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keep your English up to date

Date: Oct 03 2007

Topic:

Author: jekaterina

Lesson

All the time people begin to use new words in English.New words and expressions are coined and existing words change their meaning as society, culture and technology progress. 
Recently I have studied some of them and decided to share them with you ;)))

There's quite a range of explanations using 'bless' in English, all originally from the religious use of the word. 'Bless you!' somebody says after a sneeze. 'Ah! Bless my soul!' - a rather older fashioned one. 'Bless you!'

An interesting one is, 'Bless your heart!' used mainly by adults talking down - 'Ah! Bless your heart!' - to a child.

And in the 1990s, this remarkable use, the verb by itself, usually preceeded by the interjection, 'Ah!' - 'Ah! Bless!' - that sort of use. Notice the tone of voice there.

I heard it when a little child had a cat snuggling up to her and the parent said, 'Ah! Bless!' And then the child hurt her finger, 'Ah! Bless!' People at the zoo, looking at penguins, 'Ah! Bless! Isn't it sweet!'

Of course, when you get a usage like that it can get ironic very quickly. A politician now in parliament complains of harsh treatment and somebody says, 'Ah! Bless! Isn't it sad that he's so upset!' Or somebody's really trying to do something but not succeeding, 'Ah! Bless!' once again.

It's a general expression of indulgent sympathy - 'Isn't that sweet?' - always with that distinctive tone of voice, always a hint of talking down.
Never, never, never, use it to your boss, not if you want to keep your job!

When the internet began, 'net' became a new prefix. We had words like, 'net news' and 'net speak' and all sorts of things like that. And then it became a suffix as well, hyper net, news net and so on.

And then blends started to appear, with a familiar word changed. So we had 'netizen' - that is, a citizen of the internet, an internet citizen, netizen for short, somebody who lives their whole life there. And these people are also called 'netties', or 'netters' or even 'net-heads', I've heard.

And then we get 'netiquette' - the conventions which govern acceptable behaviour when engaging in internet dialogue. The etiquette of internet, netiquette, especially used in emailing and chat rooms. Many sites actually offer guidance about how to behave linguistically.

There's a joke about this which relies on that little symbol, you know, the @ symbol, which you use in your email address, david.cystal @ so and so dot com. Here's the joke: How do you know you're a real netizen?
Answer: When all of your friends have an @ in their names!

You wanna get on TV? 'In your dreams!' That phrase came in during the 1990s. It meant someone is being unrealistic, very optimistic, very hopeful. Any circumstances in which expectations are raised - in your dreams!

It mixes two senses of the word 'dream' - what happens when you're asleep, of course, and the sense of day dream or reverie - it's a very general use.

And I've heard it said all over the place in recent months. I've heard it said when in a traffic jam, when the driver thought the road ahead was clearing. 'In your dreams!' said the passenger.

And most interesting of all, I've now heard the phrase being extended with the pronoun changing - you see, 'in your dreams' is the second person, but I've now heard it with a first person and a third person. The other day I heard, 'He's going to try for a part in the movie - in his dreams!' - third person. And then one day somebody said to me, 'I hear you're planning a holiday this year'. And I remember muttering to myself, 'in my dreams'!

I hope you enjoyed this material as I did ;)))Smile

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