Grammar
Life's a laugh and death's a joke
Having lived in England for about two years I must have been accused hundreds of times of not understanding the famous English sense of humour. It's true to some extent, however, it's mostly caused by cultural differences between England and Poland. The English sense of humour is not considered to be a positive sense of humour as it involves mockery, sarcasm and cynicism. Don't be offended, they will say worse things to you the longer have known you for and the more comfortable they feel in your company, so just accept it. Whereas, in other cultures there are certain situations in which jokes are out of place, the humour in England is constant. "Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true". Although I can't see much fun in insulting each other for laughs there is a part of English humour that I do find highly amusing. I love watching the English talk and how they try so hard to avoiding sounding enthuisiastic. This is based on constant under-statement. A beautiful half-naked model in your bedroom is "not bad" and a serial killer is "not a very nice person". Ok, that's enough for now, I must watch Mr Bean on TV.
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The Road To Fluency
Hi. My last article received a great deal more attention than I could have ever hoped for; and for this I’d like to thank you all as my message has been spread. I appreciate all the comments and e-mails you were kind enough to send to me, it seems that...
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Why English?
I was asked on Twitter the other day how come I decided to study English. The question struck me as practically impossible to answer as I can hardly remember how/why I started. That doesn’t mean I’ve been learning English for a very long time, quite...
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Not Exactly What I Meant
We all make mistakes and it just so happens that some of those mistakes are truly hilarious. I think the funniest ones I come across are made by non-native English speakers, including me. When I first moved to the UK I must have been 18 or 19 and my English,...
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Who You Are Is What You Eat
In Britain people can have different names for certain meals, depending on their social background. It's just another example of our strange eccentricities.Random Idea English investigates, and reminisces ...
One of the less savoury aspects of Britain...
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More On Samsø
Some more links for Samsø.
Photo by Phil LaCombe at Flickr (some rights reserved)
A video from CBS starring a farmer with a very dry sense of humour who likes to be somewhat economical with his words. The accompanying text is here,...
Grammar