English is as easy as ABC

12/03/2026

Some common verbs that are normally followed by -ing forms:
admit, appreciate, avoid, burst out (cryinglaughing), consider, contemplate, delay, deny, detest, dislike, endure, enjoy, escape, excuse, face, fancy, feel like, finish, forgive, give up, (can’t) help, imagine, involve, keep (on), leave off, mention, mind, miss, postpone, practise, put off, resent, resist, risk, (can’t) stand, suggest, understand

10/03/2026

Last night, PC HILL and PCSO STANSFIELD were honoured to be invited to join the Shrewsbury Muslim Centre to share in Iftar — the evening meal that marks the end of the daily fast during Ramadan.
We were joined by Shrewsbury Mayor, Cllr Alex Wagner, local councillors and members of the Shrewsbury Interfaith Council.

We spent time speaking with the Imam and attendees about Ramadan and Islam, community safety, and how we can continue to build strong relationships across Shrewsbury’s diverse cultural and faith communities. Events like this strengthen the relationships that keep our town safe, inclusive, and connected.

A huge thank you to everyone at the Shrewsbury Muslim Centre for your warm welcome, kindness, generosity and incredible food ☪️

05/03/2026

Clamp
[transitive, usually passive] (British English) to fix a clamp to a car’s wheel so that the car cannot be driven away
• be clamped Her car had been clamped.
• She’d been (= her car had been) clamped.

18/10/2025

A teacher walked into the classroom and noticed that the chair he was supposed to sit on was hanging from the ceiling. He looked at the pupils and smiled. Without saying a word, he went straight to the blackboard and wrote:

Test – 15 minutes, 30 marks

Q1. Calculate the distance between the chair and the floor in centimetres. (1 mark)

Q2. Work out the angle at which the chair is inclined to the ceiling, showing your calculations. (1 mark)

Q3. Write down the name of the pupil who hung the chair on the ceiling, together with the friends who helped. (28 marks)

22/09/2025

Subject-Verb Agreement 3
Verbs always agree with the subject noun in a sentence:

I always go to work early.
She always goes to work early.
We are old.
The house is old.

However, there are many types of noun and noun phrase in English, and it can be difficult to know if a particular noun takes a singular verb (such as DOES / HAS / AM / IS ) or a plural verb (DO / HAVE / ARE). Have a look below for some commonly difficult nouns:

1. And, Or, Neither, Nor.

'The King and Queen are coming!' (They...)

When two nouns are joined with ‘and,’ we use a plural verb. But, when the two objects are so commonly classed together that they become thought of as one unit, we use a singular verb.

'Fish and chips is the best meal a man can have.' (It...)

Or when two nouns refer to the same thing (so be careful!)

'The new CEO and majority shareholder is coming.' (One person - He or She...)
'The new CEO and majority shareholder are coming.' (Two people - They...)

When two singular nouns are joined with ‘or’, we use a singular verb, but if singular and plural nouns join in this way, the verb agrees with the closest noun to it. This is also true with expressions using either/or and neither/nor.

'A pizza or a curry is being delivered.'
'A pizza or 3 curries are being delivered.'
'3 pizzas or a curry is being delivered.' * (This sounds strange because English tends to put the plural last. 'A pizza or 3 curries are being delivered.' is more natural.)

'Either the cat or the dog goes.'
'Either the cat or the dogs go.'
'Neither I nor my family has stolen anything.
'Neither my family nor I have stolen anything.

2: Separated subjects and verbs.

Sometimes in English we separate a subject and verb. This usually happens because of a prepositional phrase, which is used to describe or qualify a noun. They begin with a preposition such as: of, about, with, on, off, above, around, etc. For example:

'This bunch of bananas is ripe'
'These bunches of bananas are ripe.'
'The house down the lane is very cheap.'
'The houses down the road are very cheap.'
'The attitude of the people has remained unchanged.'
'The attitudes of the people have remained unchanged'

This can lead to some very long complicated sentences (although nouns as long as this example are unlikely):

The builder of the house of my family with the blue overalls in the white car on the main road just over the bridge next to the school is a nice man.

Fortunately, the solution is simple! Ignore all the prepositional phrases between the ‘head’ noun and the verb! This tells you which word to make the verb agree with.

'This bunch ______ is ripe'
'These bunches ______ are ripe.'
'The builder ______ is a nice man.'

This is true unless it’s a portion, like ‘half of the cake.’, where the verb agrees with the noun after the 'of' (see Subject Verb Agreement part 2)

3. Singular or plural verb with a cleft sentence.

A cleft sentence is a structure English speakers use to emphasise a particular point. They often, though not always, start with a WH word.

'What really makes me angry is people who throw rubbish on the ground.'
'When I'd really like a holiday is next week!'
'Where he's been is in hospital.'
'The most interesting thing I saw last week was the elephant at the theatre.'
'The biggest mistake I ever made was driving home for Christmas.'

However, cleft sentences often use very large subjects (What really makes me angry) and long complements (people who throw rubbish on the ground) and because of this the verb can agree with the subject or the complement – which means, in the case of a plural complement – the verb is plural.

'What really makes me angry is people who throw rubbish on the ground.' (Verb agrees with subject)
'What really makes me angry are people who throw rubbish on the ground.' (Verb agrees with plural complement)
'The most interesting thing I saw last week was the elephant at the theatre.' (Verb agrees with subject)
'The most interesting thing I saw last week were the elephants at the theatre.' (Verb agrees with plural complement)

16/09/2025

bite the ˈ‍bullet
(informal) to start to deal with an unpleasant or difficult situation which cannot be avoided
• I wasn’t happy with the way my career was going so I decided to bite the bullet and look for another job.

03/09/2025

binge-watch
Word forms: binge-watches, binge-watching, binge-watched (verb) =

binge-watch
verb [ I or T ] (informal) /ˈbɪndʒˌwɒtʃ/ =
to watch several episodes (= separate parts) of a television series or programme, one after another [Cambridge]:

• We binge-watched an entire season of "Breaking Bad" on Sunday.
• If you binge-watch a television series, you watch several episodes one after another in a short time.
[informal]
• It's not uncommon for viewers to binge-watch a whole season of programmes in just a couple of evenings. [VERB noun]

binge watching (noun) /ˈ‍bɪndʒ wɒtʃɪŋ/
[uncountable] = the practice of watching several episodes of a TV show on one occasion, usually by means of DVDs or digital streaming [OLD]

the practice of watching a large number of television programmes, especially all the shows from one series, in succession [Collins]

• Sometimes nothing beats a night of binge watching on Netflix.
• This gangster series is tailor-made for binge watching.

23/02/2025

คำศัพท์น่ารู้

#ข่าววันนี้ #ฟีดดดシ #คอร์สภาษาอังกฤษ #เรียนออนไลน์ #ขี้นฟีดด้วยเถอะ

04/02/2025

Ali was on his way to the classroom. Suddenly he saw dark clouds in the sky and he realised that he had just hung the washing out.

What can you infer from this?

21/12/2024