This seems to be a very popular word in the Swedish press. In English we would say someone is in ’hot water’

Janet

A nice list of phobias here

and an article on how phobias are named from http://phobialist.com

The word phobia is Greek, therefore any word that is connected to it should be Greek. To coin a new phobia name, it is proper to follow this rule. The rule has been broken many times in the past especially within the medical profession which is steeped in Latin and often, when forming a name for a phobia, they have dipped into what they know and have used a Latin suppletion affixed to the Greek stem to form their names.

Sometimes its the tiny things that are the most difficult. I often have students at a very high level  of English who are not sure of the names of office equipment. Last week this interesting topic came up for the first time in many years.

• bråk – fraction
• bråkdel – fraction
• täljaren – numerator
• nämnaren – denominator
• to multiply by
• to divide by
• To add to
• to subtract from
• promille – per mille, parts per thousand

• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

 

• The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Absolutely beautiful books which both left me speechless. Something which does not often happen!

 

 

 

 

 

During her 60 year reign the Queen has met 11 of the 12 US Presidents.

Interesting article here:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-say-what-you-like-the-world-still-judges-us-by-the-way-we-speak-6988805.html

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/05/will-hutton-learn-foreign-languages

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100775/Hilarious-anonymous-notes-left-neighbours-doors.html

Well then…..

• A Pole is someone who comes from Poland. In English, Polack is an offensive term.
• Polevaulting is a sport where the person competing uses a long flexible pole to aid them in getting over a horizontal bar.
• Poledancing used to be what strippers did but it is now a sport where one gets flexible around a pole
• A fireman’s pole is the pole the metal or wooden poll that fire officers would slide down in the event of an alarm. It allowed them to get going much more quickly.
• A polecat is a species of weasel
• A straw poll is an informal poll
• A tin poll is an informal poll
• A Gallup poll is a formal poll but does not have to be undertaken by the Gallup group.
• opinion polls can also be called surveys.
• The Nielson ratings are used to determine audience demographics for television programmes

A few people have asked me what I use and which I prefer. Well, the short answer is I use both and I love them both!

I was trained to work on PCs and even though I can’t do much on them anymore, I still have the confidence and intuition to find and fix problems. I feel that I am the boss and no PC will get the better of me! My PC is a 2010 HP Probook laptop 15 inch running Windows 7. I use this mainly for work as it has a full size keyboard and I touch-type. It still takes some reading and diagnostics if something goes wrong. Most people in Sweden still use PCs so smaller software packages and private packages are still designed for Mac.

I am now also using a 2011 MacBook Pro 15 inch. I can’t touch type on this one so I use it for surfing, reading and watching movies. The screen resolution is amazing. Mac is very intuitive and it does everything for you. Network problems just diagnose themselves. The best part is that you can just close the lid when you are done. No rebooting, it never hangs. You just open it and start to work. It is a very graphical interface, short on text. I am still not 100% confident with it. No software to buy though and no virus protection necessary. If you wish you can run Windows. Still pretty expensive.

When I started out working with computers Apples and PCs were very different beasts. Now the user interfaces are very similar. I think I prefer the Apple but the keyboard stops me from using it. Years of touch-typing on a full keyboard can’t be wiped away so easily!

Anyone who has been to my office has seen the above photograph on the kitchen wall. Most of the so-called windwalkers or ironwalkers who build the skyscrapers in Manhattan were Native Americans from the Mohawk tribe. After 9/11 many of these iron workers who had built the World Trade Center towers returned to dismantle them and make the area safe again.

Here and here  are a nice English language lessons on these brave people.

And an article from the New York Times