Lesson 272--suit

 

Today's lesson is related to Monday's lesson.  Please go back and look at that one before you do this one.

Today's word is suit.

suit: verb

meaning 1: to match your style or co-ordinate your fashion

The jacket doesn't suit you.

The blouse doesn't suit your eyes.

It would be better to pick colours that suit you better.

meaning 2:  to match your needs.

Tuesday doesn't suit me.  We will have to meet on Wednesday.

The flight departure time didn't suit Melanie at all, and she decided to cancel it.

 

suitable/unsuitable: adjective

The colours were unsuitable for the promotion.

What day is the most suitable to meet?

 suitability:  noun

 

The report on the suitability of the product is due on Monday.

Lesson 271--fit

It fits together like a jigsaw puzzle

Both Monday and Wednesday's lessons are somewhat related.  Make sure to check both of them.

 
 

Today's word is fit

fit: verb

The bike fits in the car (A Honda Fit)

meaning 1: to match your size.

The jacket fits you perfectly.

The shoes don't fit.  I need a bigger size.

The key doesn't fit in the hole.

meaning 2: to match plans or open space in a schedule (with into)

The movie debut doesn't fit into my plans.

Gracie couldn't fit another appointment into her busy schedule.

fit: adjective

meaning: to be in good shape

She is fit

Jackie is very fit because she goes to the gym and she jogs regularly.

Dennis isn't fit enough to run the marathon.

Lesson 270--Speak Up versus Speak Out

speak up = speak louder

examples

The teacher asked the student to speak up.

She spoke up when it was clear no one could hear her.

speak out = criticize someone or something, take an opposite position to something

 

examples

Kelly spoke out against the new government policy.

When they found out the truth, all the students spoke out against the teacher.

Matthew spoke out against the multinational company's exploitation of the workers.

Lesson 269--Drinking Vocabulary

Since I know some of my students like to drink, I decided to teach them some key alcohol vocabulary

 

mixed drinks = cocktails

 

These words are used interchangeably.

 

 

 

 

a twenty-sixer and a Texas Mickey

twenty-sixer (26 ounces, or 750 mL of alcohol)

 

mickey (13 ounces or 375 mL of alcohol)

Texas mickey (3 Litres of some kind of alcohol--These bottles are huge, and they look pretty impressive in your liquor cabinet--only sold in Canada)

 

 

 

shot--2 ounces of one kind of alcohol

shooter--one ounce of one or more alcohols or liqueurs.

 

In Canada, beer is sold in many different package sizes.  The following are the most popular.

six-pack (six bottles or cans)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

twelver (12 bottles or cans)

two-four (24 bottles or cans)

 

 

 

 

 

 

a couple of kegs

tall boy (a 500mL can)

                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                        Keg (a lot of beer....look it up)

Lesson 268--make room, time and space

one of these cats needs to make room

 

The word make causes a lot of problems for my students.  I wish it weren't so difficult.  The problem is that make means create, but it also means a lot of other things depending on the collocation.  In today's lesson, I will teach you some collocations where the idea of make means to create something.

 

make room/space  =  create room/space

examples

Jim cleaned out the spare bedroom to make room for the new baby.

Timothy asked his parents to move over and make more space on the couch for him.

If you clean out the fridge you can make more room for food.

 

make time  =  set aside time to do something/ free up time to do something

examples

Pamela drove fast enough that she made time for a long lunch.

My boss asked me to make time for more meetings.

Most doctors recommend making time for breakfast.

Thank you for making time for this blog.

Lesson 267--buzzkills and killjoys

It is odd what you find when you do a google search.  She's a buzzkill, but...

 

Thinking back to Wednesday's lesson (Lesson 266), I realized I should have taught you some names for people who take the fun out of things.  The following is a short list, and most of them are slang expressions, but you will find them useful.  By the way, these nouns are all countable.

 

Buzzkill                           Killjoy

Wet blanket                    Downer

examples

Don't invite Craig!  He's such a buzzkill.

Timothy was such a wet blanket than nobody invited him to parties.

Being an absolute downer made Gwen very unpopular.  She was such a killjoy that even her parents found her annoying.

Lesson 266--taking the fun out of something.

taking the fun out of something

meaning:  when someone or something turns a fun thing into something boring or terrible. 

examples

James took the fun out of the game when he insisted that everyone follow his rules.

The bad news about the car accident took the fun out of the party.

Maria felt that keeping score took the fun out of playing golf.

Teenagers think their parents take the fun out of everything.

Email has taken the fun out of writing and receiving letters.

The bill took the fun out of eating dinner at the restaurant.

Lesson 265--bail out

There are many reasons why learning English is difficult.  The one that really seems to frustrate my students is when a word or phrase has more than one meaning.  This is especially difficult when an English word or phrase has two meanings which are almost the opposite.  In this lesson, I will feature such a phrase.

Bail out/Bale out

 

1  to quit, escape, jump out of

examples

We had a plan, but Philip bailed out at the last second.

The boat was sinking, so everyone bailed out.

Maria and her friends wanted to take a trip to Paris, but once they figured out the cost, half of them bailed out.

 

 

 

2  to help someone (this comes from the idea of someone providing money so you can stay out of jail)

examples

Martha's mother bailed her out when she couldn't find anyone to look after her children.

After being stuck at the airport for more than 3 hours, John's friends picked him up.  He thanked them for bailing him out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3  to scoop water out of a boat so it doesn't sink.

examples

In the storm, everyone had to bail out water so that the boat wouldn't sink.

 

Lesson 264--Cut Your Losses

 

 

Idiom:  to cut one's losses

When things aren't going well, you might have to quit something and take a loss.   That loss might be in the form of money, reputation, territory or property.  You are going to lose something, but maybe if you wait, you will lose more.  Cutting your losses means limiting how much you will lose.

examples

 

The new product wasn't selling well, so the company decided to cut their losses and stop production.

Daniel was having trouble and decided to cut his losses and sell his house for less than he paid.

Lesson 263--Expressions with Have

 

There are many key vocabulary expressions with have and in today's lesson, we will explore some more useful examples.  Today's examples all focus on talking to other people.  Hopefully you will find these examples useful.

Have a meeting.

Have a conference.

Have a conversation.

Have a discussion.

Have a talk.

examples.

Jane had a meeting at 9:00 am with her team.  She was going to have a frank discussion with them about their disappointing performance.

It was hard for Michael to have a discussion with his parents.  They just didn't see eye to eye.

Lesson 262--Pushing Buttons

 

In this high tech world, there are lots of buttons.  I think we need a short lesson on how to deal with them.

The verbs we use are:

push/press the button

hit the buttons

examples

After dialling, hit the green button.

Whenever he had to change the channel, he had to push/press at least ten buttons.

idioms

to push someone's buttons = to provoke a mood in people (good or bad)

examples

The boss hated Jeremy and knew how to push his buttons.

His wife's sexy lingerie really pushed his buttons.

In an argument, Maria could really push her boyfriend's buttons.

Lesson 261--Bad English (That Everyone Uses)

Sometimes my students see some very questionable English being used in the world.  Of course, they always ask their teacher to explain.  Basically, there is some bad English out there that has become normal.

Bad Spelling

Drive Thru:  This should be drive through, but somebody decided to spell it that way to create a noun.  Blame McDonalds.

All U Can Eat:  Yes, this should be "All You Can Eat" but someone thought this was cute.  Sorry.

Luv:  Again, some romantic person thought this was cute.  Maybe they just wanted to save space.  Luv is three letters, whereas Love is four.

The Internet Effect

Besides chat "slang" the internet has had an effect on the English world.

@   We use it as "at".   See you @ 9 means see you at 9 o'clock.  It is appearing more and more regularly in advertising and in media.