Beneath the Lexicon - with Anna

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Beneath the Lexicon - with Anna Words are more than letters and sound....

Learn a language on Preply starting from $10 and up! Follow the link below to recieve a 30% discount. Hi!

All subjects, all tutors. 👇

https://preply.com/en/?pref=MTMwMzk5MDk=&id=1782999299.500796&ep=a I’m Anna, a native English speaker and ESL teacher. Discover the secrets behind English words through myths, tales, and history, while improving your grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation! Book a lesson with me at 👉 ko-fi.com/annaslexicon

10/15/2026

A few years ago, I watched a student give a presentation in English. Great ideas, strong data, perfect grammar... and within two minutes, half the room was looking at their phones. 📱

That's when I realized: correct English isn't the same as English that connects. The missing piece wasn't vocabulary. It was a story.

So I'm excited to share something new: Beneath the Lexicon, a podcast for anyone learning English, for work, for study, or just for life. 🎙

✨ Short episodes, under 10 minutes
✨ Advice from English teachers and experts
✨ One practical tip to try every week

We're starting with Business English storytelling, and in this first episode you'll get your first tip straight away. 👇

Tell me in the comments: what's the hardest part of learning English for you? 💬

🎁 Want to practice speaking with a real teacher? New italki users get $10 in free credits after their first purchase through my link: https://www.italki.com/affshare?ref=af25930360
(Affiliate link: I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)

10/15/2026

A few years ago, I watched a student give a presentation in English. Great ideas, strong data, perfect grammar... and within two minutes, half the room was looking at their phones. 📱

That's when I realized: correct English isn't the same as English that connects. The missing piece wasn't vocabulary. It was a story.

So I'm excited to share something new: Beneath the Lexicon, a podcast for anyone learning English, for work, for study, or just for life. 🎙

✨ Short episodes, under 10 minutes
✨ Advice from English teachers and experts
✨ One practical tip to try every week

The first episode is live on YouTube now! 👉 https://youtu.be/7gOI7fyH1-0

Tell me in the comments: what's the hardest part of learning English for you? 💬

🎁 Want to practice speaking with a real teacher? New italki users get $10 in free credits after their first purchase through my link: https://www.italki.com/affshare?ref=af25930360
(Affiliate link: I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)

10/13/2026

Did you know the word “tulip” actually means turban? 🌷

In the 1500s, European travellers saw this flower everywhere in the Ottoman Empire. When they asked its name, the story goes, they heard tülbent, the word for turban, perhaps because the flower is shaped like one, or because people tucked tulips into their turbans.

Europe turned tülbent into tulipa, and English made it tulip.

The twist? Turks don’t call it that at all. In Turkish, a tulip is lale, and the flower was so beloved that the years 1718–1730 are known as the Lale Devri, the Tulip Era.

This is the first video in my new series, Words English Borrowed. We start with Turkish, then travel through Yiddish, Slavic languages, Indigenous languages, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Which language are you most curious about? 👇

📖 More word stories on my Substack: beneaththelexicon.substack.com

🍇 Imagine being starving and thirsty, with food and water right in front of you, and never being able to reach them. For...
10/11/2026

🍇 Imagine being starving and thirsty, with food and water right in front of you, and never being able to reach them. Forever.

That was the fate of Tantalus, a king in Greek mythology. He was once so favoured by the gods that he dined with them on Mount Olympus. But he betrayed their trust and committed a terrible crime to test whether the gods truly knew everything. They did.

His punishment: to stand forever in a pool of water beneath branches heavy with fruit. Whenever he bent to drink, the water drained away. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the wind lifted it out of reach. Everything he wanted was always almost his.

From his name, we got the verb “tantalize”: to tease someone with something they want but can’t have.

📌 How to use it:
✔️ A tantalizing smell came from the bakery.
✔️ The answer was tantalizingly close.
✔️ The trailer tantalized fans with a few seconds of footage.

✨ Did you know? In Victorian England, a “tantalus” was a locked cabinet that displayed bottles of wh**ky. Servants could see the bottles but couldn’t open them!

💬 Your turn: What’s something tantalizing you right now? A holiday, a dessert, a weekend that’s still days away? 👇

😈 Do you have a nemesis? The original one was a goddess, and she was keeping score.In ancient Greece, Nemesis was the go...
10/11/2026

😈 Do you have a nemesis? The original one was a goddess, and she was keeping score.

In ancient Greece, Nemesis was the goddess of retribution. Her name comes from a Greek word meaning “to give what is due.” Her job was to restore balance. If someone became too proud, too arrogant, or too lucky, Nemesis made sure they fell.

Her most famous victim was Narcissus, a young man so beautiful and so cold that he rejected everyone who loved him. One heartbroken admirer prayed for justice, and Nemesis answered. She led Narcissus to a still pool, where he fell in love with his own reflection and could never look away.

Today, “nemesis” means an arch-enemy, or something that always defeats you.

📌 How to use it:
✔️ Grammar was my nemesis at school.
✔️ Sherlock Holmes finally faced his nemesis, Moriarty.
✔️ Stairs are my nemesis after leg day. 😅

💬 Your turn: What’s YOUR nemesis? A word, a food, a subject, an alarm clock? Tell us in the comments! 👇

10/10/2026

"Mind your Ps and Qs" 🤔

We all know it means "be polite and watch your behavior"... but why P and Q?

The honest answer: nobody knows for sure! Here are the four most popular theories:

1⃣ Pubs: bartenders tracking pints and quarts on a customer's tab 🍺
2⃣ Printers: typesetters arranged metal letters backwards, and a backwards p looks just like a q 🖨️
3⃣ Children learning to write: p and q are easy to mix up ✏️
4⃣ Manners: "P's and Q's" is short for "pleases and thank-yous" 🙏

Which one do you believe? Comment 1, 2, 3 or 4 👇

📌 Follow Beneath the Lexicon for more stories behind the words we use every day.

10/09/2026

I think my cat is broken...

10/09/2026

There’s no native Japanese word for “mentor” 🇯🇵

Japanese has plenty of words for teacher: 先生 sensei, 教師 kyōshi, 恩師 onshi. For “mentor,” though, it simply borrows the English: メンター (mentā).

And the English word started as a name. In Homer’s Odyssey, Mentor was trusted to guide Odysseus’s son. Most of the time, though, it was really the goddess Athena in disguise. 🦉

Who’s been a mentor in your life? 👇

#日本語 #英語

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