Jules' Words

This week, we had two consecutive dry days - hooray!! It's just phenomenal the effect the weather, esp. bad weather, can have on your mood and your wellbeing. It felt like such a relief to have a slightly longer break in the rain, even if it was only a couple of days - we're back to rain again now.

Work's been fairly quiet this week after one project fell through at the last minute (grrr!) and another hit a (short) delay. That meant I could get out though.

✨On Tuesday, I walked across the harbour to meet a friend for coffee in the morning, then went out again early evening to mooch around the Bristol Light Festival - a series of light installations around the city. More than 20K steps for the day 👣

🖼️On Wednesday, I took the train to Cardiff to visit an exhibition of work by Welsh artist, Gwen John. Thanks to Kath Bilsborough for pointing me towards that one.

Today, I've got a lunchtime online meeting. I need to do some stuff this morning and I don't know whether I'll get out for a later, depends whether it's drizzle or a downpour by then!

Again this week, I've been looking at idioms and multi-word expressions and how they can vary. In particular, I've been pondering the tricky issue of 'leading articles'.

When a phrase or an idiom starts with a noun or a noun phrase, there's often a particular article (a/an/the) that comes before it - a vicious circle, a watched pot never boils ..., the last straw, the tip of the iceberg, etc. This can be known as a 'leading article' and deciding whether or not to show it comes up as a style point in dictionaries and other vocabulary materials. As proficient speakers, intuitively, we often think of these leading articles as a fixed, compulsory part of the phrase. We can't imagine using the idiom without that specific article.

However, when you look at real use in corpus data, the picture isn't so clear. Often a leading article will be used in the majority of instances, but a surprisingly large proportion don't use it. This is because of the way we tend to use idioms, especially of the more traditional kind. We like to play around with them, be creative. It's possibly an urge not to want to seem cliched and unoriginal.

Crucially, though, this creativity relies on the fact that we as the speaker (or writer) know the standard, classic form of the idiom and we assume our listener (or reader) knows it too. That's why the playfulness works. One of my favourite moments in an IATEFL talk was when I asked the audience to call out the word being substituted in the expression "when the proverbial hits the fan"!

You can't break the rules unless you know the rules. In an ELT context, I think that means you have to start out by teaching the classic, standard form of idioms, including those pesky leading articles, even though, you know learners are quite likely to come across variation along the line.

It's been another wet week here and I'm running out of synonyms to describe the unrelenting grimness of the weather! It's actually dry this morning and with a forecast of a 100% chance of rain by midday, I feel like I ought to get out for a now while the going's relatively good. But after another week of high pain levels exacerbated by the cold and damp, I just can't face getting bundled up and going out into the murk. So, I'm calling it quits for the week and posting the few walks I have managed now.

It's been a more interesting week at my desk. I've done relatively few hours because of the high pain levels, but I've dipped a (little) toe into some work in forensic linguistics, which is quite exciting. Some of you will know, I started a Master's in Forensic Linguistics some years back with an eye to a possible career shift. It didn't work out for a whole host of reasons and I didn't finish the course, but it's still an area that really interests me.

Anatomy of an idiom

Last week, I came across a new (to me) US idiom: turn sth on its ear

After looking at some corpus data, I worked out that it means to cause a complete (sudden, unexpected) upheaval in a situation, but then I did a bit more digging and discovered:

🔹it can also be "set sth on its ear" - actually this seems to be the older, more 'classic' form, but has probably been overtaken by 'turn'
🔹you can use a whole range of verbs describing the movement: throw*, stand, flip, etc. sth on its ear
🔹it can be used in a passive: sth was turned on its ear
🔹it can be intransitive: sth turns on its ear

I do love how creative language, and esp. idioms, can be ... but it creates a hell of a headache when it comes to deciding how and what to show in a dictionary entry!

*Not to be confused, of course, with "(throw) sb out on their ear" which is a whole different kettle of idiom!

This week started off on Monday with a lovely day out in Bath to meet up for lunch and a good long natter with ELT pal, Karen White.

Since then, though, the rain has been fairly non-stop and I've barely been out - just a couple of short . We're now up to 44 days of almost unbroken rain here. I'd hoped for a this afternoon, but it's heaving down again 🌧️

At least it means I've been able to get my head down with work. I got one piece of consulting work finished and sent off, I've made a couple of videos (watch out for those upcoming) and I've pondered over a whole host of words and expressions including 'as it were' (which is surprisingly hard to pin down concisely), 'turn sth on its ear' (a new one on me), and 'not gonna lie' (which apparently has a text abbreviation, NGL).

On the local news yesterday evening, they were reporting that January was the wettest month on record in some parts of South-West England, where I live, and that it's rained every day so far this year 🌧️

I try to reframe rainy days as an opportunity to get my head down at my desk and bank some hours (and income) so I can take time off when spring finally arrives and the weather perks up.

BUT short, dark days and endless rain inevitably does affect every aspect of life, including work. As a WFH freelancer, not getting out the house on really wet days (or at best a brief huddled scurry to the local shop) means that I end up feeling lethargic, vaguely headachy and struggling to focus. That means I struggle for motivation and I'm less productive.

I've read and listened to quite a bit recently about dealing with winter and one thing that's struck a chord is the idea of cutting yourself some slack, accepting you'll be less productive and seeing it as a time to rest and recharge. As someone with a chronic pain condition, I already do quite a bit of enforced "resting" and to be frank, it's pretty boring! I'm trying to appreciate the quiet times more, though. I'm looking forward to the start of the Winter Olympics to supply bursts of daytime distraction away from my desk. I've already been watching the curling (which started this week) while doing a bit of knitting 🧶🥌

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Wow, that was a crap week!

Last week, I'd decided to keep track of how my working hours were spread through the week. It's something I did a few years ago and I thought it'd be interesting to do it again. What I didn't realize was that it was going to turn out to be such a bad pain week.

For those who don't know, I've been living with a chronic pain condition for 27 years, so I have to manage my working hours carefully. I aim to work about 15 paid hours a week (plus admin). In a bad pain week, that's sometimes a stretch and in a good week, it's a sensible target to stop me overdoing things.

It sounds like I have loads of free time, but those hours have to be carefully spaced out through the day and through the week to pace myself. And when pain levels are high, almost all my energies go on work, with nothing left for anything else.

I try to go out each day for a although at this time of year, walks are often short and involve a stop in a coffee shop just for a change of scene.

This week, I struggled through Mon-Thu, but by Friday I was completely beaten and didn't manage any real work. I slept late, went out for a walk/coffee, then spent a couple of hours in the afternoon on the sofa reading some academic articles I'd bookmarked on my tablet.

Over the week, I spent 19 hours at my desk in total, 12 of those on paid work. That means I'll need to make up the 3 hours 'under' this week because I can't afford the lost income. Supporting myself on a part-time income is already a challenge, so letting that drop further is too much of a financial stress.

I had an incredibly dull, frustrating weekend resting as much as possible - something that sounds easy but actually takes huge amounts of patience! Pain levels have eased back a little, but I can feel the fragility lurking just under the surface ready to reignite, so I'll need to exercise lots more patience this week.

Hoping for less rain and less pain as we head into February!

It's been a challenging week trying to manage work through chronic pain. And the combination of pain and cold, damp weather hasn't been particularly amenable to getting out for

I have, though, managed to finish my January lexicography hours, get a conference proposal finalized and submitted, book accommodation for in Brighton, and get started on a consulting job

This week started off with a busy day in London for a meeting - and an art exhibition squeezed in too. Back in Bristol, it's been very dark and rainy with mostly short with my hood up and head down!

It's been a productive week though with a fruitful meeting, a deadline met on another project and the first draft of a conference proposal down on the page.