Some Business English for you guys. One of my classes the other day had a really hard time understanding the difference between:

A budget
To budget
To budget for
To be on budget
So, I’ll briefly explain how we use these terms. It’s important because using them incorrectly can definitely lead to confusionA budget is a financial document that lays out how you plan to use your money OR how you did use your money. A budget can refer to reality or to a future plan. It contains budget items which are the individual things …Continue

In my post on terms for mistakes in English, I left out a whole category: Mondegreens or misheard lyrics (Mondegreens actually refer to mishearing and misunderstanding any phrase). The name comes from the American writer, Sylvia Wright who recalled how when her mother used to read her the 17th century ballad “The Bonnie Earl O’ Murray.”, she thought one line was: “And Lady Mondegreen.” In fact it was, “And laid him on the green.”
One of the most popular mondegreens is the hearing “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” from …Continue

So Lindsey Lohan wrote a post on her Myspace blog denouncing some comments by her father. I’m not going to get into details and the gossip. However, as the AP News reported, the post is “dash happy”. It uses way too many dashes and not at all correctly.
Here’s an excerpt:
If you have something to say to me, say it to my face- that’s what i have believed my whole life- don’t be a coward and say it to others first, let alone all the media in the world- i think …Continue

I covered some Olympic vocabulary in a previous post and I am continuing the series now with Athletics since that’s the big event at the moment in Beijing.
Athletics or Track and Field, as it is sometimes called has a lot of equipment and therefore its own special vocabulary. Since it’s easier to show you than tell, here is a list of events with pictures that should make it pretty clear, and some key terms:

Discus

The discus is thrown and the winner is the athlete who can throw it the furthest.

Javelin

The javelin …Continue

Since the Summer Olympic Games have opened in Beijing, I wanted to share some Olympics vocab in English. It’s a fun topic and almost everyone watches or at least keeps track of what’s going on. So take a chance to practice your English with native speakers by talking about the Olympics or follow the news in English. Here are some descriptions of key terms by sport to help you out.

Archery is a sport played with a bow and arrow. The participants or archers try to hit the target by …Continue

A British professor faced with horrible spelling by students, suggests if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In other words, professors should accept incorrect spellings as variants
He notably cites among the most common misspellings he sees:ignor for ignore, occured for occurred, thier for their, truely for truly, speach for speech, twelth for twelfth and teh for the (Just kidding about the last one!)
There are acceptable variants in language–particular when it comes to foreign words: Koran or Qu’ran, Kazakhstani or Kazakhstany or Qazaqstany. And professors should probably allow either American …Continue

from AP News
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq and the U.S. are near an agreement on all American combat troops leaving Iraq by October 2010, with the last soldiers out three years after that…
Throughout the conflict, President Bush steadfastly refused to accept any timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. Last month, however, Bush and al-Maliki agreed to set a ‘‘general time horizon’’ for ending the U.S. mission.
You may have seen this news item. While it seems pretty obvious that it is a significant event, you might wonder why I’m quoting it here …Continue

China has been taking great strides preparing for the Summer Olympics which open today. (In fact, why am I blogging when I should have the TV on, waiting for the Opening Ceremonies?) They’ve been cleaning the streets and the air, training the population on how to be polite to tourists and visitors, and teaching service professionals English. Even the private sector is showing great initiative in trying to make visitors welcome and also make a buck. So we should give this restaurateur an A for effort. In order to …Continue

One of many lists of great books that one should read. You can just read the list below and then argue in the comments about which books made the list and which books didn’t. Or you can simultaneously play along and be amazed at my literary prowess. If you want to post the list on your own blog or in the comments you should:
Put the books you have read in bold.Underline the books you lovedItalicize the books you hated (this is my variation)!
1. Pride and Prejudice – …Continue

Most students who want to learn business English are interested in understanding technical terms and phrases like force majeure, marginal cost and vertical integration. However when they get in the meeting room with English speaking businessmen, they hear a lot of strange terms like getting everyone on board or thinking out of the box or synergy
Some of these new terms, sometimes called office speak are useful, but a lot of them are pretty silly especially when used by bosses who think that using a new word makes them a better …Continue