The Trickiest Word in English: Quite Tricky!

Vicki Hollett (of Learning to Speak 'Merican) wrote a great blog post for the Macmillian Dictionary blog about the trickiest word in English. In it she writes about a quite tricky English word: quite. 

Image via http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/quite_wordle.bmp

The meaning of quite in American and British Englishes has different meanings. In American English the meaning is rather (quite?) positive, and in British English, it is less than positive:

If your American boss says your work is quite good, should you be pleased or a little concerned? In British English quite good only means pretty good or fairly good, but in American English it’s much more positive. Quite good means very good, so you can give yourself a pat on the back.

As I am a native American English speaker, I consider quite to be positive. If you're an English language learner, how did you learn the meaning of quite? If you're a teacher, how do you teach it? With both meanings? Or just for the country in which you're teaching? What if you teach EFL?

"All art is quite useless" -Oscar Wilde

P.S. Here's the link: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/the-trickiest-word-in-american 

Slash

Here's a great article by Dr. Anne Curzan, a fabulous University of Michigan linguist, on the use of slash as a conjuction, i.e. "I am a teacher slash blogger." I didn't have the opportunity to take Dr. Curzan's class, as she was on sabbatical when I was enrolled in  "her" education course, but I did read her book. I think she's brilliant.




Picture via NPR.org

This is a great example of how typing has influced the way we speak, like when people say "OMG," as they would in a chat, rather than saying "Oh My Goodness."

Here's the full link: http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/04/24/slash-not-just-a-punctuation-mark-anymore/ or read a synopsis of it here from NPR.

P.S. More by Dr. Curzan

Idioms

NPR's Morning Edition had a great story about idioms in English. They interviewed the editor of the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms... a true lover of words. The interview was loaded with great expressions that we use (and often take for granted) every day.

Elephant in the Room via NPR.org and iStockphoto.com

What a great way to share expressions with students who are interested in expanding their idiomatic vocabulary!  I like that so many of our expessions come from Shakespeare, such as "cold fish." We're in the middle of mid-terms now and the one that seems most apropos is "the straw that broke the camel's back." What are some of your favorite expressions?

Check it out here: http://www.npr.org/2013/02/28/173060110/dictionary-of-idioms-gets-everybody-on-the-same-page

Northern Cities Vowel Shift

I have pretty much been obsessed with the Northern Cities Vowel Shift since I went to college and all of my friends from other places (ahem, Tom) highlighted how my Michigander friends and I said his name ("Tam"), as well as many other words, "weirdly." 

Here's a summed up version of this phenomenon from Slate. While it's mainstream and doesn't get into much detail, I wanted to share because, well, I love reading about NCVS. Also love the picture at the beginning of the article:



DA Bears....