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Today’s post and my next one focus on words for talking about physical strength and its opposite, weakness. This first one looks at words for people (and animals) who are physically strong and physically weak.
Continue reading “Ripped or puny? (Words meaning ‘strong’ and ‘weak’)”
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This week’s post relates to the language used to describe an activity that gives a great deal of pleasure to people the world over – growing and taking care of plants and flowers, whether outside or in the home.
Continue reading “Green fingers and thumbs (The language of gardening)”
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Do you know someone who is ‘good in a crisis’ – someone who stays admirably calm in difficult circumstances when the people around them are too stressed to make good decisions? Perhaps you are good in a crisis. This week, I’m looking at all the words and phrases we use to talk about such people.
Continue reading “Calm and collected (The language of staying calm in a crisis)”
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This week’s blog post is a companion to one that I published last month on ways of talking about luck. Today’s post focuses on the language of chance – that force that makes things happen without any obvious cause.
Continue reading “Random and fortuitous (Words for talking about chance)”
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Today’s post has a rather positive feel to it as I’m looking at the language we use to describe luck and feeling lucky.
Continue reading “Do I feel lucky? (Ways of talking about luck)”
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Regular readers of this blog often ask us for posts on English idioms used now in contemporary English. One way we make sure we provide up-to-date idioms is by looking at those used in current newspaper articles. The expressions included in this week’s post are taken from a range of national newspapers that were published on June 16, 2025.
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A little while back, my colleague, Liz Walter, published a post on phrases that contain the word ‘blood’. Today, I’m picking up the ‘parts of the body’ theme with a post on idioms with the word ‘bone’. There are a surprising number of them!
Continue reading “I feel it in my bones (Idioms with ‘bone’)”
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We all make mistakes. Often, they’re small and easily corrected, though sadly this is not always true. Today’s post takes a look at the different types of mistakes that we make, big and small, written and spoken.
Continue reading “Gaffes and blunders (Different types of mistakes)”
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‘Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.’ So said Albert Einstein. It may be comforting to remember this quote when an action of yours produces unwanted results. Of course, no one likes making mistakes, but mistakes are part of life. That’s why we have so many ways of talking about them. This post and my next are dedicated to this subject.
Continue reading “Rookie mistakes and schoolboy errors (Talking about mistakes)”
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A few years ago on this blog, we published a post on words that mean ‘funny’. It recently occurred to me that we should also look at the opposite, so today’s post looks at the language we use to describe things or people that are serious – sometimes too serious.
Continue reading “It’s no laughing matter! (Words that mean ‘serious’)”