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Showing posts with label C. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C. Show all posts

Monday 18 May 2020

conditionals

𝕎oman: If we got engaged to be married, would you give me a ring?
Man: Yes, of course. If I knew your number.

Two birds were sitting in a tree as a jet plane passed overhead.
'Look at the speed of that bird!' said the younger bird.
And the older bird replied: 'if your tail was on fire, you'd go that fast, too.

Fish A: "How the hell did we end up in this aquarium?"
Fish B: "Well, if we had kept our mouths shut, we wouldn’t have been caught."

A woman woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband missing from the bed. But in the quietness of the house she could hear sounds downstairs.

So she put on a robe, went downstairs, and looked around, but still couldn’t find her husband.

As she listened harder, she began to hear faint sounds of someone moaning. She went down into the basement and saw her husband crouched in a corner, sobbing into his hands.

"What’s wrong with you?" she asked.

"Remember when your dad caught us having sex when we were 16? Remember he told me I had two choices: either I married you, or I spent the next 20 years in jail?"

Baffled, she said "Yes, I remember that."

The husband looked at her, started sobbing again and said, "I would’ve got out today!"


There are four conditionals in English. And they are as follows:
› ZERO CONDITIONAL: Factual situations ↔ If you freeze water, it becomes ice.
› FIRST CONDITIONAL: Probable situations ↔ If I see her, I'll tell her.
› SECOND CONDITIONAL: Improbable situations ↔ If it snowed, we would go skiing.
› THIRD CONDITIONAL: Missed opportunity ↔ If they had told me, I would have helped them


Zero100% possible at all times😀 Factual
First50% possible in the future😊 Probable
Second≈ 5% possible in the future😯 Improbable
Third0% possible in the past😖 Lost occasion

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Third conditional
[past possibility]

Saturday 11 April 2020

chair

𝔸 philosophy teacher enters the classroom to give his senior class its final exam.

Placing a chair on his big mahogany desk, he says to the class, "Using everything you've learned in this class this year, prove to me that this chair doesn't exist".

And the students waste no time. Pencils are scribbling and pages are being turned. They seek and hope to find arguments to prove the inexistence of the chair.

Except for one student in the back row. He spends thirty seconds writing his answer, then hands his paper to the professor and sits back down. Time passes, and the students finally get their final grade.

There is shock all around, shock that the one who had written for thirty seconds gets the highest grade in the class. His answer to the question was, "What chair?"


Remember that in high school as well as in college [→ university], the first four years are described as follows: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior.

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Friday 10 April 2020

churchyard

𝔹en the post carrier is in love with a nun. He knows it's wrong to even think it, but he can't help himself. One particular day, as he boards a bus, Martha, the not-so-good-looking bus driver but his friend, asks him: "Why the long face, Ben?"

"I'm in love with Sister Margaret even though I know she can't even look at me. But I can't stop thinking about her," Ben moans. "I dream of making love to her".

Martha, the bus driver, thinks for a while and says to Ben, "I know how you can solve your problem."

"What do you mean?", Ben asks.

"Well," Martha the bus driver says, "everyone knows that on Tuesday nights at midnight Sister Margaret goes to the cemetery to pray. Tomorrow is Tuesday. Why don't you dress up as God and while she's praying, jump from behind a tombstone and say... 'I am God, and I want to make love to you!'"

Ben thinks it's a brilliant idea.

The next evening at 10 pm he's all dressed up as God and crouching behind a tombstone near the centre of the graveyard when, sure enough, at exactly midnight, Sister Margaret appears in the moonlight and starts praying.

Ben springs out in his heavenly costume and booms: I am God, and I want to make love to you". And they start making mad, passionate love.

While they're making love, Ben removes his mask and yells, "Aha! I am Ben, the post carrier!"

And the nun removes her mask and yells "Aha, I'm Martha, the bus driver!"


The term post carrier is recent. It is our attempt as humans to shy away from racism and misogyny. From post-man to post carrier, and from fireman to fire-fighter, to name but two. New words spring up every day, in all languages, in an attempt to rid our minds of latent or learned discrimination. Apart from watching our language, there are other practical steps to take, as is explained on this page. Here's a table to help us learn some of these "new" words.


Old word New word
Chairman Chairperson
Mailman or postman Mail carrier or Post carrier
Fireman Firefighter
Policeman Police officer
Salesman or saleswoman Salesperson
Steward or stewardess Flight attendant
Businessman or Businesswoman Executive
Marksman Sharpshooter
Housewife Homemaker
The man in the street The average person

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Saturday 21 March 2020

clinic

Two elderly couples are enjoying a friendly conversation when one of the men asks the other, "Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?"

"Outstanding," Fred replies. "They taught us all the latest psychological techniques, visualization, association, it made a huge difference for me."

"That's great! What was the name of the clinic?"

Fred goes blank. He tries to think hard but just can't remember. Then a smile breaks across his face and he asks, "What do you call that flower with the long stem and thorns?"

"You mean... a rose?"

"Yes, that's it!" He turns to his wife, "Rose, what was the name of that clinic?"


When you "go blank" you don't remember something. You could also say "I have a lapse of memory". Or a "I have a blackout". Choose one and stick with it.

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Sunday 8 March 2020

celebrate

A young monk arrives at a monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks copy the old laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript.

So the new monk goes to the head monk to ask why, signalling that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, nobody would realise it. In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk, says, "You make a good point, my son." He goes down into the dark caves beneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are kept. Hours go by and nobody sees the head monk.

The young monk is worried, and goes down to look for him. He finds him banging his head against the wall and wailing: "We missed the R! Oh God! We missed the R! We missed the R!"

"Father!" says the young monk, "I don't understand!"
The head monk, with tears in his eyes, says, "We missed an R! The word is celebrate!"


When you wail, you shout or cry with a long, high sound because you are in pain, or are very sad. We find the same word in "the wailing wall" and in "Bob Marley and the Wailers".

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Monday 7 May 2018

can't stand

› 𝕎hy do the French like to eat snails so much?
› Because they can't stand fast food at all.


Can't stand" is used to say that you don't like someone or something at all, or that you think that something or someone is quite unpleasant. Sometimes we use "can't bear". The meaning is the same.

In the joke above, the French totally dislike fast food; they can't stand it. Look at Longman Dictionary's entry (and listen to the examples), remembering that "can't stand" and "can't bear" are the same.

Here is the entry: https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/can-t-stand


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pregnant

ℍave you heard the one about the pregnant woman who went into labour and started screaming: Couldn't!, Wouldn't!, Shouldn't!, Didn't!, Can't!, Mustn't!?

She was having contractions.


As you know, spoken English favours contractions. We will as soon say "No, I can't" than "No, I cannot". Here's another joke that discusses contractions. Read it at this page.

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Wednesday 14 September 2011

coffee

A customer orders some coffee in a café. The waiter arrives with the coffee and places it on the table. After a few moments, the customer calls for the waiter.

"Waiter! There's dirt in my coffee!"

"That's not surprising, Sir," says the waiter. "It was ground only a quarter of an hour ago.


The success of this joke hinges on the verb to grind, ground, ground, or moudre in French. Ground coffee.

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Thursday 24 March 2011

church vs. football

By the time Bobby arrived, the football game had already started. "Why are you so late?" asked his friend.

"I couldn't decide between going to church and coming to the football match. So I tossed a coin," said Bobby.

"But that shouldn't have taken too long," said the friend.

"Well, I had to toss it 32 times."

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Sunday 30 January 2011

captain speaking

𝔸 plane got a message on the PA system: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 869, from New York to San Francisco.

The weather ahead is good, and we should have a smooth and uneventful flight.

Now sit back and relax... Oh sh*t!"

Silence followed, and after a few minutes the captain came back on the PA system and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am sorry if I scared you earlier; but, while I was talking, the stewardess brought me a cup of coffee and spilled the hot coffee in my lapYou should see the front of my pants!"

A passenger in Economy said, "That's nothing. He should see the back of mine!"


"Should", originally the past of "shall", is used to give advice, like in the sentence "You should stop smoking". It's used to say what would be the right thing to do, or the right conditions for something.

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