Thursday, December 30, 2010

Oh! those apostrophes!

I ran into this video through the @AdviceToWriters twitter account and I thought it was quite funny:



Deciding when to use an apostrophe is hard for learners of English as well as for native speakers. The most problematic one is definitely <'s>.

So just to make it clear, these are the three situations where <'s> is grammatically correct:

1) When it indicates possession: This is Christine's backpack.
2) When it substitutes the i in IS: Kevin's happy.
3) When it substitutes the ha in HAS: She's got a nice cat.

That's IT!! So, NEVER use <'s> for plurals!!! (you'll find plenty of those mistakes in the video)

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Let it snow!

Well, it will be Christmas this Saturday!

So, here goes our Christmas song for the year: Let It Snow. It's a traditional song and there are dozens of versions of it by many singers, from Boyz II Men to Frank Sinatra.

Here's a slow version by Kylie Minogue, with lyrics:



And here's a slightly different heavy metal version by Twisted Sister. This version is one of my favourite Christmas songs ;-)