Sunday, February 22, 2009
Word of The Day
SNAPPY
Function: adjective
Comparative and superlative forms: snappier; snappiest also more snappy; most snappy
Status: informal
Meanings:
a - exciting or lively
e.g. snappy colors - a snappy tune
b - moving or able to move quickly
e.g. a snappy pace - a car with a snappy engine
fashionable or stylish
e.g. - a snappy (sharp) dresser - a snappy (snazzy) bow tie
clever and funny
e.g. a snappy (witty) joke/remark
The show is well-acted, and the dialogue is snappy.
feeling or showing irritation : snappish
e.g. He got pretty snappy about it. She was awfully snappy with me.
Idiom:
make it snappy or British look snappy
Status: informal
Meaning:
to act, move, or go quickly : hurry up
e.g. Clean your room, and make it snappy! (do it quickly)
Derived form:
snappily adverb Audio Pronunciation
e.g. snappily written essays - snappily dressed
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Laughter's the Best Medicine
After three years of marriage, Kim was still questioning her husband about his lurid past.
- "C'mon, tell me," she asked for the thousandth time, "how many women have you slept with?"
- "Baby, " he protested, "if I told you, you'd throw a fit."
Kim promised she wouldn't get angry, and persuaded her hubby to tell her.
- "Okay," he said, "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven – then
there's you -- nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen....."
GONNA BE A BEAR
(a Mother)
In this life I'm a woman. In my next life, I'd like to come back as a bear. When you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.
Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that too.
When you're a girl bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that.
If you're mamma bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that, too.
If you're a bear, your mate expects you to wake up growling. He expects that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.
Yup, 'gonna be a bear!
Obama: The face of Brazil's carnival
BRADLEY BROOKS
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) — Barack Obama is the new face of America, and his likeness will be represented in force during this year's bawdy Carnival bacchanalia.
Plastic replicas of the U.S. president-elect's face are the top-selling masks this year, said Olga Gibert Valles, owner of one of Rio's oldest Carnival costume producers.
That means come Feb. 22, when Carnival begins, thousands of half-naked "Obamas" will take to the streets during the countless freewheeling parades throughout the city.
About half of Brazil's 190 million people are black and many were elated by Obama's election. The incoming U.S. president is so beloved, at least eight Brazilian politicians changed their names to "Barack Obama" on the ballot of local elections in October.
"First, he isn't Bush," said 24-year-old Mascaras Condal mask designer Victor de Quadras, explaining the Obama masks' appeal. "Second, there are many blacks in Brazil and it's important that he's the first black president in the U.S."
Valles said her company has already made 7,000 Obama masks.
The company is well known in Rio for its clever designs featuring politicians or other news makers.
The biggest selling mask depicting a real person?
"It's Osama," Valles said, referring to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. About 50,000 of his masks have been sold since the Sept. 11 attacks, which Valles attributed to dark humor rather than support for terrorism.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Man Travels 500 Miles for a Haircut
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dave Gaskell is so finicky about how his hair is cut that he commutes 500 miles to his barber.
About once a month since he started working for US Airways in September, Gaskell boards a plane in Cincinnati, rents a car and gets a haircut from Donald Stoops Jr. in New Bloomfield in central Pennsylvania.
"Why not?'' said Gaskell, 54. “He gives a great haircut. I'm kind of particular about haircuts.''
Gaskell, who retired from a 30-year teaching career last year, left Cincinnati around 6 a.m. Tuesday. Four hours later, his gray locks were being snipped at Stoops Barber Shop.
He's been going to Stoops for decades. Stoops' father, Donald Sr., cut Gaskell's hair when Gaskell was a cadet at Carson Long Military Institute in New Bloomfield. "I have yet to find another place that cuts hair like I like it,'' said Gaskell, who served 17 years in the military and likes his hair cropped just a certain way.
As a US Airways ramp agent, Gaskell's plane travel is cheap -- he pays just $80 a year for unlimited flights. He said he's flown to Orlando, Fla., and Seattle just for lunch.
To Stoops, who has been cutting hair since 1955, Gaskell's trips aren't unusual. Customers return from South Carolina and California for haircuts and good conversation - all for $5, he said.
"You'd be surprised where people come from,'' Stoops said.
hucaldas@gmail.com
hugocaldas.blogspot.com
Laughter's the Best Medicine
Gallows Humor - Quite An Easy Solution
Dorothy is very upset as her husband Albert had just passed away. She goes to the mortuary to look at her dearly departed and the instant she sees him she starts wailing and crying.
One of the attendants rushes up to comfort her. Through her tears she explains that she was upset because Albert was wearing a black suit and that it was his dying wish to be buried in a blue suit.
The attendant apologises and explains that they always put the bodies in a black suit as a matter of course, but he’d see what he could do. The next day Dorothy returns to the mortuary to have one last moment with Albert before his funeral the following day.
When the attendant pulls back the curtain, Dorothy manages to smile through her tears as Albert is now wearing a smart blue suit. She asks the attendant
“how did you manage to get hold of that beautiful blue suit?”
“Well, yesterday afternoon after you left, a man about your husband’s size was brought in and he was wearing a blue suit. His wife explained that she was very upset as he had always wanted to be buried in a black suit” the attendant replied.
He continued “After that it was simply a matter of swapping the heads” .
Dorothy is very upset as her husband Albert had just passed away. She goes to the mortuary to look at her dearly departed and the instant she sees him she starts wailing and crying.
One of the attendants rushes up to comfort her. Through her tears she explains that she was upset because Albert was wearing a black suit and that it was his dying wish to be buried in a blue suit.
The attendant apologises and explains that they always put the bodies in a black suit as a matter of course, but he’d see what he could do. The next day Dorothy returns to the mortuary to have one last moment with Albert before his funeral the following day.
When the attendant pulls back the curtain, Dorothy manages to smile through her tears as Albert is now wearing a smart blue suit. She asks the attendant
“how did you manage to get hold of that beautiful blue suit?”
“Well, yesterday afternoon after you left, a man about your husband’s size was brought in and he was wearing a blue suit. His wife explained that she was very upset as he had always wanted to be buried in a black suit” the attendant replied.
He continued “After that it was simply a matter of swapping the heads” .
Word of The Day
EYE-OPENER Function: noun (count)
Plural: eye-openers
Status: informal
Meaning:
Something that shows or teaches you something in a surprising way
e.g.
Traveling abroad can be a real eye-opener to many people. They say her biography is quite an eye-opener. The speech was an eye-opener for us.
Derived form:
eye–opening adjective
Comparative and superlative forms: more eye-opening; most eye-opening
e.g.
Traveling abroad was an eye-opening experience. The movie has some eye-opening special effects.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
A Most Interesting Story
Source: The Washington Post
Pearls before breakfast, by GeneWeingarten
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?
Quote of The Day
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.
It's the transition that's troublesome."
-unknown-
Teaching Tips & Ideas
Words of transition, words of connection
São conjunções, advérbios, preposições, locuções, etc., que servem para estabelecer uma relação lógica entre frases e idéias. As listas abaixo se constituem numa ajuda decisiva para quem compõe um texto em inglês, independentemente do nível de capacidade do redator. As principais palavras de conexão, a partir de seus equivalentes em português são:
First of all,...In the first place...To begin with....
Em primeiro lugar...Para começar...
According to...
De acordo com...
Especially…Mainly…
Principalmente…
The main reason...
A principal razão…O principal motivo…
From now on...
A partir de agora…De agora em diante…
So far everything is OK...Up till now...
Por enquanto está tudo bem… Até agora...
I’m planning to stay in Brazil for some time...
for a while…for the time being…
Por enquanto pretendo ficar no Brasil…
In the meantime, meanwhile...
Nesse meio tempo…
In the midst of...
Em meio a…
As a rule...
Via de regra…
As time góes by...
À medida que o tempo passa...
By the way...
À propósito…por falar nisso
Laughter's the Best Medicine
This has got to be one of the cleverest e-mails I’ve received in awhile. Someone out there is deadly at Scrabble.(Wait till you see the last one)!
Anagrams
DORMITORY:When you rearrange the letters: DIRTY ROOM
ASTRONOMER:When you rearrange the letters:MOON STARER
PRESBYTERIAN:When you rearrange the letters:BEST IN PRAYER
DESPERATION:When you rearrange the letters:A ROPE ENDS IT
THE EYES:! When you rearrange the letters:THEY SEE
GEORGE BUSH:When you rearrange the letters:HE BUGS GORE
THE MORSE CODE :When you rearrange the letters: HERE COME DOTS
SLOT MACHINES:When you rearrange the letters: CASH LOST IN ME
ANIMOSITY:When you rearrange the letters:IS NO AMITY
ELECTION RESULTS:When you rearrange the letters: LIES - LET’S RECOUNT
THE EARTHQUAKES:When you rearrange the letters:THAT QUEER SHAKE
ELEVEN PLUS TWO:When you rearrange the letters:TWELVE PLUS ONE
AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE:
MOTHER-IN-LAW:When you rearrange the letters: WOMAN HITLER
Word of The Day
Convalesce
Function: verb
Inflected forms:
convalesces; convalesced; convalescing
Meaning:
: to become healthy and strong again slowly over time after illness, weakness, or injury
e.g.
- She spent two months convalescing (recuperating, recovering]) at home after her surgery.
- He is convalescing from his leg injuries.
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