Original Photo by B J Mullan -  CC-BY-SA 3.0

The Shard at London Bridge is basically a high-rise building in Southwark, London.  It has also been referred to as the Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge or the London Bridge Tower and it is officially the tallest building in Western Europe.  Certainly the most prominent building on the London skyline, the good news is that you can visit the Shard and take the lift to what must be the ultimate spot to get a great view over the capital; it's tall enough to give you a view that takes in the entire city.  The bad news is, it isn't free, in fact it is more expensive than the London Eye.  

There are some words which even native English speakers can find confusing and on occasion get muddled. They may have very similar spellings or pronunciation or perhaps have very similar meanings. 

Stationary and Stationery . The first refers to remaining still and the second to paper goods for writing.

Personnel and Personal. The first is often called Human Resources these days and refers to the staff and those who deal with them – those who engage and fire staff, those who deal with difficulties and arrange holiday rotas etc. The second is to do with what belongs to an individual; his personal affairs.

Nought and Naught. These both mean nothing, but the first refers specifically to the figure zero.

Then there are singulars and plurals. Do you know the plural of the words on the next page? 

When you're sitting on a train or on a 'plane, or eating on your own in a restaurant, you can't help but look at the people around you. I think humans are innately social beings rather than solitary. You can only glance at them for a second otherwise people start to shift in their seats, because they feel that you are starting to invade their personal space. How often have you imagined what people are like just from that brief observation? If I am bored on a long journey I will often do this. We may use certain clues to help us in this quest, what they are wearing for example, and I have blogged on this before.

Are British accents or American accents preferable for ESL learners?

If you are learning English as a second language (ESL) the question of English accents, and whether you should take on a British accent or an American accent, becomes important. Most often the English language is either spoken with an American accent from the United States or with a British accent from England, but English varies immensely. British accents vary from city to city, and American accents vary from state to state, so really there is no superior or preferential English accent. There are also Canadian accents, Australian accents, Scottish accents, Irish accents, South African accents, and New Zealand accents which all have unique sounds and need to be considered when learning English.

In our garden we have several ways to get rid of our garden and general waste. There are two large bins: one is for rubbish which we can’t get rid of ourselves;  small bits of cooked food, although we don’t waste much, and the rest is mostly plastic: All that extra packaging which is considered necessary by manufacturers, but which we used to manage without. You know the kind, it takes special tools just to open a packet of biscuits these days. We bought some new tree loppers, and had to use the old loppers to open the packet that the new loppers came in.  It was almost as if someone was playing a cruel trick. 

There is another bin for green waste. We use that rarely as most things will compost eventually, even what are thought of as toxic weeds; thistles and dandelions, if I can catch them before they seed in they go. It was full this week as we had a tree hit by such strong winds that three branches came off and needed getting rid of.

What Makes One Language Harder or Easier Than Another?

What makes one language harder or easier to learn than another? Unfortunately, there is no one simple answer. There are some languages which have a number of characteristics that make them relatively difficult to learn. But it depends much more on what languages you already know, particularly your native language, the one (or ones) you grew up speaking.