Anglophile's Wishlist

When creating this blog, I've dived deeply in the question of self-studying and study materials. Right now I'm longing for some more books that would help me master English and widen my knowledge of the Anglophone world.
So far I'm using these: Joe Wright's Idioms Organiser (it's my inspiration for Incredible Idioms)
                                 Thomas Parish's The Grouchy Grammarian (soon I'll add a review)
                                 McCarthy's and O'Dell's Academic Vocabulary in Use
But I know that this is not enough. Our teachers at the grammar school weren't the best and even though I use English everyday, I still feel I have a lot to work on. In the wishlist I listed the textbooks that I hope could help me with my English struggle :-).

Oxford Word Skills: Idioms and Phrasal Verbs
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
Oxford Collocations Dictionary for students of English
Oxford Guide to British and American Culture
Cambridge: English Collocation in Use
Oxford Word Skills: Advanced

Wow, now it seems I'm a bit Oxford obsessed, right? :D

Splendid Similes 3

As Free as a Bird

Yes, this is how I feel right now, because the exams are oveeer! Suddenly these options of the things that I could do are flooding over me and I don't know which one to choose, even though I really didn't do that much studying before, more like procrastinating... But the important thing is that now I can do whatever I want and not have to feel like I should be doing something else, because that is the key difference :)

So far I've been trying to dig out some sort of handbook which I could be exploiting for my similes posts, but I haven't been lucky very much. Nevermind, I have an online list which is pretty long :) I am also planning to write a review of Unfinished Nation - the textbook I read for my American history classes. But the best thing I think would be to watch Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and make a post out of THAT! (are you in, Fay? :D)

Also my last post got me thinking - if "as stupid as a fox" is the opposite of "as cunning as a fox", does it mean that you can turn every simile into its opposite? Imagine how awesome could that be! "As idle as mustard", "as caged as a bird" - that's actually quite sad... but listen to these: "as alive as the dodo", "as sane as a hatter" "as drunk as a judge" OR "as sober as a lord".. I kinda like those :) What would be your favourite reversed simile?

Incredible Idioms 3

Business is War

Being in business can be pretty dangerous. You really have to be a tough one to survive and succeed in business environment. Business is war, remeber it well! So, don't forget your arsenal and fight!

Sales are up! That means we're definitely gaining ground on our main competitors. They'll soon by trying to take us over!

It look as if we are going to be closed down. We don't want to give up without fight so why don't we try to organise a management buy-out?

Our image is too old-fashioned. We need to modernise our product range in order to reinforce our market position. Otherwise, we'll lose it!

It was obvious that Smiths would close down. They were surrounded by big modern supermarkets with more buiyng power.

In order to expand in the Middle East, we've joined forces with a company who have been working successfully in the region for over 20 years.

The new advertising compaign has been a huge success. We've been bombarded with thousands of new enquiries.

Source: Joe Wright - Idiom Organiser

Picture: here

Splendid Similes 2

As Stupid as a Fox

Thanks to the linguistics exam being as easy as a pie (which made me think of a czech simile roughly translated as "as easy as a slap" - why can't we have some nice simile involving sweets instead of violence?) I am now free to enjoy some pleasant things like going to the cinema and the already mentioned thinking about similes.

Have you ever heard of someone being "as stupid as a fox" or "stupid like a fox"? I haven't, but I saw this in Roman Dirge's Lenore some time ago and it keeps appearing in my head every time I try to think about similes, so I decided that I would find out if it really exists or not.

What I found was that it probably doesn't, Google doesn't say anything except for the query "What does 'stupid as a fox mean?'" I even tried the British National Corpus and you know what that means... using stuff I've learned in real life, hell yeah!

But let's put my research failure aside. If the simile existed, what would it mean? Foxes aren't stupid, are they? They're pretty cunning. That must mean that somebody stupid like a fox is not stupid at all. Which is what makes this even more hilarous:

(source: Roman Dirge - Cooties.) - nah, I'm too lazy to quote in MLA :)

Incredible Idioms 2

Time is money

This is one of the most used English idioms. Time is money, deal with it! And from this fact many other idiomatic phrases arise - saving time, wasting time, etc. 

Imagine that it would really be so - no time, no money (or the other way round?)  And because we all want to be rich (and who denies it, s/he's even planning to rob us), we should at least be avare of this time/money fact and make some use of it.

So: Don't waste your time procrastinating on Facebook!
      Save your time with careful time-management!
      Spend your time doing something useful or pleasant!
      Spare a minute or two for yourself every day!

      Plan your exams careful so you don't run out of time with your learning!

      Spend some precious time with your friend and family!

      Of course you're short of time when you play videogames 24/7!

Source: Jon Wright - Idiom Organiser
Picture: http://www.lowesforpros.com/time-is-money-how-proper-project-scheduling-can-help-your-bottom-line

Splendid Similes 1

As Keen as Mustard

Right now, with a throbbing headache and the prospect of studying linguistic, I am not exactly as keen as mustard. And even if I were, mustard is really one my least favourite things to put on my food, so no. I could probably be as keen as ketchup or maybe herbal salt.

So what made the English use this strange expression and compare the yellow gooey thing to being keen? phrases.org.uk says that in the early 20th century, mustard was so popular that people would say stuff like: "Shakespeare is mustard!", meaning that the guy is simply great.The simile itself first appeared in the 17th century, imagine that! The truth is people were just too keen on mustard, so I guess that this is where the strange thing happened and keenness jumped from people to mustard. Ta-dah!

Now I will go and study for my linguistics exam as keenmustardly as I can. I promise! Just don’t make me eat mustard :) (No, I still don’t understand. Keen as ketchup is even alliterated! Come on).

(the picture is taken from: blog.coulsonmacleod.com)

Incredible Idioms 1

It's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Do you feel like you're having no good ideas, no inspiration, that you're not creative enough? This English saying sums it up pretty well - the inspiration is the tiniest bit of what you're doing actually. The key is (hard) work. And one more secret for you: The Muses come when you're working! (Pablo Picasso)