by Heather Chetwynd | May 24, 2011 | Culture and Values
Like the police officer who confused PASSED AWAY with PASSED OUT (see the joke “Idiom Danger” below,) many of us mix up English expressions. For example, we may blend two idioms, mix up the preposition in a phrasal verb, incorrectly hear the words in an expression or...
by Heather Chetwynd | May 10, 2011 | Voice to Word Post - Other
A friend of mine recently told me a story about a former student who had become a police officer. One day, he was attending a young man who had fainted. Since the young man was unconscious, the officer called an ambulance which whisked him away to the hospital. The...
by Heather Chetwynd | Feb 11, 2009 | Culture and Values
Canadians are often considered indirect because we often soften our comments with questions and suggestions rather than criticizing in a very straight forward manner. (This the subject of another post.) But we are also generally expected to be direct in Canada,...