How can I say...

Hi there folks!
I guess you all know www.forvo.com, but I'm pretty sure this one is all strange to you guys: http://howjsay.com/

For those who are into the british accent, like me, that's an awesome website for spending free time!

See you!!!

In the words of the ancients...

Actually, my post is about what (and how) the moderns say =) You probably have a friend who's your pocket dictionary, to whom you ask the meaning of any and every word you may stumble upon. Maybe you are such a subject! Like me! What I find attractive about this is that my fellow human dictionaries and me are capable of giving more flexible definitions which may not be as accurate as the ones given by our official counterparts, but surely hit the mark more often. Bearing that in mind, I present you a little discovery of mine which has given me quite a share of new knowledge and amusement: the Urban Dictionary!

http://www.urbandictionary.com

This site works exactly like that friend of yours only instead of one person you can hear people from everywhere in the world giving their own definition of a word or expression. It's pretty useful for searching slangs and unusual expressions (e.g. expression generated in the Internet, such as "lol"). Let me give some examples:

Textrovert: a person who feels boldened when communicating by text (in opposition to doing this in person) or who can only reveal his or her true feelings in written form.

Bromance: a deep friendship between two straight males who are so close their relationship is almost a marriage

Zonked: to be in a state of extreme exhaustion or under the effect of drugs

Mouse Potato: someone who spends too much time in front of the computer (similar to 'couch potato' which refers to people who watch too much TV)

Of course, it's predictable there will be a lot of vulgarity. I'll keep from posting some of them since I know Tássio-san wouldn't be pleased by my doing so. Instead, I'll give you a couple more curiosities. By the way, some definitions you'll find in this site don't refer to words, but facts or ideas.

Mozarting: Screaming while peeing in a public urinal as to make others frightened

F'shizzle my n'izzle: A bastardised version of "Fo' sho' nigga", which is a bastardised version of "for sure my nigga", which is a bastardized version of "I completely concur my african-american brother"

French military victories: Early mistake by Google that when you typed "french military victories" it would say "No entries. Did you mean french military defeats?"

And now for a last round, I'll explain some of the expressions I used in this post:

Hit the mark: to be correct, suitable, or successful

Bear in mind: to remember a piece of information when you are making decisions or thinking about a matter ((often + that))

[Source: http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com >> a good site for searching idiomatic expressions]

e.g. : it means "for example" and its cousin is "i.e." which means "that is" (when you explain the same thing with different words).

[Source: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/e.g.html >> this site has a list of common errors in English which may come in handy (be useful): http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors]

That's all folks! Hope you've enjoyed the post!

Intense inactivity? Or discrete action?

Something is comming. I now it.

Just put your patience to work while I go fetch it.

As usual

Long time no see folks!

Again, some er... short time has passed since our last update. Dio must be rejoiced. But there is always and explanation. What is it? No need to tell, some things are best left unknown.

As for a quick note on English-learning lately, I can say that I had the chance of reading The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and Elwyn Brooks White. The book is a classic on English writing. It was written in 1918, and even so was very easy to find (!). Yes, I didn't read it by chance, I was looking for the book. I was pointed to it by the references of the great book LaTeX: a Document Preparation System, by Leslie Lamport.

Even though some of the advised spelling pactices are out of date (to-day things are different, as surely as the writers of to-morrow will not spell as we do) the reading gave me a handful of interesting insights on important aspects of writing (and also of not writing). Let me tell it another way. Writing involves much more than laying down words in a gramatically acceptable way. Writing is (can't help thinking has to be) connected with communication, thus implying the existence of a recipient for the message. It is then that things get messy. As long as the main goal is to have the message conveyed, the necessity of a transparent containter for it will be highly important. The text is the container of the message, the clearer it is, the "tastiest the milk" (Paulo Feofiloff). Plainly speaking, that was the line I followed while reading the book (it may not apply directly to literary writing).

So much for this post.

Take the plunge

Some people just seem to have a screw loose. Skittish as you might be reading this, bide your time to interrupt and while you do so piggyback on this post, whose contents run the gamut from commonplace to the tech-related vocabulary.

So what about it? Could you follow me? If so, please head to another blog—I don't suppose there is something new for you below. Otherwise, c'mon fellow, let's have a bit of fun.

Firstly a word or two, as usual, on the provenance of such a flood of unusual expressions (here I am imagining you've never seen them), for the whole lot (sic) was found at the same place—the book Computer Networks, written by Andrew Tanenbaum.

I am still surprised to have found such a fountain of unknown at a tech-book. Delightedly surprised. Customarily, the most those books offer, after you've read some of them, is some there-and-there new expression, for generally there are few completely new ideas being presented. (Books on programming, I must say, tend to display a more informal tone, which leads to a higher density of new expressions per chapter...)

But let us pull up our sleeves and get down to work. What is a screw? My dictionary (Cambridge Advanced Learner's) brings a rather funny definition (there's more to it than I actually transcribed below. the main point here is to give you folks an idea of the feeling which stuck me at the time I read it),

A thin pointed piece of metal with a raised edge twisting round along its lenght and a flat top with a cut in it, which is used to join things together, especially pieces of wood.

After that, I was on the verge of turning o google's image search when the penny finally dropped. (I did the search anyway, it couldn't hurt...) The description was fine, and the expression is identical to one in portuguese: to have a screw loose is to be mad, or to have lost the ability to reason well.

Heading on, I can say someone (or some animal) is skittish if he or she is nervous and easily frightened, or (only for people) if they're likely to change their minds frequently.

When you bide your time for doing something, you wait patiently until ou have the opportunity to act; by its turn, to piggyback is to be carried on the back of someone, with your arms round their neck and your legs round their waist (I used that expression figuratively, above). Finally, as for run the gamut, it is used to refer to a range of things (read the first paragraph again if you didn't graspt it, and I am sure you will then).

Surprised? I was, when I learned these expressions' meaning at first (then a second and a third time, as I couldn't help forgetting them... an issue I think is now solved as I have myself written them down). What is really awesome is that I happened to come across two of those very brand new (to me) expressions elsewhere the same week I've seen them for the first time! I heard run the gamut on an Obama's interview, while a professor at university happened to say piggyback during a lecture!

Small world, that's all I can say, for so many expressions... and yet that's a big stimulus to keep to studying English, don't you think?

Nuts

Hi everyone,

I can say I have been saving things too much for too long now. Perfectionist as I may be, there is surely a sort of ultimate extent to which I can delay posts in order to come up with something innovative and interesting.

But that limit is far gone and I still didn't want to publish anything. Then the gods decided to make something happen, and a divine poke woke me up. Thanks Dio!

Before I go ahead with the main content of this post, I'd like to update you on what has been my recent English activity. Well, I have recently finished reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (fabulous book by the way, wrote by Robert Louis Stevenson) and dove into a (unexpected) reading, The Road to Reality—A complete guide to the laws of the universe, by Roger Penrose. As the latter author was a complete strange to me, I decided to do a little search on his background.

Penrose (Sir Penrose, as I happened to learn) happens to be a little more famous than I expected. There's even (sic) a page on him at Wikipedia. The "praise for the book" (section in a book where quotes of newspaper and magazines telling us how great the book is are displayed) as well as a section on the author told me a little about him— for example, that he has worked with Stephen Hawkings, and he lectures at Oxford. All in all (and as far as I can tell just by its beginning) this seems to be a enriching reading experience. Future will tell.

Now back to the main point of this post (which will seem rather short when compared to all the talking about books above)—nuts.

I learned two expressions with the word nuts (more precisely, nut) recently. I must tell that by then the only thing I could remember was that going nuts is the same as going mad, plus that The Nutcracker's Suit is the name by which I recognise the geat work of Tchaikovsky.

At first they startled me, really, because I couldn't make out their sense. These expressions were of the sort of words that are a nut to crack. There are some people as well (coming to think of it), which are a (hard or tough) nut to crack.

In a nutshell, if something is a nut to crack, it is a difficult problem to solve, or a person (difficult) to understand. I could say, for example, that throughout my life some girls have been a nut to crack to me.

On the other hand, in a nutshell is used to say in one (or the smaller possible number of) word(s), as in

There is more to playing go than just reading variations. It is required that the good player displays a sharp judgment of the equilibrium of the positions, a certain patience when pondering, and yet the energy necessary to pursue eagerly and passionately the counterattack when under disadvantage—something that a computer cannot achieve. If we then bear in mind that the mere reading of sequences is out of question (given the astronomical number of them), we could say, in a nutshell, that a good go player needs to have instinct tempered with wisdom.

And that's all for now, folks!

A place for everything and everything in its place

Next week is going to be a week of happenings. The English course ends, the classes start (4th year at college! Still two to go though...) my sister turns 19... and so it will be a week full of consequences (I have a composition to handle in, an exam to do, a party to throw, and lectures to attend to *sigh*). On top of that I still have some personal notes from last semester to organize. Busy week ahead.

But first things first. I was going to work on the composition, or maybe study for the exam, but I felt like postponing it and blog-posting before. I know, surely, waiting until the bottom of the ninth to do things is an old and bad habit I must drop, and that is right on top of my goals for this year (cross your fingers, I might manage it). But some twenty-minute delay won't do any harm.

Secondly, I would like to share two expressions I came across recently. Take a peek at the example below:

'You'd better not drop the ball this week again.'
'Why that? You say it as if it had been me, who'd broken the scanner!'
'Just wake up and smell the cofee, all right? You know you were the only one at the office when it happened!'

When someone "drops the ball', they make a blunder, or fail in some way. And 'wake up and smell the coffee' is something you say to someone in order to make them aware they're wrong about something they should realise.

Finally, a note on the expression

A place for everything and everything in its place.

It is used to say that the best way to keep tidy is having a place in which to place each thing, and to keep them there. A nice and funny definition can be found at the Urban Dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=Reginald+Spaz
compare to the definition at the Phrase Finder:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/14400.html

My farewell!

More on being back.

Back I am, a result of. . . yeah (again) I am doing an intensive holiday english course. But that doesn't matter, let's work our fingers to the bone now and for as long as we can. That said, compromise made, let your hair down, and get anxiety off your chest. It's not going to be all boring. Remember: all work and no play will make Jack a dull boy.

What some people recently pointed out, (putting my nose out of joint by the way) is that they just had to migrate to other blogs, once mine was depressingly discontinued. That made me sad. . . I mean, think. I like having a finger in every pie, and that usually leads me to scattering my focus and energy over a large number of activities - put simply, I do nothing properly, even though I do lots of things. For that I think I can be sorry.

Having experimented a little on many things lately amounts to a bigger knowledge and a better selection of my pies this semester. . . Hopefully I'll be more focused and will be able to fournish the world with a better output, metaphoricaly and geekly speaking. So much for the reckless maintaining of my notes.

As now I am receiving a continuous input of publishable information (aha, there're the stimuli), I reckoned it wouldn't be really painful to have one rack-my-brains session or another every two or three days, so as to write down something for you guys (as if there's anyone left).

Then keep your eye on it, there are going to be more posts.

Back. (?)

Hi everyone. Back again, yes we are, hopefully, thanks. It is not worth explaining the. . . perceptible disruption in tadpoles' updating, and therefore I shall go straight to business (to satisfy those sharp wondering minds as for the motor behind the ressurection, I can spare two words: holiday course).

Blood is thicker than water.

As usual, a little saying to season the post. The above sentence is used in order to convey the idea family bonds are stronger than others. Sort of expression likely to be listened to as one's lectured by one of their parents, if they're creative enough.
Also, and that's the context in which I happened to hear the expression, it can be used to justify one's unexpected attitude, as in:

'Weren't you "dead tired"? Why didn't you go straigt to bed and went shopping then?'
'My grandma's asked me to help her with the shopping. You know, blood's thicker.'

I could (and definetely would like to) write a lot more. But let's save it for the future. Lastly, to the sceptics about "tadpoles strikes back", can't help but say

Better late than never.