups of people. • Iran's foreign minister warns against foreign intervention in the conflict between Yemeni government and rebels. Conflict can also be used as an uncountable noun. • Hugo Chavez has intensified his country's threat of conflict with Colombia after accusing its South American neighbour of "lies" and "hypocrisy" over hosting US bases. The headline features a play on the words war and conflict, which both refer to fighting. However, in the case of Obama's advisers, the war is a war of words, a serious disagreement.

CNN Student News: Friday 13 November

2009-11-13T07:48:25+01:00

Here is the CNN Student News for Friday 13 November. Click on the links to see a transcript.

Weekly Newsquiz

Grammar for Business

2009-11-12T21:03:31+01:00

I've just received an email from Cambridge about their new book Grammar for Business. Unfortunately, the email contains a BIG mistake. Can you spot it? (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Yes, it should be booksellers' (with the apostrophe after the s). As written (with the apostrophe before the s), we'd have to assume that the title is only available from one bookseller.

If you're interested (and I hope the book doesn't contain such basic errors), you can download an excerpt or view the table of contents.

Video: Cloud Computing in Plain English

2009-11-12T15:41:22+01:00

I predict that cloud computing will be on many people's Word of the Year lists (yeah, I know it's two words but it's the concept that matters). If you're not sure what cloud computing is, this video from Common Craft should make things a little less cloudy (groan!). You can read the transcript here.

Cycling for Dummies

2009-11-12T14:42:44+01:00

The Daily Mail reports that police chiefs have compiled a comprehensive "how to cycle" guide for bike-mounted officers:

Police officers were ridiculed today after drawing up a step-by-step guide to riding a bicycle.
The 93-page full-colour guide, which comes in two volumes and cost thousands of pounds to produce, gives advice on how to balance so officers do not fall off.

The book, titled the 'Police Cycle Training Doctrine', also covers key skills such as how to brake, turn and avoid the kerb.

Officers were told to eat and drink because they will get hungry and to wear padded shorts to protect their bottoms.

It also warned officers not to arrest suspects while in the saddle, or, in their words, 'engaged with the cycle'. Full article >>

Meanwhile The Sun asked four-year-old Nelly Merrit for her view:

I LOVE my bike. It's pink with flowers and I have a matching helmet.
I just climb on to the seat and start pedalling with my feet.

I used stabilisers at first but now it's so easy I whizz around and go for really long bike rides with my dad.

I did fall off last week and hurt my knee but Mummy said to get back on and I did.

I can even ride with one hand and go really, really fast!

COMMENT
Perhaps they should just get Nelly to give some lessons. It would be a lot cheaper.

Computerised exam markers give Churchill a fail

2009-11-12T13:57:28+01:00

From The Times:

They are some of the most memorable and stirring words of the 20th century, but Churchill’s speech exhorting the British to “fight on the beaches” would fail if submitted as a school essay and subjected to a proposed computerised marking system.
The wartime leader had a style that was too repetitive, according to the computer being tested for the online marking of school qualifications. It rated Churchill as below average in the equivalent of an A level English exam.
His reference to the “might of the German army” lost him marks because the computer interpreted this as an incorrect way of writing “might have” rather than recognising “might” as an abstract noun.
Other authors, including Ernest Hemingway and William Golding, were also dismissed by the computer as not being up to standard in the American equivalent of an A-level English exam. Full story >>

COMMENTS
ETS has been using computerised marking for the GMAT since 1999, albeit in conjunction with a human corrector. In theory, the idea is very attractive—it takes me around four hours to mark a batch of forty 300-word essays (and it's not my favourite activity!) See here for a research paper on automatic evaluation of essays.

Research Shows Foreign Subtitles Help Learners

2009-11-12T11:07:52+01:00

New research confirms something that I've long suspected to be the case: foreign subtitles help but native-language subtitles harm foreign speech perception. Here's an extract from a press release about the study:

Do you speak English as a second language well, but still have trouble understanding movies with unfamiliar accents, such as Brad Pitt's southern accent in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds? In a new study, published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, Holger Mitterer (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics) and James McQueen (MPI and Radboud University Nijmegen) show how you can improve your second-language listening ability by watching the movie with subtitles—as long as these subtitles are in the same language as the film. Subtitles in one's native language, the default in some European countries, may actually be counter-productive to learning to understand foreign speech.

The press release concludes:

These findings also have educational implications. Since foreign subtitles seem to help with adaptation to foreign speech in adults, they should perhaps be used whenever available (e.g. on a DVD) to boost listening skills during second-language learning. Moreover, since native-language subtitles interfere with this kind of learning, such subtitles in television programmes should be made optional for the viewer. Full story >>

You can read, download and comment on the research article here.

COMMENTS
It seems obvious to me that if you are watching a film in a foreign language with subtitles in your own language, you are going to read the subtitles and pay less attention to what is being said. That's why I never show my students films or videos with French subtitles. On the other hand, watching an English movie or video with English subtitles can avoid the frustration which comes from not being able to understand what's being said. Even though I've been in France over 20 years, I still find it difficult to understand some French movies, so I can appreciate what students must feel when watching movies in English.

Another advantage is that English subtitles makes authentic material (e.g., Dragons' Den) accessible to lower-level learners. In fact, I often watch English DVDs with the English subtitles myself—for series like "The Wire", they're indispensable! Of course, some people will say that learners need to get used to hearing non-subtitled speech because they won't have subtitles when talking with native speakers. But I think that misses the point— in a learning context subtitles are helpful. And you can always turn them off (or cover them up) if you like.

FOOTNOTE
See The Linguist on Language for a different point of view.

Cartoon: On the road to recovery

2009-11-12T09:12:31+01:00

This cartoon by Christian Adams from The Daily Telegraph shows the Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King filling a car with petrol. The first five frames of the cartoon are identical except for the increasing amount shown on the petrol pump. In the last frame, King is driving the car but the fuel gauge shows empty.

COMMENTARY
This cartoon is a metaphor for the state of the British economy (helpfully, the car's number plate has the word 'Economy' on it). Despite all the money which the Bank of England has pumped into the economy via the process known as quantitative easing, the UK is still in recession. In fact, King warned yesterday that the UK has "only just started along the road to recovery," [note the motoring metaphor] and it would be 2011 before the economy returns to pre-credit crunch strength. Full story >>

Words in the News: Pen-Pusher

2009-11-12T07:54:43+01:00

The Daily Telegraph claims civil servants at the MoD have received £47m in bonuses this year. The paper also pictures people observing the two minutes silence for Armistice Day. Full story >>

VOCABULARY
1. MoD is an abbreviation of Ministry of Defence.
2. If you call someone a pen-pusher, you mean that their work consists of writing or dealing with documents, and does not seem very useful or important. • A massive rise in NHS “pen-pusher culture” has been exposed by new figures showing the number of desk jobs rose 50% over the past decade.

CARTOON
Andy Davey (The Sun)