Willow's gender reassignment

You might have moved on to kids Shirley but I'm still stuck in the cat person / dog person loop.

After I'd posted about Willow the cat on Friday, I decided to keep my eyes peeled for the creature at the weekend. The minute a saw a burst of white in the garden, I was out like a shot.

Sorry about the quality but with a mover like Willow, you have to grab your chances where you can. Willow may visit but he doesn't stay for long; he might come to say hi but he doesn't sit still while he's doing it, so I was lucky to get this picture at all! (And I figured you'd rather see a slightly blurry snap of Willow than no snap at all.)

After the weekend, I thought I'd better check before I posted the picture of the kitty, on such a public site as the BBC Learning English one, so I nipped round to see my neighbour on my way home from work last night.

She said she'd be delighted to share Willow with you LE folks. She said, 'I'm sure he'll be thrilled to be on …' 'He? He? Oh, he!!' I said, as I picked my jaw up off her front doorstep. Yep, all this time I'd been thinking of Willow as a girl cat but it turns out, Willow's a boy! Time for me to re-think my pronoun usage :)

Congratulations on getting into the final of the ad competition Shirley. Hope you've got more good news for us next time.

The Japanese ad you highlighted is really interesting and beautifully crafted too. I can see why it gives you goosebumps (one word, always plural). It's all about perspective, isn't it?

It reminds of this ad for a … well, I won't tell you what it's an ad for. Have a look at it and see if you can figure out what it's advertising (if you don't already know what The Guardian is).

I'd like to look some more at your singulars and plurals again, if that's OK.

Vocabulary is uncountable, so can you spot the mistake here?

I keep on absorbing more and more vocabularies

I'm just going to reprint one of your paragraphs if I may. I've italicised the whole paragraph below and bolded some words that I'd like you to look at again. For example, squirrels in the list of animals needs to agree with the word animals which introduces the list, and with all the other animals in the list too. Can you see any changes you'd like to make if you were writing this paragraph again?

I am glad that most of you enjoyed the ad that I showed earlier. I was brought up in a family who loves animals. Dogs, rabbits, squirrel, parrot, turtledove, canary, dove, fish; I have had them all! While most of them were being a pet, I found that dogs are more like a friend to me. I think dogs understand human's feeling and emotions. Well, my mom used to have a more "extreme" observation, saying that most of the times our dogs think that they were one of us *lol*.

And I'm really glad to hear that you've always had a bit of soft spot for English but if favourite means the one I like the best, can you see what's wrong with this?

My most favourite class was English.

Looking forward to your next post.

All the best,
Nuala

Vocabulary
gender reassignment – if you were born a man and wanted to live as a woman, you might have gender reassignment surgery (to change your body into a woman's). Here I'm using the phrase to talk about finding out that Willow was a boy cat, after I'd thought Willow was a girl one (so I'd have to reassign or change Willow's gender in my head. I'd have to start thinking of Willow as a male cat rather than a female one)
stuck in the loop – being unable to stop doing something repetitive
keep my eyes peeled for – watch out for something (here, Willow) carefully
like a shot – very quickly
blurry snap – out of focus (not sharp) photograph
kitty – cat
nipped round to see – went to visit someone (here, my neighbour) for a short time
folks – informal way of addressing people
I picked my jaw up off her front doorstep – I tried to get over my great surprise while I was standing just outside the front door of my neighbour's house
crafted – made
figure out – deduce or understand
a bit of soft spot for - feel a lot of affection for something (here, English)

Thanks for all your contributions. This blog has now closed and can no longer accept new comments.