Here’s a list of common words which are pronounced the same…
Ad, add
Air, heir
Aisle, isle
Allowed, aloud
Aren’t*, aunt* (RP)
Ate, eight
Oar, or
I, eye
Band, banned
Bare, bear
Base, bass
Be, bee
Beach, beech
Bean, been
Berry, bury
Bite, byte
Billed, build
Blew, blue
Board, bored
Brake, break Leer más
Desert Island Discs is a popular radio show in Britain. In this radio program, famous people are invited to choose eight songs or musical pieces they would take to a desert island. Can you imagine? If you really like music, it would be very difficult for you to choose only eight! Apart from the eight pieces, the guests can also choose a book and an object (which can be a luxury item like a Ferrari or a computer). What would your eight songs be? And what book and what object would you choose to take with you to a desert island?
“Spam” is a kind of recycled pork (pig meat) which comes in a can and which English people used to eat a lot after World War II. Then, years after the celebrated Monty Python comedy sketch with the singing vikings and the married couple at a restaurant which serves spam with everything, the word was adopted by the Internet community to designate any messages you don’t want in your inbox. Here is the original sketch first with English subtitles (long version) and then with Spanish subtitles (they have translated “spam” as simply “cerdo”). At the end of the sketch, a man with a “Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook” interrupts the absurd scene with his obscene language.
There are many TV shows around the world similar to OT or X Factor. But don’t think that all the people who show up at auditions can sing. Some of them are REALLY bad singers. Check out these two. Which one is the worst? Robert (number 1) or Steve (number 2)?
Today people worry about global warming. In the past, they used to worry about nuclear winter. Who knows what will be next. This reminds me of a short poem by Robert Frost called “Fire and Ice”. The only new words for you are probably ”perish“, a verb meaning “to die”, and ”suffice“, a verb meaning “to be sufficient”. Here’s how it goes…
FIRE AND ICE
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
to say that, for destruction ice
is also great and would suffice.
Now listen to the poet (Robert Frost) himself reading those lines.
Oops! Sorry, there is something wrong. For now, here’s somebody else (not the author) reciting the same poem. Note the creative use of camera angles!
There was a time when there were no music videos. It’s difficult to imagine Madonna or Michael Jackson without their video clips. But before the 80’s the important thing was the music, not the images. In 1986 there was a groundbreaking video featuring Peter Gabriel. You can click on it to watch it here. Do you remember it? You are perhaps too young. Don’t forget that your teacher was a teenager when MTV was born (1981). What do you think about MTV? Do you watch it? Is it good or bad for musical creativity? Do you have a favorite music video?
By the way, here are the lyrics to the song “Sledge hammer”:
SLEDGE HAMMER
You could have a steam train
If you’d just lay down your tracks
You could have an aeroplane flying
If you bring your blue sky back
All you do is call me
I’ll be anything you need
You could have a big dipper
Going up and down, all around the bends
You could have a bumper car, bumping
This amusement never ends
I want to be your sledgehammer
Why don’t you call my name
Oh let me be your sledgehammer
This will be my testimony
Show me round your fruitcage
’cause I will be your honey bee
Open up your fruitcage
Where the fruit is as sweet as can be
I want to be your sledgehammer
Why don’t you call my name
You’d better call the sledgehammer
Put your mind at rest
Im going to be-the sledgehammer
This can be my testimony
I’m your sledgehammer
Let there be no doubt about it
Sledge sledge sledgehammer
I’ve kicked the habit
Shed my skin
This is the new stuff
I go dancing in, we go dancing in
Oh won’t you show for me
And I will show for you
Show for me, I will show for you
Yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do mean you
Only you
You’ve been coming through
Going to build that power
Build, build up that power, hey
I’ve been feeding the rhythm
I’ve been feeding the rhythm
Going to feel that power, build in you
Come on, come on, help me do
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you
I’ve been feeding the rhythm
I’ve been feeding the rhythm
It’s what were doing, doing
All day and night
Hi there!
This is not just another ESL/EFL blog. The name “Abrigos pardos” was suggested to me by my old English teacher, the one and only… (drum roll, please) Kike Pascual, as a way to learn the correct stress pattern of the phrase “I beg your pardon”, which so many students mispronounce. He used to tell us a joke about a Spanish student who was spending a few weeks in London. He needed to go to Tottenham Court Road, so he took the tube (the London Underground Train, you know). But he couldn’t pronounce the name of the station he wanted. Finally, he remembered a trick he had learned in English class, and to imitate the stress pattern of the phrase ”Tottenham Court Road” he actually said “Tó te lo dan con ron“.
Unfortunately the young man selling tickets was also Spanish and had the same problem, so he answered: “Abrigos pardos” (”I beg your pardon”), which is what you say when you want somebody to repeat what they’ve just said. Apparently those two had had the same teacher… and that’s the story of “Abrigos pardos”. A funny English alternative to “beg your pardon” would be “Baking powder“. You can hear it in the movie “Wayne’s World”, if you watch it in English.
This blog is specially dedicated to my students of Segundo Bachillerato at IES Villaviciosa, hoping it will help them improve their English skills… OK, more later…