Expressions
PostSecret
Jun 2nd
Hello everyone,
If you ever read this blog you may have noticed that one of my favourite things to do in my spare time is listen and watch for expressions we’ve looked at in Culips’ episodes! But seriously — I was surfing the net, looking at a site I like to check out from time to time called PostSecret. It is an ongoing art project where people mail in their secrets on postcards anonymously. It started in 2005 and was created by American Frank Warren. At his website www.postsecret.com new postcards are updated every Sunday. Sometimes the secrets are very specific and sometimes the secrets are very general. The cards are always beautiful and interesting.
If you like art and you are learning English this could be a fun site to check out. The English is always simple and there is an image that helps or adds to the written part. This week there is a card that reads “it makes me happy that none of us get a how-to guide/we’re all just kind of winging it.” We looked at this expression on Culips at the end of 2009. Here is a link to this episode if you are curious.
And are you wondering what that postsecret means? The person writing seems to be talking about life and that no one knows exactly what we are supposed to do with our lives, in other words, “none of us get a how-to guide.” We don’t have any big long term plans we are just acting in the moment of life or “winging it.” Here is a direct link to this postcard.
If you check out PostSecret let me know what you think! Does a similar project exist in any other languages?
Stuck in my head
Mar 13th
Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? You keep singing it over and over in your mind.
Last weekend I edited the Catch Word episode about the word wannabe. In it, Jessie and Maura talk about the singer Lady Gaga and how someone might be a Lady Gaga wannabe and dress like her and say provocative things like she does. It’s an interesting episode so check it out here if you want to know what a wannabe is.
Well, ever since I listened to that episode I’ve had Lady Gaga’s song Poker Face stuck in my head. Here’s a short clip of the song. If you’re interested in learning more about what a poker face is, check out our Catch Word episode titled Stone, where Maura and I discuss the idiom poker face.
When a song is stuck in my head, I often find myself humming it out loud too. To hum a song is to make the tune of the song without opening your lips and singing the words. I’m really bad at singing (and actually even at humming), so people can never recognize what song it is.
What song is stuck in your head?
Harp
Snowshoeing!
Mar 5th
Hey all!
I went snowshoeing a couple weeks ago and wanted to share some photos with you. You can see in the picture where we are standing that my two friends are wearing some funny things on their feet. These are snowshoes! They are like shoes for snow. But actually, they are just attachments that go on the bottom of your boots. When you wear snowshoes you can walk in the forest in deep snow and these special attachments help keep you above the snow.
Check out the frozen waterfall behind us.
They actually have snowshoes all over the world and we don’t know exactly when or where they were invented. Here is a link to a little interesting article about the history of snowshoes.
Snowshoe is a noun, but can also be used as a verb.
I had to upload these pictures now, because it seems like it is almost spring in our part of Canada. We have been having temperatures above 0 with lots of sun lately. Hopefully spring has come early this year!
We're taking a break!
Check out my cheques!
Feb 10th
Hi everyone,
One of the things I love about being a part of this podcast is seeing the English that we share here at Culips being used in real situation that I encounter in my life! The other day I was waiting at a cash register to pay for some photocopies and I noticed a box that said “Rain Checks.” Do you know what this means? When I saw this it made me think of the episode that we did talking about that exact expression. You can find it here. Luckily, I didn’t need a rain check that time.
Then it also got me thinking about the word check and how normally in Canada we should spell the word cheque. Many Canadians do not know the spelling differences between what we use here and other countries. This means that even business documents or advertising may contain words spelled incorrectly by Canadian standards. Depending what kind of English you are studying you might see words spelled differently. This is another good reason to check out our section on these spelling differences here. Culips is based in Canada, so we decided to use Canadian spelling, of course.
I wonder if you have ever noticed spelling differences or been confused by them. Or do you think that it is easy to understand spelling differences between Canada, the U.S. and Britain?
Hat Head!
Jan 13th
Hey everyone!
Today (like most days in winter) I was thinking about hat head. I have hat head pretty much every day in winter…and I don’t like it!
Hat head is an expression we use in Canada (and the U.S.) to describe what hair looks like after someone has worn a hat for some time. After wearing a hat for a few hours, the hair is often flat underneath. If you have straight hair normally, the hair underneath may have a line in it. If you have curly hair (like me) when you take off a hat, some of your hair is flat and some is curly.
It is not usually a problem for me in the summer because I don’t wear hats but in the winter most people wear hats because it is so cold. At least others have hat head too and it’s not just me! Lots of Canadians have hat head.
Do you get hat head often?
Do you want to see my hat head? 
And do you know the Canadian word for winter hat? It’s toque (sometimes spelled tuque or touque)!
Hiking around Montreal
Jun 15th
A few posts back, Jessie wrote about Mount Royal (a small mountain located on the island of Montreal). And just outside of Montreal there are even more mountains to choose from! Since the weather in Montreal is getting warmer and warmer I have been lucky enough to get out of Montreal on weekends and get back to nature.
A couple weeks ago some friends and I went to an area outside of Montreal called the Eastern Townships. This is a mountainous region in Quebec. We went to a little town called Mont Orford and enjoyed all the green trees around us and the amazing views on the hike. When we started the hike we were very warm and it was sunny. But when we got to the top, the weather changed and suddenly we needed to wear jackets and long-sleeved shirts. It was so cold! We had goosebumps (little bumps on our skin we get when we feel cold). The weather can change fast here, especially in the spring.
Last weekend we went to the Laurentians, a very popular place for tourists that is north of Montreal. It was also so green and beautiful. There are many cute little shops along the way there. There are many antique (old, valuable items) shops and many little places to eat too.
This time there were a lot of bugs (insects)! My friends and I all got bitten a lot. We were bitten by mosquitoes and black flies. These are two kind of insects that bite people and leave them feeling so itchy! It was worth it though, because the weather was so warm and the country was beautiful!
I have to go scratch my mosquito bites now!
I ran out of batteries!
May 19th
Yesterday was a holiday in Canada. It was Victoria Day. Victoria Day is celebrated on the last Monday before or on May 24 in honour of Queen Victoria. In Canada this holiday is known for camping, parties, fireworks, and hoping for nice weather. (We never know what the weather will be like at this time of year!)
I went hiking this Victoria Day in Mont Orford, which is about a one-and-a-half-hour drive from Montreal. It was a beautiful and calm place to be! Although it was quite chilly, only about 10 degrees. Brrrr! (Brrrr is a cold sound we make.)
I planned on taking some pictures but then I ran out of (had a low or no supply of ) batteries. I hate it when that happens! I had just gotten everyone together for a photo and my camera stopped working. So today I don’t have a picture for you!
Have you ever lost the chance to capture a moment on your camera because you ran out of batteries before?
Dance expressions
Apr 19th
Hi!
Have you already checked out our new episode this week? It was so fun to make for you. This episode is about expressions we have for dancing. It is called “Get Down” which is just one expression for dancing.
When we were working on this episode different dance songs would get in our heads, we would start singing songs with the dance expressions! It was fun!
There are so many songs using expressions for dance it is hard to choose only one video to post! The video today uses the expression “Get Up”. It is an older video from the 1990s that I listened to when I was a kid. The video is pretty funny and out of date (not modern). They use the expression “Get Up” many times.
Here is a short excerpt of the chorus (they actually use LOTS of “get” expressions here):
(starts at 0:35)
Get up, get up
Get busy, do it
Get up and move that body
Get up, people
Now get down to it
Before the night is over
Love at first sight
Feb 19th
Every time that I hear this expression I automatically get this song stuck in my head.
It’s a very catchy and fun song. I really don’t believe in love at first sight in the traditional sense, I don’t think that I could see someone and be in love with them just by seeing them. Even with my boyfriend, I thought right away that he was very cute but I didn’t think that I was in love. BUT I do believe in love at first sight when it comes to shopping! When something catches my eye, for example a beautiful dress, I know that I love it right away. What about all of you? Do you believe in love at first sight? Let us know by writing a comment here.
Harp
The Temperature Challenge
Feb 1st
Brrrr!
- Photo by Ryan King
It’s pretty cold here in Montreal these days, but I’ve been drinking lots of hot tea to stay warm! Maybe that’s why I started to think about all the ways we use temperature words in the English language. There are so many expressions and idioms that have to do with hot and cold!
We can say that someone has “a cool head” if they can stay calm and think clearly in stressful situations. If someone gets angry very easily, we can call them “hot tempered”.
Sometimes, expressions using opposite temperatures don’t have opposite meanings. We can say that someone is “hot” if we think they’re good looking, or “cool” if we think they’re a really great, interesting person. Both “hot” and “cool” are great compliments!
Here at Culips, it seems like we’ve all been thinking a lot about cold temperatures lately. A lot of our recent blog posts mention snow, and a couple of weeks ago we did a Catch Word episode about the expression “to get cold feet”. (If you don’t know what that means, go listen to the podcast!)
Personally, one of my favourite temperature-related expressions is “to be in hot water”. In this expression, the term “hot water” is a synonym for “trouble”. For instance, a guy will usually be in hot water if he forgets about his girlfriend’s birthday!
I’m curious about what other temperature expressions we can think of together. There must be hundreds of them in the English language alone, but I also wonder what kinds of temperature expressions exist in other languages.
So here’s my challenge for all of our readers: (This means YOU!)
How many temperature idioms, phrases, or expressions can we think of? Share them here as a response to this blog post. Just click on the little speech icon to the right of the post’s title and write whatever you can think of. You can include definitions too if you want, but you don’t have to. You could even translate an expression from another language into English and share that! As always, feel free to ask questions too!
Of all the podcasts with 'real world' English examples, I like yours the best. Maybe its the fun you put into the lessons. The students can here that in your voices. And they also feel your dedication to what you are doing - it's just not a job you do, but a gift you give to everyone who listens. And while the students like the Lipservice PDFs for all the information it contains, as a teacher I am impressed by the professional effort put into making them. I give the Culips podcast and the Culips crew my highest recommendation, both as a teacher, and a listener. 
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