BBC: Talk about English on June 22nd

Actually, I listened to this edition of "talk about English" once on the very day it was broadcasted, but I did once again back at home today. There were actually three main subjects, but I chose to learn one of them: it's about some useful vocabulary connected with food shopping

• I go into the greengrocer's to by vegetables and some fruit. Moreover, I also pick up some fresh herbs and seasonings there
• I go into the butcher's to buy fresh meat.
• I go into the fishmonger's to buy fish.

Herbs are various plants that are used in cooking and they give foods particular flavours. They can be fresh or dried (such as mints). Seasonings are also used to give foods particular flavours, but the word is just a general term to describe things like salt, papper or spices.

Speaking about foods, someone might be on the lookout for organic and healthy options. 'To be on the lookout for' means 'to be concerned about' or 'to search for'. Organic food is the type of food produced without any artificial ingredients or without any chemicals used for example spray crops, while healty food... you know!

BBC: Talk about English on May 13th

Well in this edition of talk about English, there's huge bunch of new vocaburary and expressions. Let me start with the first part of the program which is from a news report about a military parade in Moscow:

• thousands of Russian servicemen (people working in the army, navy or air force) marched across Red Square in commemoration of the Soviet Union's victory in the 2nd World War
• parading too were lots of frontline veterans (people whe fought in the war) of the war
• Putin said the 9th of May was a sacred day, and he paid tribute too

Now, some vocaburary for everyday situation: about dinner party preparation:

• some people cannot eat certain foods, so they have dietary requirements
• diabetics are people who're suffering from diabetes, a disease where there is too much sugar in the blood
• vegetarians are people who don't eat meat for fish, while vegans are people who don't each meat, fish, eggs or cheeese. In other words, vegans don't have all kinds of product from animals
• a traditional three course meal comprises a starter, main course and a dessert

And the last part of the program devotes to a misuse of an English expression by an Austrian doctor:

• he said to his femail colleague: "come to my room later", which is wrong in this situation as it'd be an invitation for a rendezvous
• a rendezvous is a meeting by invitation, of ten arranged by two people for a romance

Well, what should we say??..

• Would you mind coming to my office later?
• Do you mind...?
• Could you come...?
• Can you pop in to my office later?

Necessity implies existence?

While reading up until the chapter 139--counted by Prime numbers--,I encountered a so-called Occam's razor, which is a law:

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Which is Latin and means:

No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary.

Which means only those things that are crucially vital should exist.

If we assume that this law is globally true, then God doesn't exist for those who don't feel he's vital. On the contrary, he does absolutely exist for those who seriously think that he's the one.

Personally, I think that this law is fair enough to let one decide what should exist and what shouldn't depending on one's necessity. In my different point of view, however, this law is rather trivial...

BBC: Talk about English on May 4th

This whole talk devotes to an expedition to the Antarctica, and here are some interesting words and phases in the context:

• an inflatable boat needs to be filled with air before use; to inflate is to add something with air or gas
• fur seals are ungainly on land, but like ballet dancers in the water
• their flippers (fins) can roll over; with their bendy body, they are swivelling and twisting
• penquins too, they are darting arond and zipping along (quick movement)
• the first sight of the real Antarctica is spectacular (as all around are icebergs),but also distressing (some of them are so small and melting because of pollution)
• penguin chicks wear and about to lose brown fuzz balls, and some of them have tufts of hair; they look like a rather motley crew (mixed and varied in color)
• baby penguins can't swim, and they have to chase their parents who are their source of food

"Fuzz", as well as its adjective "fuzzy", have many meanings. In this context, fuzz means soft or curled hair or a tuft of hair. Besides the meaning of being like short fur or curled hair, fuzzy can also means unclear usually because of noises. Fuzzy logic is a branch of logic system used in mathematics and phylosophy which deals with probability (not only true and false).

"Fuss" can be confusing as well. If you make a fuss over somebody, you make noise or create commotion in order to draw attention from someone.

My main purpose of using this Blog

This morning I listened to a radio program, BBC learning English, as usual. This time, it appears to me that the program contains lots of new interesting words and expression phrases that I think would be nice to keep them for later use. Having thought so, I picked a notebook of mine--which my girlfriend bought me for my Conversational English course--and started to write down new words, word by word. But, no!, thought to myself. This must not be the effective way to remember new words; what I mean is that the words alone could be extremely difficult to remember and recall, especially when they have many (sometimes no related) definitions. I then decided to, instead of listing words, rephrase the conversation in the radio program in the same or similar context. I am quite confident that this will help because the new words are connected to the situation, the context. Hmm.. sounds smooth at the beginning.

The problem then was that I would have to highlight the words in the sentence and correct the mistakes I had done. And that's it, that's the moment when the Blog came to my mind...