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Witty and funny quotes about art by Twain, Bukowski, Edison, Valéry and others
“Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.” (...)
January 1, 2014 – Jakub Marian – English
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The true meaning of the word ‘decimation’
Every time someone uses the word “decimate” in the sense of “severely reduce”, a raging language purist appears out of nowhere explaining (...)
December 30, 2013 – Jakub Marian – English
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Why do hyphens in English adjectives matter?
I’ve just read a nice example of why hyphenating adjectives consisting of multiple words matters in English. Consider the following (...)
December 23, 2013 – Jakub Marian – English
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“Could care less” / “couldn’t care less” in English
It’s always been a mystery to me why some people (especially Americans) say “I could care less”. If you “could care less”, you (...)
December 20, 2013 – Jakub Marian – English
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Internal monologue (“speaking in your head”) as a form of language learning
There is one method I’ve been using for years for every single language I learn: the so called “internal monologue” or “inner voice”. It (...)
December 18, 2013 – Jakub Marian – Language learning
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By the way, have you already seen my brand new web app for non-native speakers of English? It's based on reading texts and learning by having all meanings, pronunciations, grammar forms etc. easily accessible. It looks like this:
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‘Work as a charm’ vs. ‘work like a charm’ in English
The useful English idiom is to work like a charm, meaning “to work/operate perfectly” or “to have exactly the desired (...)
December 18, 2013 – Jakub Marian – English
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‘Wptexturize’ (smart quotes) not working in WordPress
I have recently noticed that smart quotes (aka “curly quotes”) stopped working on my blog (they were replaced by the ordinary (...)
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Pronunciation of ‘fertile’ in English
Interestingly, pronunciation of the word “fertile” in British English and in American English is different:
In British English it is (...)
December 16, 2013 – Jakub Marian – English
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“Information is” / “informations are” – is information plural or singular in English?
This is one of the most common mistakes among English learners. There’s nothing wrong with saying “Informationen” in German or (...)
December 3, 2013 – Jakub Marian – English
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“Different from” / “different than” / “different to” in English
Prepositions are a common source of errors for non-native speakers, but fortunately, this should not be one of them because all three (...)
December 1, 2013 – Jakub Marian – English
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