Hello again,
You must have your favourite words/ expressions in English?
Something that sounds interesting or weird enough....
Here are some of mine:
"handbagging" (entered the language thanks to Margaret Thatcher and her habit of intimidating others with her handbag (Macmillan Open Dictionary)
Macmillan dictionary
flip flopping
serendipity
or
creepy crawlies
and
pukka
I am writing about words as I thought we often ask students to remember lists of mundane vocabulary, too often related to completely artificial sounding "professional" English.
..... and we hardly ever talk about the words themselves, or the beauty of the language or simply its weirdness.
Here are some ideas for using the language itself as the main topic of a lesson.
Why don't we start with Victor Hertz and his music posters? A guessing game and music - sounds like quite a good combination.
for more visit:
Victor Hertz
It can also be a language quiz. Here are some excerpts from Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue"
. In English RIDE has just 5 forms; the same verb in German
has sixteen. In Russian, nouns can have up to twelve inflections and adjectives
as many as sixteen.
. We seldom stop to think how complicated and illogical English
is. Take the simple word WHAT. Imagine trying to explain to a foreigner
what WHAT means. It takes the
Oxford English Dictionary five pages and almost 15,000 words to manage the
task.
. People can feel extremely strong about the matters related to a
language. The Basque separatist organisation ETA has committed around 700
murders in the name of linguistic and cultural independence.
. There are 250 irregular verbs in English (this number is always
fluid)
. Mario Pei (an Italian-American linguist) puts the number of
British dialects at forty two.
.We have some forty sounds in English, but more than 200 ways of
spelling them (e.g. the ‘sh’ sound can be written in up to 14 different ways –
shoe, sugar, passion, ocean …..)
. English grammar is so complex and confusing because it is based
on the rules of Latin,
with which English has little in common. It’s like asking people
to play baseball using the rules of football.
. Swearing seems to have some universal qualities. It often involves one
of the following; filth, the forbidden and the sacred, and usually all three.
Most of our swear words have considerable antiquity. F* first appears in print
in 1503 in a poem by the Scottish poet, William Dunbar. However, it fell out of
general use. Before 1503, the vulgar words for sex was swive. F* must be one
of the most versatile of all the English
words. It can express making a mess out of something (f* up), inviting somebody to go away (f* off),
being surprised (I’m f* if I know), being
What you can do is remove the figures and try to make students guess which number fits a given gap best.
It is also a good opportunity to mention the good old Cockney with their bacon and legs, apples and pears and bees and honey....
You can even turn it into a good rhyming game (once students get the hang of it, they become pretty good). Below two (our of many) websites for some inspiration....
Cockney rhyming slang
Cockney slang
There is a very good video made by the Open University about the English language:
I have tested it few times and it does keep students interested.
You don't have to use the whole video (as it is 10 minutes long). On the Open University youtube channel you should be able to find shorter fragments as well.
Personally, I take the risk of playing the video from the beginning till the end...
I have pasted the exercise my students have to do (poor creatures) while watching. If it is too much of a challenging to do it individually, they can work in groups, say one group concentrated on the first 2 parts, the other on the next 2, etc.
THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH IN 10 MINUTES
Chapter 1
Germanic tribes Anglo
– Saxons 450 AD gave the English names
for simple
everyday words. Four
days of the week were also named after Anglo-Saxon 1………………………..
Christian
missionaries appeared in 597AD bringing with them Latin words like: martyr,
bishop, font (fonts baptismaux)
Then came the Vikings
(c.800) bringing with them around 2……………………. words. Among them; drag, ransack,
thrust and die.
Chapter 2
The Norman Conquest
3…………………………………….
William the Conqueror
invaded England bringing with him a bunch of French words;
Council (1125), Clerk
(1129), Parliament (1290), Sovereign, (1290), Judge (1290), jury (1400),
evidence (1300) and justice (1154).
“Cow, sheep and
swine” were given their French equivalents “beef, 4………………………. and pork”.
All in all, the
English absorbed around 10,000 words from the Normans.
The Norman rule ended
when the 100 years war finished. (1453)
Chapter 3
William Shakespeare
invented about 2,000 new words: “eyeball, puppy dog, anchovy,dauntless
(intrépide), besmirch (= ternir, entracher) and lacklustre (=terne, peu
brilliant), alligator, the hob-nob” ( to … with = frayer avec) and phrases such
us:” eat our flesh and blood out of 5…………………………………………………. (= ruiner qn), good
riddance (= bon débarras!), break the ice, as dead as a door nail, to get your
money’s worth, to be given a short shrift (= envoyer promener qn), to lay it on
with a trial, to be 6………………………… with one’s own petard(= être pris à son propre piège).
Chapter 4
The King James’s
Bible (1611)
It introduced the
following expressions:
“leopard can’t change
its 7…………………….” (= on
ne peu pas changer sa nature)
“a bird in a hand is
worth two in a 8………………………” (= un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l’auras”
“a wolf in sheep’s
clothing”
“a fly in ointment”
Chapter 5
The English of
science
British physicists of
the 17th century: Robert Hook, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton.
The Royal Society was
formed in 9……………………………….
Science gave us words
like “acid (1626), gravity (1641), electricity (1646), pendulum (1660)
Words related to
human body: cardiac (1601), 10……………………….. (1601), ovary (1658) and sternum
(1667), penis (1693) and vagina (1682).
Chapter 6
English and Empire:
The Caribbean –
barbecue (11…………………………), canoe (1550), cannibal (1550)
India – yoga (1820),
cummerbund (= ceinture) (1610), bungalow (1670)
Africa – voodoo (1850) , zombie (1871),
Australia – nugget
(1852), boomerang (1827), walkabout (1828)
(=voyage d’un aborigine)
Between Napoleon and
the WW1 the British Empire gobbled up around 10 m square miles, 400 million
people and nearly a 12………………………………………. gin and tonics.
Chapter 7
The Age of the
dictionary
Lexicographers wanted to standardise
English. One of them was dr Johnson who created the first English dictionary in
1733. (It took him 13……………………………. years to write it).
The dictionary
contained 42,773 entries. Among the new words were – pickleherring (= buffoon),
jobbernowl, fopdoodle ( a stupid person, a fool)
In 1857 a second
dictionary started being written, it took 70 years to finish and it was to
finally published in 1928 under the title: the 14……………………………………….. Dictionary.
It has continued to be revised ever since.
Chapter 8
American English
The first Brits to
land in America borrowed words for plants and animals from the native Americans
– racoon (= raton laveur), squash, moose.
Waves of immigrants contributed to the development of the American English: the
Dutch brought coleslaw and 15…………………………., the Germans – pretzels, delicatessens
(= épicerie fine), the Italians – pizza, pasta and … mafia.
A new language of
capitalism appeared with words like – break even, bottomline, blue chip,
white-collar worker, freeways, subways, parking lots, merger,
16……………………………………...
Cool American movies
and their 17…………………………. jazz (1937) (= sensass, vachement bien) moved across
the ocean to Europe.
Americans continued
using words that the British replaced long time ago:
Am E Br E
Fall
Autumn
Faucet
18………………………………….
Diapers
Nappies
Candy Sweets (or NHS dental care)
Chapter 9
Internet English
19……………………………………. the
first e-mails was sent, and with it came the Internet brining words such us
“download”, (1980), “toolbar” (199)1, “firewall”l (1990).
It also started the
abbreviation trend IMHO ‘= 20………………………………………………………………………………………………………………, BTW,
FAIL, FYR, LOL, UG2BK….
Chapter 10
Global English
English has borrowed
words from over 21………………………… languages.
22…………………………………….. bn
people speak English. Out of them a quarter are native speakers, a quarter
speak it as a second language and a half are able to ask for directions to a
swimming pool….
There is Hinglish,
Chinglis, Singlish….
Expect to find some really interesting books on language in the second part....
so stay tuned.
