Halloween Idioms

Halloween is associated with scary and spooky images like witches, black cats, blood, skeletons, ghosts, bats, knives, daggers as well as less scary images like pumpkins and owls. Here you have 10 idioms with some of these Halloween images. I hope you enjoy them.

1. Not a cat in hell’s chance: no chance at all

Ex: We didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance of winning that contract.

2. Stick the knife in:  to do or say something very unpleasant or unkind to someone
Ex: The Sales Director really stuck the knife in when he told Tom that his sales pitch was the worst he’d ever seen.

3. Stab in the back:  to stab someone in the back means to betray them
Ex: After all I did for him, he stabbed me in the back when he told all those lies about me.

4. Skeleton in the Cupboard:  a scandal that is kept secret
Ex: James has a few skeletons in his cupboard and is terrified that he will be found out.

5. Skeleton staff:  the fewest number of people needed in an office
Ex: We always operate with a skeleton staff over the Christmas period.

6. Scared Stiff:  so scared that you cannot move
Ex. I am scared stiff of walking on ice.

7. Scare the pants off someone: to frighten someone a lot
Ex: The film “Nightmare on Elm Street”scared the pants off me.

8. Make the blood run cold: to totally scare you
Ex: The screams in the woods made my blood run cold.

9. In cold blood: to act in cold blood is to do something without any emotion and deliberately
Ex: The victim was shot in cold blood.

10. A witch–hunt: an investigation carried out under the pretext of uncovering illegal activity but is actually used to harass people with different views.
Ex: The Government has been accused of carrying out a witch-hunt on small businesses.

Los errores más habituales que los españoles cometen en inglés

Se ha detectado que los españoles escriben de 237 maneras diferentes y erróneas palabras como ‘because’, aparte de cambiar letras de posición y confundir el significado de palabras que se escriben de forma similar en inglés y en español.

Los españoles a la hora de escribir en inglés cometen una serie de errores que son muy habituales. De hecho, hay medio centenar de errores muy comunes que se han recogido en el estudio realizado a través de Cambridge English Corpus, el software lingüístico de errores en inglés elaborado por la editorial de la Universidad de Cambridge.

Entre estos errores figuran, por ejemplo, “comerse” letras o bien cambiarlas de posición, e incluso, añadir alguna de más, siendo más fácil para los españoles escribir correctamente sustantivos que verbos, aunque cabe destacar que también hay personas que tienden a escribir el inglés según como suena.
El estudio igualmente refleja que el 30% de las incorrecciones son gramaticales y que es habitual que se añada la letra ‘e’ al comienzo de las palabras en inglés que comienzan con una ‘s’ como es el caso de ‘spectacular’, ‘specific’ o ‘specialized’. Además, se ha detectado que los españoles escriben mejor este idioma que lo hablan.

Y, en concreto, ¿cuáles son los errores más habituales? Entre ellos destaca la escritura de la palabra ‘because’. Un término que los españoles escriben hasta de 237 formas diferentes e incorrectas. Así, es común que se escriba como ‘becouse’, ‘becaus’ o ‘beacuse’, entre otras.

   Pero ‘because’ no es la única. También se producen errores en otros vocablos como ‘which’, ‘comfortable’, ‘accommodation’, ‘possible’, ‘believe’, ‘different’, ‘bicycle’, ‘environment’ y ‘beautiful’, entre otros, entre los que es frecuente que se olvide escribir alguna letra.
Además, se han detectado otras confusiones en palabras que se escriben de forma parecida en ambas lenguas, si bien su significado es diferente. Entre ellas está ‘assist’, que significa ‘ayudar’ y no ‘asistir a un evento’, o ‘actual’, cuyo significado no es ‘actual’, sino ‘de hecho’.Este mismo tipo de errores igualmente se produce con otras palabras como ‘comprehensive’, que significa ‘completo’ y no ‘comprensivo’, y con ‘sympathetic’,  que se traduce como ‘compasivo’ y no como ‘simpático’. Y común es equivocarse también con ‘fabric’, que es  ‘tejido’ y, aunque lo parezca, no significa ‘fábrica’.

Estas son las principales conclusiones del estudio para las que Cambridge English Corpus ha codificado un total de 42 millones de palabras obtenidas del análisis de los exámenes de más de 200.000 estudiantes.

10 British Expressions You Will Hear When Visiting London

1. “Mind The Gap” 

This famous expression  is always used on trains and the London Underground (Tube). The “gap” refers to the space between the train and the platform. Be sure you take a big step when getting off the train or tube or you could hurt yourself!

2. “All Right, Mate?”

“Mate” is British Slang used to refer to men. A lot of English people, especially in the pub, use it instead of “How are you?”. They don’t always expect an answer, but you could just respond: “Yes, Thank You”.

3. “Naff”

If something is “naff”, it is very uncool. “That jumper is so naff. There is no way I’m wearing it.”

4. “The Full Monty”

This British Slang word is not to be confused with the film of the same title where the main characters removed all their clothes for a striptease act. It actually means the whole thing. You can often hear it when the English are asked at breakfast what they would like to have and they answer: “The Full Monty” meaning the Full English Breakfast (sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, fried bread and black pudding)

5. “Grub”

The literal meaning is larva, but it is also another word for food. Some English will say: “What’s for grub?” meaning ‘What’s for dinner or lunch?’.
Sometimes, you will see the word “Pub Grub” referring to Pub Food outside pubs.

6. “Moreish”

“I love Pringle Crisps. They are so moreish.” This comes from “more” and simply means that something is so good that it makes you want to eat more of it.

7. “Not My Cup of Tea”

When the English don’t like something, but don’t want to be rude they will say: ” I’m afraid that going to nightclubs is not my cup of tea”.

8. “Quid”

This is another British slang word for the UK currency, the pound. You will often hear people use this word instead of ‘pounds’. Example: “I paid ten quid for that shirt.”

9.  “Loo”
The other word commonly used is the “loo” to refer to “toilet” or “lavatory”. ‘Where is the loo?’

10. “Ta”

This basically means ‘thank you’.

20 Common English Idioms you should know

If you’re in the process of learning the English language, you may come across some of these idioms and idiomatic expressions and not be totally sure what they mean. Here’s a list of 20 of the most usual:

1. A Chip on Your Shoulder

No, this doesn’t mean that you’ve dropped part of your snack. To have a chip on one’s shoulder implies that the person is carrying around some  bad feelings about something that happened in the past… like having walked through the wreckage of a building, and ended up with a chip of that building stuck to them for years afterward.

2. Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

Like taking a HUGE bite of a sandwich that will fill your mouth up so much that you can’t move your jaw, this idiom implies that you’ve taken on more than you can handle successfully. An example would be agreeing to build ten websites in a week when normally you can only handle five.

3. You Can’t Take It With You

You can’t take anything with you when you die, so don’t bother hoarding your stuff or not using it except for “special occasions”. Live now, because all your stuff is going to be around long after you’re gone.

4. Everything But the Kitchen Sink

This implies that nearly everything has been packed/taken/removed. For instance, if someone said: “The thieves stole everything but the kitchen sink!” it meant that they took everything they could carry; it’s damned hard to remove a sink and carry it around.

5. “Over My Dead Body”

When the only way you’ll allow something to happen is if you’re no longer alive to stop it.

6. Tie the Knot

To get married. This is left over from the old tradition of handfasting, wherein the hands of the bride and groom would be tied together with a length of ribbon to symbolize that their lives were fastened together permanently.

The Higgs Boson

One of the most significant scientific discoveries of the early 21st century is surely the Higgs boson, but the boson and the Higgs Field that allows that magic particle are extremely difficult to understand. Here you have an analogy that all of us can appreciate, showing a large dinner party, a noisy group of physicists, and Peter Higgs himself. I hope you find it interesting.

50 ways to take a break

Just in case you need it...

The Big Bang Theory

I've had a lot of fun this summer with this series and I'm showing you the best moments. 8 enjoyable minutes!

To all my students