Sunshine & snow
Hello everyone!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that so many people had written, and I’m sorry for not replying sooner; free time has been spent skidding down Surrey hills. My friend made a video of my first attempt at dinner tray sledging, but I don’t look particularly dignified ;-) However, the light was golden and the hills were blanketed in white, so at least the view was good. It is so important to be able to glimpse a nice view now and then in your daily life.
I’ll try to respond to all your messages, but there are a lot of them! However, I hope to answer as many as possible, not least because it’s a completely new & very exciting experience for me opening up a page with missives from Bangladesh, Brazil, Spain and many more countries. I wonder what life’s like where you are...
DREAMS
James Wu from China – I like the enquiring spirit of your post! It’s more usual to say
‘All my dreams have come true’
or something similar, without collocating it with either ‘at last’ or ‘at least’. This is because ‘At last!’ is an exclamation which shows you’ve been waiting a while for something, but also indicates that you might be annoyed through having to wait too long & are slightly exasperated. I believe ‘At least…’ is usually followed by
At least + subj + verb
but is also slightly unsuitable because ‘at least’ means that the bare minimum of positive things have recently happened. Not suitable if you’re talking about ‘all your dreams’.
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COLON CHALLENGE
Everyone found at least 1 or 2 good places for a colon. Sometimes, the sentence needed altering, too, but the focus of the exercise was on the colons. I’ve added syntax corrections in here and there in italics.
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Halima from Bangladesh – hello there.
1. An interesting choice of sentence.. This sentence from Lily's blog actually needed a semicolon & a bit of rejigging. The original meaning in Lily’s post was clear, but it would more grammatically correct to write:
I’m from Peru; I’d like to show you what a rich country it is
2. Well, there was the time when I started to work at the Travel agency in the accounts area: it was nice, but too much work.
> CORRECT use of colon, well done.
3. > CORRECT well done
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Paulraj – hi, have you been blogging here for long? Whereabouts in India are you from?
Yes, you could use a colon in all of the places you listed. I’ll have to look back at Lily’s original post to understand exactly what Lily meant by the first sentence you quote.
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Hi Monica – nice to hear from you.
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You know, I’d love to post some photos to show what I’ve been up to. As they say: ‘a picture’s worth a thousand words’, however I’ve been stalled in my efforts by the mysterious disappearance of the appropriate cables. Do any of you ever lose things?!
I’d love to hear something about your daily routines. They say that understanding the culture or the history of a people isn’t all about knowing about the grand events, or wars fought in the name of a famous cause, but rather that we also need to know about people’s ‘microhistory’ (i.e. the minutiae of their daily life) in order to arrive at a more complete understanding of their daily reality. What do you think?
Look how many times I’ve put ‘They say’ for provincial tidbits of hand-me-down wisdom: how lax of me. I’ll look up the sourcing for those quotes and post them later for all you eagle-eyed students!
I haven't yet read Lily's post; I'm saving that for tonight's reading, so I'll be on the blog again soon. In the meantime, have a great weekend everyone.
Sarah
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p.s. Here’s a little glossary of some of the more unusual vocabulary, although I’m sure many of you were able to guess the meaning from the context:
Blanketed- covered as by a blanket
To skid down something e.g. the stairs – to descend a sloped surface at medium velocity with minimum balance & poise
Missives – written communication e.g. in military term, could be used for a letter instructing a general to do something. Also used in business to describe rapid-fire emails.
enquiring (adj) - questioning, explorative, investigative (also spelt inquiring)
Syntax – You could say that this word describes ‘the proper structure & order of words in a sentence’. Can anyone add to this definition?
Here-and-there – at a couple of points, say in paragraphs 2 and 4 in e.g. an essay
To rejig something – to tweak information into an improved format
to stall in one's efforts – unusual verb formation; ‘to stall’ is usually used when a car engine cuts out because the revs are too low
Tidbits of information – small bits; small choice pickings
Hand-me-down – 2nd hand clothes you get handed by close relatives, esp. brothers & sisters
lax - neglectful, lazy
Eagle-eyed – watchful, picking up on things visually
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TODAY'S CHALLENGE: If you can, use 2/3 of the words & phrases above to write a few sentences about your own daily lives. I look forward to hearing from you!
Comments
Hi Sarah, many thanks for you to reply my question of "at least". Incidentally, I am from Taiwan. Best wishes, James.
The winter holiday is over. Every morning my children ran up to the window hopping to see the ground blanketed in white (1), but what they saw were only small patches of snow here and there (2), not big enough to skid down (3) the only hill in our neighborhood. Thus most of the time they blocked my computer. For me it was annoying, because every morning I got missives (4) from my students to help them in their homework (how stupid of me to agree on that). Sometimes I got slightly exasperated (5) but sometimes I was very proud of them as I noticed that their attitude to life is very enquiring (6). From time to time I tried to correct the syntax of a sentence (7) or to give some tidbits of information (8) they were supposed to add to their projects. You could say what a lax of me not to make proper corrections (9), but in my opinion their Polish is on the whole very good and I didn’t want them to be stalled in their efforts (10) by rejigging (11) too much.
I’ve found some mistakes in my comment and sent better version(Sorry,Carrie as I give you my another scribles to read ) Hi Sarah! My town is blanketed in snow, and the weather is so bright and fresh with crispy breeze. After having playing badminton we decided to go to cinema in Lincoln. We parked our car in front of a local museum and went to a chine’s buffet lunch. When we came back to the park we found that the car had been skidded down and hit the barrier of the car park. Luckily, it didn’t damage at all and I guess the car’s handbrake might have not been tightened. We didn’t do what we had planned and went to a bookshop instead going to cinema. The bookshop was crowded with people and we loved watching my tiny son’s little fingers flicking through the pages of car books. I bought a book with 4CDs in it, which I hope it helps me to improve my English pronunciations. It was a lax and slack Saturday afternoon. You’re absolutely and we are eagle-eyed students and will scrutinize your posts because we have a burning ambition to learn English from you and the teachers on the blog. Have a good day!
Hello sarah, I cordially welcome you to the blog and looking forward to learn from you. Let me introduce myself, I am vijay working as software engineer in an MNC here in chennai, southern region of India. My day-to-day life is simple yet routine but weekends are expectional. I usally wake up at 7 a.m in the morning and jog for an hour or so to get boosted to work fervently throughout the day, then prepare breakfast myself and eat and rush for office. There are plenty of other stuffs that I do in the office, other than offical work, for example, going through most of the columns in the BBC learning english site and listening to music, chit-chat with colleagues. I will go back home at 7 pm and prepare dinner while watching TV for sometime , then eat and finally off to bed. Still I would like to do lot other activities like: go for dance class, learn classic music, learning french, and work out in gym, but I could find enough time for doing all these as I spend lots of time in office itself. However, I am still reckoning how best I could utilise my office hours to do personal activities. Since we do not have gym and dance class at our location, I could not make use of it, though we have these facilities at our other office location and soon expecting the same in our office also. I feel 24 hours a day is not enough to do whatever we would like to do, what do you say?. Also please share if you have any suggestion to how to utilize our time at the maximum benefit. Though I like following certain of routine, however,I become little lax at times to get up from the bed in morning at the usual time which makes to mess up the routine as I can not go for jogging, otherwise I will be late to the office that makes bit uneasy at work and bit of worried that I missed out the one of the activity for the day. I always have an eagle-eyed over the blog, though I could not post comments at times. So you could count me as one of the learner from some corner of the world who always keeps an eye here.
Hello Sarah, I am Happy to meet you after a gap of one week. The week end went on peacefully, nothing exciting. My son and daughter were busy with the preparation of monthly test. I was just helping them. I taught them about phrasal verb and interrogative sentence. They provided me a chance to refresh my grammar. I was lax when my school days particularly learning English. That’s why I am struggling now. Now I realized how important this language to communicate with others. I am a south Indian. I am living in Karikudi near Madurai, one of the temple cities in India. I am a social worker and working in a corporate sector. They are doing social services as their part of community social response. I am very much satisfied what I am doing. I have been blogging in BBC LE for more than two and half years. I am doing this with the aim of writing English with out committing mistakes. I do not know when I will achieve this. Lilly, it is a flower name. Do you know many Indian women name after Lilly? I was wondering when I saw your name how foreign lady name comes after Lily.
In linguistics, syntax (syn-, "together",táxis, "arrangement") is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages.
Hi Sarah Hope you are fine. Thank you for answering my inquiries. Last weekend I wanted to go out for a walk in the evening, but I was stalled in my efforts by the unexpected rainfall. So instead I decided to spend the time laxly at my home browsing the internet. Then I gave a hand with my mother on arranging the things scattered here and there by my 2 years old niece:). I tried to use some of these words to describe a day in my life. Are the usages correct? Thanks.
Dear Sarah, I am really sorry. In a hurry I posted my previous comment in this page. You might have noticed that, in the end of the comment I wrote about Lily’s name. I wanted to convey this missive to her. Usually I type a comment in MS word in my computer and paste it into the comment column of learning English blog. I realized my mistake after I had posted it. I had a dream day before yesterday about a thing I have lost. My family members and relatives assembled in my native place. When I went to take my car I could not find it where I parked. I was terribly upset. I was enquiring my younger brother while he was sleeping. I was literally weeping. No one knew about my car. But I could not remember all the people whom I met during the dream. Recently I lost my ear phone and cap which I used to put while I went for walking in the morning. I kept it for long time. Even though it was a small thing I felt very bad when I realized that it was lost.
Hi all, I am system administrator guy. My Daily life style is going smoothly. So time i had some bad experience and some time good things. But i fell that, i have to improve my communication. Because, whenever i start communication with others. I am unable to expose my fellings. So time it takes wrong. So that can any one help to me. If i made mistake to write. Please apologize me. I fell that, i have to start with basic level. But i searched lot of website. I am unable to get proper URL.
Hello Sarah, I’m a regular reader of bbcle blogs but I’m not a regular commentator, how lax of me. Before writing this I skidded down the comments of other commentators to get the tidbits of information. I will try to write more missives without looking here and there J. We always have an eagled-eye on your posts because we want to learn from our teachers. If my posts need some rejigging please let me know. See ya, Mahjabeen.
Hi Sarah! My daily routine starts at 6:00 am with a good breakfast. After that I´m ready for my 9 hours of working journey. Well, I leave my job at 5:00 pm, when I arrive at home I take a quick bath, eat something and then I dash to the bus station in order to take a bus to the uni. After 20 minutes of commuting, I arrive to my destination, then I go to the library and read a bit. The classes at the university starts at 6:50 pm and finish at 10:00 pm. Around 10:30 pm I´m back home and take another bath and go straight to bed. However, today before going to bed, I´m here writing this message for you :-). Well, I guess it´s time to hit the sack for me. See you soon, Ana Paula.
Year 2009 is not a year for me to lax about like I used to be. I have not been productive for the last couple of months and my trained eagle-eyed observation in subediting is skidding downhill. I fail to spot mistakes here-and-there anymore ever since I left my job. perhaps it is what we call after effects of being a workaholic as I totally dispelled my talent of doing so anymore. I used to love rejiging all the legal texts I read and I remember being reprimanded for doing so! Though I managed to pick up tidbits of information regarding legal system in China in terms of labour acts and social security acts, it does not ignite my enquiring spirit as my interest does not lie there. I left the job, not wanting to reach my career bottleneck as I know it would just be a matter of time.
Year 2009 is not s year for me to lax about like I used to be. I have not been productive for the last couple of months and my trained eagle-eyed observation in subediting is skidding downhill. I fail to spot mistakes here-and-there anymore ever since I left my job. Perhaps it is what we call after effects of being a workaholic as I totally dispelled my talent of doing so anymore. I used to love rejiging all the legal texts I read and I remember being reprimanded for doing so! Though I managed to pick up tidbits of information regarding legal system in China in terms of labour acts and social security acts, it does not ignite my enquiring spirit as my interest does not lie there. I left the job, not wanting to reach my career bottleneck as I know it would just be a matter of time.
Hi Sarah, I don't want to be lax and stalling in my efforts. I've been sailing here and there and finally I write you this missive for dealing your challenge. See you, Toni
Hi Sarah. What a nice mix, sunshine and sun! Here in Brazil, at this time of the year, summertime, we usually have sunshine with rain and a pretty rainbow crossing the sky!! On those days we usually say it is a widow´s wedding day. The saying goes like this "sol e chuva casamento da viúva".Well, I´d love to tell you more things about whre I live in Brazil. It is such a worth visiting region in my country like so many others! We are surrounded by beautiful natural sanctuaries like Chapada dos Guimarães and The Pantanal. And because of our beautiful landscape we, Cuiabanos, have a great chance of holding some of the worldcup football games in 2014´which will be held in Brazil. Are you a football crazy? If so why don´t you come for the world games? It would be a good excuse to know our country if you haven´t been here yet! By the way what is the meaning of dinner tray sledging? Don´t be inhibited of sharing your indignity postures with us... we are all used to those "bafões" when we start learning a new sport... As for my daily routine... well I´m usually up at about 6:30. I fix the early morning form the whole family (hubby and three kids- for me cause the girls are already university students.Our breakfast is quite rich with eggs,fruit, juice, toast , coffee and milk. It´s probably due to my home influence,cause here not everybody has the habit of having a proper first meal. Then I go for a brisk walk in a park called Mãe Bonifácia which is absolutely great! I love going there to hear the birds and appreciate the nature! It´s a nice way of getting rid of the remaining laziness of the night! I also do some yoga exercises at the end of my walk! Then on the way back home, I stop by at Seu Manoel for a coconut water. Then I come back home! I usually study. I will be starting my Master at Arts this year and I also teach. However, the lessons will be starting just in March.lunchtime is at midday! And, luckly we still have the chance of having the whole family sitting gathering together for lunch. Although we live in a capital of our state,Cuiabá,as it is not such a big centre, we manage to come home for lunch. We also have the facility of having a maid. Like in India, here in Brazil we don´t have to be rich to afford this service! Well, in the afternoon, I do lots of different things... At night when the whole family is back home, we have a snack... a light one and we usually watch tv, the whole family together... My "kids" still love mum´s king size bed! So we 5 get as snug as a bug on our king size bed! As you can see mine is a very family life!
Hi Sarah, Is every thing going well? It has been 7 long days since your last appearance in the blog land. Please provide us with tidbits of information of your current status if you can. We are eagerly waiting for you. With love Halima
oooh Monica, I just re-read your description of a Brazillian breakfast, it sounds sooo goood!
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