Rain Rain Rain

If you are learning English, it is always a good idea to get to grips with the British culture too. There have been various posts on here already about the British, or the English, or the Scottish; so now I suppose that I am just carrying on with the same theme by nominating today’s word of the day as rain.

Definition

Rain is defined in the English dictionary in this way:

‘Water falling in drops from vapor condensed in the atmosphere’

And in England at least, this is what happens quite often. Here are some examples of sentences that use the word rain in its various conjugations:

‘Outside it is raining really heavily. I’d take an umbrella with you if you go out.’
‘The weatherman says that it is going to rain tomorrow.’
‘Farmers are worried about the lack of rain this year.’
‘It rained cats and dogs all day on Saturday. We couldn’t go out anywhere!’

Raining Cats and Dogs

In the final example you can see one of the most famous English idioms: “Raining cats and dogs.” This means that it was raining very heavily.

Rain is a very interesting concept in the English language, many linguists have said that there are probably more than 100 different words used across the country to describe this one type of weather. Try and send in any of your suggestions for strange words used in your part of the English speaking word to describe the concept of Rain.

So, for the second time in a couple of days I am going to use the Beatles to illustrate one of my posts. This is them singing the song Rain:

Well, I’ve been off on my holidays for the past few months - much to the worry of the English speaking world. But now I am back, I hope to be able to fill you all in with more interesting little lessons about the way that the English language works.

Hopefully we will soon be having as much fun with the Hot English blog as we were in 2007. See you all soon,

Dr Fingers

Here is what we call in English, a flash flood:

The American Dream

Britney Spears has been having quite a hard time of it lately. A few years ago it looked as if the young American singer had everything: she was married with two young children, her singing career, which started whilst she was a teenager in 1999, had gone from success to success and she was rich beyond most people’s dreams.

However, Britney’s American dream turned, on a sixpence, into an American nightmare. Her marriage to dancer Kevin Federline broke down, her abuse of substances rose sharply, her singing career stuttered worryingly and just a few weeks ago a judge ordered that she must give up the custody of her children.

Bad Reactions

Whilst all this was going on, the tabloid press have been hard at work investigating Britney’s private life. They often carry stories of substance abuse and night-long parties in the swanky, glitzy areas of downtown Los Angeles. During this time she has reacted badly: shaving her hair, appearing drunk and aggressive and lashing out, particularly at photographers.

However, it seems, that Britney still has loyal fans. Below is a committed fan of Britney’s having a rant. He is angry with the popular press for constantly writing negative stories about Britney and here he has posted a rant on an internet video site.

Word of the Day

Our word of the day is rant. The best way to think about a rant, is of a long angry speech made by a person, upon a subject that they feel very passionately.

Here is how the word is defined in the dictionary:

rant –verb (used without object)
1. to speak or declaim extravagantly or violently; talk in a wild or vehement way; rave: The demagogue ranted for hours.
–verb (used with object)
2. to utter or declaim in a ranting manner.
–noun
3. ranting, extravagant, or violent declamation.
4. a ranting utterance.

[Origin: 1590–1600; < D ranten (obs.) to talk foolishly]

Here are some examples of the word rant used in a sentence:

A fan had a rant about the treatment of Britney Spears on the internet.
After years of abuse, one of the employees went on a massive rant at his boss.
The prime minister was heard to be ranting about his stupid members of staff.
Heather Mills had a rant about Paul McCartney on national television.

And here for you to enjoy in full is the rant about the media by one of Britney’s fans. Let’s hope, sincerely, that she gets better soon.

This is an article taken from Hot English Magazine. To find out how to get yourself a copy, click here.

Famous Family

Aldous Huxley was born into a famous English family in 1894. His father was a famous herbalist and writer. Like Orwell he was educated at Eton College and he went on to teach Orwell French for a year at Eton after he returned as a graduate from Oxford University. During his youth Huxley suffered from a chronic illness that left him almost blind and this stopped him from fighting alongside many of his peers in the Great War.

By his early twenties Huxley had decided on a career as a writer. He had realised that he was not suited to work as a teacher and one student noted that he “kept poor discipline in class”. Much of his work looks at the dehumanising result of too much scientific progress. The most famous of his works from this period is a Brave New World which was completed in 1939. In book he made many predictions for a future human society that was controlled by drugs and psychologically programmed to work hard and respect authority. Brave New World was a great success and is still remembered as Huxley’s most famous work.

Hollywood Years

In 1937 Huxley moved to the United States to live in Hollywood. He soon became involved in the film production industry and he was credited for writing the screen plays of a number of films including Pride and Prejudice. Huxley continued to write throughout his later life and he also became involved in the f psychological drug craze of the early 1960s. This exposure to LSD influenced several of his later works and on his death bed he famously asked his wife to inject him with 100mg of the drug. He died on the 22nd November 1963, the same day that the President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Here is an extract from the first chapter of Huxley’s most famous work: Brave New World.

Tall and rather thin but upright, the Director advanced into the room. He had a long chin and big rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly curved lips. Old, young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say. And anyhow the question didn’t arise; in this year of stability, A. F. 632, it didn’t occur to you to ask it.

Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology.

Well, it is a Tuesday afternoon and here is a good chance to practice your listening!

Work or Not

Whilst we are all working away on a Tuesday afternoon, I thought it would be good to imagine that we all had enough money not to need to work.

There are people in the world like this, if you want to have a look at a list of the world’s richest people, you can do so by clicking here. These people can all afford to live lives of luxury (although the people on this list don’t).

During the last few centuries in the United Kingdom, there has been a growth in a socio-economic group of people known as the “idle rich”. These people do not have to work for their money and often they just live on annual incomes given to them by rich benefactors. People refer to them as “idle” because they do not do anything constructive for society. So, today idle is our word of the day.

Word of the Day

Here is how the word idle is defined in the dictionary:

i•dle –adjective

1. not working or active; unemployed; doing nothing: idle workers.
2. not spent or filled with activity: idle hours.
3. not in use or operation; not kept busy: idle machinery.
4. habitually doing nothing or avoiding work; lazy.
5. of no real worth, importance, or significance: idle talk.
6. having no basis or reason; baseless; groundless: idle fears.
7. frivolous; vain: idle pleasures.
8. meaningless; senseless: idle threats.
9. futile; unavailing: idle rage.

Here are some examples of the world idle:

“Henry is so idle. I wish he’d get up and do something with his life!”
“Don’t waste your life being an idle so and so”
“The Royals are just a bunch of idle, good for nothing scroungers!”

White’s and Brookes’

Some of the top hangouts for Britain’s idle rich are the posh clubs in the Mayfair area of London. Two of the most famous of these are Brookes’ and White’s. They were set up in the 18th century to give gentlemen visiting London on business a place to meet in comfort, which replicated their own country houses.

These clubs soon gained notoriety for their exclusivity. Lots of business was done between friends there and lots of expensive alcohol and food was consumed. Looking for something to do, the members of the clubs would often make bets with each other to keep themselves amused. One of the most famous bets ever written down in the book at White’s goes as follows:

“Alvanley bet with a friend £3,000 as to which of two raindrops would first reach the bottom of a pane of the bow window.”

In 1816, when this bet was made, this would have been a ridiculous amount of money: similar to something around $2 million in modern terms. However, an even better bet was made at the rival club Brookes’, the home of the Whig political party:

“Ld. Cholmondeley has given two guineas to Ld. Derby, to receive 500gs whenever his lordship f**** a women in a balloon one thousand yards from the earth”.

Here is a Monty Python sketch written about the idle rich. It is entitled Upper Class Twit of the Year:

It can be quite nerve racking speaking in public. One thing that can make your speeches go better is a little bit of passion. Here is an extract of an Italian football coach, Giovanni Trapattoni, putting a little bit of passion into a press conference. Although German is not his first language and he make lots of (amusing) mistakes, he certainly gets his point across.

Now, here at Hot English we are good friends of our American cousins. In fact some of the best people to pass through the doors of this office are 100% full-blooded US Americans. However, in a country of 280 million people, you are always going to get quite a few silly ones.

Here is a video for you all to enjoy the silliest of all!

Here is an article taken from an English newspaper. It tells you all about how to look happy on a Monday!

A formula for the perfect smile. dazzling white smile might be essential for Hollywood stars. But those glow-in-the-dark teeth aren’t right for most people, according to scientists who have worked out a formula for the perfect smile.

The Winnng Grin

They took several factors into account, including the size and width of each tooth, the curve, colour and shape of the teeth and the overall width of the mouth. As far as colour is concerned, they concluded that bright white should be avoided. Instead, they said, the whiteness of the teeth should match the whites of the eyes, otherwise the smile stands out too much and detracts from the rest of the face.

“One of the first things about a smile people notice is the colour,” said Dr Nicholas Davis, who led the research. “People are bleaching their teeth and many times they do it beyond what is natural. “The teeth should be the same colour as the whites of your eyes. If the teeth are too white, they become more dominant than the eyes”

Some more vocabulary

Here are some other vocabulary in English that describe parts of the human body, in this case parts of the head. See if you know what these following words mean:

eyes, nose, mouth, gums, teeth, eyelashes, eyebrows, eyelids, nostrils, ears, temples, chin, cheeks, Adam’s apple, neck, cheek bones, stubble, face, and tongue.

Can you think of anymore?