Sharing time!

After watching Brazil Vs Ivory Coast and cursing each Ivorian player I decided to surf on the Internet and check my Twitter.

As I'm a good CPE student, I've been following some English Written Newspapers and then I came across with the following Twit headline: "@cnni China 'steals U.S. thunder' ahead of G20 http://bit.ly/drGc6C"

This isn't the sort of news that would call my attention, but that idiom "Steal one's thunder", that was something special. Something that I could not left behind. Something that made me wade through this article. I remember I've already seen this idiom before, for sure it was one of Friends' Series episodes and shamefully I've forgotten to look this up.

As a matter of honor and pride, I decide to google it and them stumbled across this amazing website:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/index.html

This website is a corpus linguistic bank of idioms. It gives you the meaning and the origin of what you are looking up.

eg. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/steal-ones-thunder.html

To my mind, showing the origin of the idiom is one of this website special features as I always questioned myself and others when the idiom didn't make sense. At last, Higor will nevermore be interrupted by my annoying questions. LOL

There is also this website I would like to share about Language corpora:

http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/

It helps you to check the use of a word in context and also gives you the frequency rate it's used (like google).

Well, my goal here is to propose our classmates, future classmates and fellow teachers to share whatever is useful for our learning.

Danilo Antonietti Bertoni - CPE 2

Last Straw on the Camel's Back

Dear all,

Yesterday I was reading “Alphabet Weekends” by Elizabeth Noble (those who read all the comments here on this blog are going to remember me) when I came across the idiom that ended up being my idea for this post: LAST STRAW ON THE CAMEL’S BACK.

Well… Initially, the great attractiveness of it was the mental picture of a camel; I’m crazy about them, my car key ring – imagine! – IS a camel and HIS name is André! (This manic appreciation for animals also involves giraffes, but I’ve never heard of any idiom related to those poor babies).

Anyway, after having tons of fun imagining a camel doing whatever cute camel-like thing in the middle of the desert, I decided being a responsible learner and that was when I opened my favorite dictionary.

What I learned, though, was very sad. Suddenly, all the magic was over and I saw my beautiful camel with this horribly aching back, tired of working, breathless and cursing whoever dared to find it cute (me).

The idea of this idiom is almost something like I can’t put up with. In my friend’s case, he just can’t put up with any more straws (that yellow long grass used as bedding and food for animals or used to produce baskets or hats).
Here is something that I read on GoEnglish.com:

There is a limit to how much straw (long yellow grass) a camel can carry on its back. If you keep putting more straw on top, it will finally break the camel's back.

…. BREAK THE CAMEL’S BACK?? That is VERY mean. VERY mean. For crying out loud, people! I can even hear my André crying (out loud)!

Sad as it is, the idiom makes a lot of sense. When you are at your last straw, you are so furious that you simply won’t take any more of anything. Like my mother bothering me (I love her) when she wants me to eat more and more when I’m not hungry. It just feels like saying: “Please, give me a break! Next time you mention food in your speech, I’m gonna EXPLODE! It’s gonna be the last straw on the camel’s back!” (the idiom part, obviously, is something that I’m gonna include from now on, spicing up my protest)

Finally and quoting from Cavalcante, Higor, reading is all we need. (Beatles? All we need is love? Bullshit! What is love, anyway?). By reading, we will learn massive vocabulary and I do know that this is the only way if we wanna pass the frightening CPE with an impressive A (A?).

So, next time you get REALLY pissed, instead of adding more troubles to your André’s back, just go for a read (HA HA HA! What a pun! I’m such a great comedian!). After all… you don’t wanna hurt the camel inside you, do you?

By Débora Benedetto, CPE 1, mornings.