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Dictionary of English slang and colloquialisms of the UK

Dictionary of English slang and colloquialisms of the UK
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Susie Dent's Modern Tribes: Brits have perfected a secret version of the English language to use with their co-workers — Quartz British English has many distinctive hallmarks: a plethora of “u”s borrowed from old French, a use of “s”s where “z”s are used in American English (realise, instead of realize), colo(u)rful idioms, and a rich history of slang. For lexicographer, writer, and broadcaster Susie Dent, British English is also “littered with tribal footprints,” as she explains her new book, Dent’s Modern Tribes: The Secret Languages of Britain. In the book, Dent gathered and chronicled the unique words and phrases used among specific professions and interest groups in the UK, terms she acquired through hundreds of interviews and, in her words, “eavesdropping.” “Every sport, every profession, every group united by a single passion draws on a lexicon that is uniquely theirs, and theirs for a reason,” she writes. Here are some of our favorites from Dent’s collection of these specific tribes’ secret turns of phrase. Bankers STARRShort for “Strategic Try-hard with Awesome Reputation and Relationships.” IT workers Mr.

english idioms Learn all about English Idioms. Browse our large dictionary of idioms and idiomatic expressions, containing clear definitions and examples of use, and which is categorised by topic and country of origin. What is an Idiom? An idiom is a unique type of phrase in English, made up of words that together have a meaning that's commonly understood by speakers of the language, but not necessarily obvious from the normal meanings of the individual words. Simply, idioms have established meanings that go beyond what the words might suggest on their own, often painting vivid or metaphorical pictures to express ideas or emotions. Our Idiom Dictionary Our idiom dictionary contains clear definitions and examples of 7,230 English idioms and idiomatic expressions, categorised by topic and country of origin. Members Get More! Search Our Idioms Idioms Listed by Subject Idioms Listed by Variety of English Recently Added Idioms Whale Added on 9 Nov 2020

Lay Versus Lie : Grammar Girl Today's topic is lay versus lie. Lay Versus Lie First, we'll do the easy part, which is the present tense. If you exclude the meaning "to tell an untruth" and just focus on the setting/reclining meaning of lay and lie, then the important distinction is that lay requires a direct object and lie does not. So you lie down on the sofa (no direct object), but you lay the book down on the table (the book is the direct object). This is in the present tense, where you are talking about doing something now: you lie down on the sofa, and you lay down a book. There are a bunch of ways to remember this part. How to Remember the Difference The way I remember is to think of the phrase lay it on me. Take the "Lay" Versus "Lie" Quiz (in a new tab) What's that I hear, music in the background? To say “lay down Sally” would imply that someone should grab Sally and lay her down. You lay something down, and people lie down by themselves. OK, so that was the present tense. (continue reading) Amazon Barnes and Noble

Alchemy Electronic Dictionary: Find Out the Meaning of Arcane Words and Ciphers Instantly! To find out the meaning of a word, select the beginning letter: Or select the symbol for which you would like to see a definition: For Alchemy Lab website assistance, click ablution The process of washing a solid with a liquid, usually in water. Aion (see Ouroboros) Air Air is one of the Four Elements of alchemy. alchemy The word is derived from the Arabian phrase "al-kimia," which refers to the preparation of the Stone or Elixir by the Egyptians. alembic The upper part of a still; a still-head. alkahest The alkahest is the power from Above that makes possible alchemical transformation. aludel A pear-shaped earthenware bottle, open at both ends. amalgam The amalgam is a solid metal formed by the combination of mercury with gold, silver, lead, or other metals. angel An angel in alchemical treatises symbolizes sublimation or the ascension of the volatile principle. Ankh animals Animals are often used to symbolize the basic components and processes of alchemy. antimony Apollo aqua fortis aqua regia aqua vitae

Learning English - Home Slang: the changing face of cool | Books Slang has always fascinated me. My father, who grew up in the council estates of Slough during the second world war, knew slang words for most situations, good and bad, which I would hear regularly around the house as a child. Somewhere in my early 20s, I stumbled across a cheap secondhand reprint of a book by an 18th-century Londoner named Francis Grose, which recorded the everyday speech of the people he encountered in the low drinking dens, bagnios and rookeries around Covent Garden and St Giles. First published in 1785, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue remains for me the single most important slang collection of them all. Having spent the past four years writing a history of English slang, it gradually became clear to me that the digital age is altering slang: both the way it evolves and is spread, and attitudes towards it. Of course, slang has always had its detractors. Whether it goes to work or not, people have often determined that slang should be kept out of school.

alliteration dictionary This Vocabulary of Alliteration is a new aid in writing poems and songs, and in the study of phonetic or phonemic syllable divisions. Alliteration is one of several aural devices in literature making use of the repetition of single sounds or groups of sounds. It is quite often believed to be nothing else than the repetition of word-initial sounds, especially consonants. For such rough and ready alliteration a special dictionary would hardly be needed. However, if alliteration is, in a more sophisticated and traditional fashion, interpreted as the repetition of speech sounds at the beginning of syllables, and of stressed syllables only, then word-initial consonance or assonance need not be alliteration and vice versa. (So that rough does not alliterate with a word like reward but with, for instance, ignoramus.) The words and phrases entered in this dictionary have been selected and will continue to be selected on the basis of one or more of the following considerations:

Free Audiobooks and eBooks - Librophile What is Librophile.com? Librophile.com (beta) offers a simple interface for finding completely legal free audiobooks and eBooks. You can browse the latest books, search by keywords or choose more broadly by genre or language. You can often listen to chapters online, download a whole book, play a sample or subscribe using iTunes. How is it a free? The internet is full of free and legal audiobooks and eBooks but finding them can be hard work. How does it work? By using free and often open source tools such as Backbone.JS, jQuery, jPlayer, Apache and MySQL Librophile.com is able to maintain a free and competitive service. We do rely on feedback from our users so please do contact us if you have any suggestions for ways to improve our service.

From Seaspeak to Singlish: celebrating other kinds of English | Media It was recently reported that the government is being urged to create opportunities for Britons to learn languages like Polish, Urdu and Punjabi, in order to effect more social cohesion. According to Cambridge professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett, language learning, and indeed social integration, should not be a one-way street; rather, the onus should also fall on British people to learn community languages. For me, this idea of a two-way street taps into a wider question about linguistic influence and evolution. There is interest and joy to be had not only in learning the languages of other cultures, but also in appreciating the effect they might have had on English. Outside the UK too, creoles and dialects have bent, broken and downright flipped the bird at the rules, offering not only musicality and freshness, but new ways of conceiving of language that staunch protectionism doesn’t allow for. Not persuaded? Basic English Basic English was invented by CK Ogden in 1930.

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | I hate Macs Unless you have been walking around with your eyes closed, and your head encased in a block of concrete, with a blindfold tied round it, in the dark - unless you have been doing that, you surely can't have failed to notice the current Apple Macintosh campaign starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, which has taken over magazines, newspapers and the internet in a series of brutal coordinated attacks aimed at causing massive loss of resistance. While I don't have anything against shameless promotion per se (after all, within these very brackets I'm promoting my own BBC4 show, which starts tonight at 10pm), there is something infuriating about this particular blitz. In the ads, Webb plays a Mac while Mitchell adopts the mantle of a PC. We know this because they say so right at the start of the ad. "Hello, I'm a Mac," says Webb. "And I'm a PC," adds Mitchell. They then perform a small comic vignette aimed at highlighting the differences between the two computers. I hate Macs.

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