Updates 2021

This page features only the updates for 2021. Click here for 2020,  2019,  2018,  2017  and  2015-2016.

 

21 December 2021

While I'm not going too mad for our Christmas and new year edition, we do have:

• An updated Christmas rant. Titled The 12 Crazes of Christmas, I take a very light-hearted and extremely tongue-in-cheek look at why Christmas in Poland isn't as fun as it should be.

• My annual compilation of miserable student one-liners. It's been a quiet year, but I've still managed to get a good number in there, including a few not published before.

• The best of TEE in 2021. A look at the most popular pages accessed on this site over the year.

• A special ULTIMATE crossword  with over 200 clues - all the answers are irregular past participles!

So that's not too bad. Do have a happy Christmas, happy holiday and a stay-safe-and-healthy 2022!

Miserable student quote: 'I asked my girlfriend what she wanted for Christmas. She said "Nothing would make her happier than a new smartwatch. So I bought her nothing.'

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15 December 2021

Only just over a week to go to Christmas, but while I'm not going too mad for our Christmas and new year edition on the 22nd, we will have an updated Christmas rant, a new compilation of miserable student one-liners and a summary of the popular pages on this site. Until then, it's Not4grammarbores - anaphora, rhetorical device, and tautology.

Miserable student quote: 'I used to work at a calendar factory, but the bosses didn't like you taking a day off. Somebody once stole a calendar too, and he got twelve months.'

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8 December 2021

Well, it's almost Christmas so we have lots of new glossary terms to add to Not4grammarbores - sarcasm, litotes, understatement, sentiment, embellishment, exaggeration, hedging, emphasis, stress, accent, and pitch.

Miserable student quote: 'It took me ages to read the 300-page instruction book for my new washing machine. But eventually I celebrated when I finished the Ukrainian section.'

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1 December 2021

We have more new glossary terms to add to Not4grammarbores - metonymy, synecdoche, and irony.

Miserable student quote: 'I went for a job interview at IKEA. I knocked on the interviewer's door and opened it. She said, "come in and make a seat"...'

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24 November 2021

We have more new glossary terms to add to Not4grammarbores - articulate/articulation, consonance and tongue-twister.

Miserable student quote: 'They say that money talks. Mine always says goodbye.'

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17 November 2021

We have more new glossary terms to add to Not4grammarbores - verse, rhythm and assonance.

Miserable student quote: 'When I was at school, I was told to consider a career in making handles. They told me it would open doors.'

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10 November 2021

We have more new glossary terms to add to Not4grammarbores - hyperbole, allusion and symbolism. I'll be adding a few more over the next few weeks.

Miserable student quote: 'I was a judge at a furniture naming contest. One guy wanted to call his design a slideable table box, the other wanted to call it an internal desk container. I decided to call it a drawer.'

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3 November 2021

We have more new glossary terms to add to Not4grammarbores - end-focus, end-weight, finite verb/clause and non-finite verb clause. I'll be adding a few more over the next few weeks.

Miserable student quote: 'Recipes are like science-fiction books. You look at the end and you think "Well, that couldn't possibly happen." '

 

20 October 2021

We have three new glossary terms to add to Not4grammarbores - discourse, dummy subject, and dynamic verb. I'll be adding a few more over the next few weeks.

Miserable student quote: 'You know you're not university material when your TV or your collection of games is bigger than your collection of hard and soft copy books.'

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6 October 2021

We have three new glossary terms to add to Not4grammarbores - aspect, cohesion, and complement clause. I'll be adding a few more over the next few weeks.

Miserable student quote: 'What have politicians and babies' nappies have in common? They both need changing regularly, and for good reason!'

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28 September 2021

What's this? An update? A new piece of information? Has this author finally got off his bottom - or rather, sat back down on his bottom - to create something new for all his loyal readers and followers? Well, yes he has - and it's one of those things that has been annoying me for some time as it is an often-made error and it keeps coming up in my conversations. And now I can proudly announce that we have a new entry in What's the difference - and it's those lovely confusing verbs make & do! (Or do & make if you like.) So you can finally find out the difference, if you didn't already know. Those who have the book version of TEE will notice this is a slightly expanded entry. So - maybe this is a sign of more new material to come? Maybe - but I can't guarantee that, unfortunately...

Miserable student quote: 'I'm terrible at spelling. I mean, how many 'F's' are there in the word 'pharoah'? '

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9 June 2021

Hi, not a new update as such, but a little explanation as to why these are not so frequent. First, I'm not only very busy with English lessons, but also I'm still in the process of writing new conversation material and beginning the process of updating many of the quizzes that go with the conversations. So what I'll be doing in the future is that, if and when I have time, I'll post new material on this site; it won't be on a fixed day of the week, but basically, when it's done.

Miserable student quote: 'It's weird, but I've noticed that the older you get, the earlier everything seems late.'

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19 May 2021

A new entry in misunderstandings, and a nice modern mistake: pandemia, along with some more detailed explanations of that virus that should not be named. But I've named it anyway.

Miserable student quote: 'Being told I'm ageing gracefully is saying in a nice way that I'm slowly looking older. And worse.'

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28 April 2021

Another updated entry from the TEE book, and this week we have been trying to make the confusion around the word 'occasion' a bit clearer. Or maybe we've made it even more confusing. So in misunderstandings, we try to explain why 'I have no occasion to do something' is not considered the best way to express yourself if you have no time to do something...

Miserable student quote: 'Oh my goodness! The water's been cut off! How am I supposed to make coffee now?'

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21 April 2021

This week, and probably on a regular basis, I'll be posting updated entries from the TEE book, and this week we have in Confusing words the difference between talk about and speak about. Basically, with informal spoken English, none really...

Miserable student quote: 'A man walked into a bar. It hurt.'

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17 March 2021

In Not4GrammarBores, a grammar term that for some reason has been left out for a long time but is quite important: inversion. In addition, the blog on music streaming now includes a vocabulary list.

Miserable student quote: 'I'm not very empathetic, but I know friends who are so I can only imagine how they must feel.'

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10 March 2021

No new material as such, but I've been trying to make the website more mobile phone friendly because, well, it wasn't. This will take a number of weeks, but the worst affected pages have been sorted out so this website should mostly be readable on your smartphones. So for all you people writing to me saying you can fix the job for me as you are all working for/as specialist experts who do this sort of thing, well, you can stop now.

Miserable student quote: 'Two conspiracy theorists walked into a bar. ...or did they?'

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17 February 2021

Some additional material added to our perfect tenses feature, and the fact that the past perfect is used in third and mixed conditionals.

Miserable student quote: 'I booked a table for Valentine's Day. But it wasn't a good night - my girlfriend doesn't play snooker.'

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3 February 2021

Finally, some more material to add to the website. This time, it's another blogspot text (without a vocabulary list, I'm afraid - it's simply for you to read the text and practice your English), and attempts to answer the questions as to why, like the Earth and climate change, the rock and pop scene is dying unless we do something about it - and streaming is very much to blame, but it's not 100 per cent because of Spotify...

Miserable student quote: 'What does ignorance and apathy mean to me? I don't know and I don't care.'

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