Language Blog

Words you wish you'd known before!

Hello! This week I want to check that you’ve remembered and understood the adjectives for people from my last two posts. So, have a look at the words below and choose the best set of synonyms for them:

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Rough or smooth?

This week I’ll be introducing seven words which are used literally to describe physical properties and metaphorically to informally describe different types of people. Again, they’re all words which my non-British friend wishes she’d known before moving here! But a word of warning – none of them is very complimentary!

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British Pantomime

I’ve just been to Portugal for a few days of winter sun and was amused when I saw these holiday makers dressed as Santas. It reminded me that with Christmas just around the corner, all over Britain people will be dressing up for pantomimes. In the festive season, the pantomime, or ‘panto’ as most people call it, is performed in theatres everywhere. So, what is a panto? In brief, it’s a fun show aimed at children. It apparently originated in Italy and came to England in the 17th Century, we immediately took it to our hearts and it has remained a quintessential part of British Christmas ever since.

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Covering Letter Collocations

I haven’t posted for a while, but as the global financial crisis is still having an impact on people’s work and some people are losing their jobs, I thought I’d write about covering letters. A covering letter is a letter which is sent with your CV when applying for a job. I’ll write a bit more about what to include in covering letter and how to write them in my next post but for this post I wanted to focus on language and in particular collocations. In the following 2 covering letters can you find:

• Verb + adjective + noun collocations

• Verb + adjective + adjective + noun collocations

There are12 in total. I’ll give you the answers and explain covering letters in my next post.

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