Category

Learning Materials

Language SkillsLearning MaterialsLearning TipsListening SkillsMusic Video reviewSong reviewVocabulary

Nicky Minaj’s lyric videos

written by Francisco Sanjurjo

One of the useful things about the internet is that you can find almost anything and that also applies to sources of information and learning materials, whatever your needs might be. If your needs are learning about your favourite artist’s lyrics, no matter how bizarre they are, you can find that out too!

The first source of information is obviously the artists themselves: lyrics still come with the CD, don’t they? But if you like an artist and you don’t have the CD… there is still hope for you!

One of the trends for artists to promote themselves has been to create lyric videos: it is cheaper and you help your fans or potential fans learn your lyrics which may bring them to attend your concerts. Let’s face it, concerts bring the money today, not selling records.

Anyway, in order for a lyric video to be successful you need to mix two ingredients: appealing lyrics and good visuals.

Some artists like Katy Perry have taken this seriously. Others have great material… but they did not do it themselves! It was the fans instead. This is the case for Nicky Minaj’s song starships. A fan made this video, which I think is visually great. Judge for yourselves!

Now this is real fun, isn’t it? It also helps you teach some stuff:

1) Lyrics are well timed with the sound so you can use them to work on stuff like vowel length or even intonation.
2) If your students often whine about not learning “real English” and fancy themselves streetwise, this is something you can retaliate with.

Now about the lyrics themselves, as you may have noticed there is a couple of problems: first, non-standard spelling (you can also use that to teach pronunciation as well as to emphasize how there is a place for bad spelling but out of it you should use the correct one!). Besides, you can challenge your students to find out where the video-maker went wrong with the lyrics: at some point in the lyrics he writes nigga, where Ms Minaj says “my name is Onika, but you can call me Nicky”. A great example to work on the difference between /k/ and /g/.

Additionally you can use the contents you will find on Rapgenius:

Rapgenius.com Nicky Minaj’s “Starships”

This is an interesting source for both teachers and students: it is a kind of wikipedia for lyrics. There is a lot of debate between comments and that is a great excuse for discussion in class.

Now, sit back and enjoy!

3rd October 2013 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
GrammarLanguage SkillsLearning MaterialsReading Comprehension SkillsVocabulary

Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes (BBC NEWS article)

written by Francisco Sanjurjo

Here’s my third in a series of articles that I woudl use for reading comprehension practice. This time it is about babies. Even if you do not have a baby, you can benefit from learning more about babies, mothers and related stuff. Enjoy!

Thanks to the writer and the BBC for this wonderful article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415

By Helena LeeBBC News

For 75 years, Finland’s expectant mothers have been given a box by the state. It’s like a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys that can even be used as a bed. And some say it helped Finland achieve one of the world’s lowest infant mortality rates.
  1. Expectant mothers: women who are going to have a baby (so they are pregnant already!)
  2. starter kit: a collection of things given to someone who is going to start something: for example this.

 

It’s a tradition that dates back to the 1930s and it’s designed to give all children in Finland, no matter what background they’re from, an equal start in life.
The maternity package – a gift from the government – is available to all expectant mothers.
It contains bodysuits, a sleeping bag, outdoor gear, bathing products for the baby, as well as nappies, bedding and a small mattress.
  1. To date back: to start or originate at a specific date.
  2. Outdoor gear: clothes and equipment used outside buildings.
  3. nappies: pieces of clothing or synthetic material used by babies to control pee and poo.
  4. Mattress: the thick surface on the bed where people sleep.  

 

With the mattress in the bottom, the box becomes a baby’s first bed. Many children, from all social backgrounds, have their first naps within the safety of the box’s four cardboard walls.
Mothers have a choice between taking the box, or a cash grant, currently set at 140 euros, but 95% opt for the box as it’s worth much more.
The tradition dates back to 1938. To begin with, the scheme was only available to families on low incomes, but that changed in 1949.
  1. Cardboard: a material stronger than paper and weaker than wood.
  2. Cash grant: an quantity of money given to a person in order to pay for something. That money must be given back but without paying an interest or at a very low.
  3. Opt for: choose something.

 

“Not only was it offered to all mothers-to-be but the new legislation meant that in order to get the grant, or maternity box, they had to visit a doctor or municipal pre-natal clinic before their fourth month of pregnancy,” says Heidi Liesivesi, who works at Kela – the Social Insurance Institution of Finland.
So the box provided mothers with what they needed to look after their baby, but it also helped steer pregnant women into the arms of the doctors and nurses of Finland’s nascent welfare state.
In the 1930s Finland was a poor country and infant mortality was high – 65 out of 1,000 babies died. But the figures improved rapidly in the decades that followed.
  1. Mothers-to-be: pregnant women.
  2. to steer: to make something go in a specific direction: a car, a ship, a group of animals. (Steering wheel: what a driver uses to move the car right or left.
  3. nascent: something that started recently.

 

Mika Gissler, a professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, gives several reasons for this – the maternity box and pre-natal care for all women in the 1940s, followed in the 60s by a national health insurance system and the central hospital network.
At 75 years old, the box is now an established part of the Finnish rite of passage towards motherhood, uniting generations of women.
Reija Klemetti, a 49-year-old from Helsinki, remembers going to the post office to collect a box for one of her six children.

 

  1. Welfare: socially accepted conditions that are needed by everyone. Usually found in the expression “welfare state“.
  2. Rite of passage: an event or activity that is considered necessary to start a new period in life, typically adulthood. (note: “-hood is a very frequent ending that signals an abstract noun, such as: neighbourhood, childhood, parenthood…”)
“It was lovely and exciting to get it and somehow the first promise to the baby,” she says. “My mum, friends and relatives were all eager to see what kind of things were inside and what colours they’d chosen for that year.”
Her mother-in-law, aged 78, relied heavily on the box when she had the first of her four children in the 60s. At that point she had little idea what she would need, but it was all provided.
More recently, Klemetti’s daughter Solja, aged 23, shared the sense of excitement that her mother had once experienced, when she took possession of the “first substantial thing” prior to the baby itself. She now has two young children.
“It’s easy to know what year babies were born in, because the clothing in the box changes a little every year. It’s nice to compare and think, ‘Ah that kid was born in the same year as mine’,” says Titta Vayrynen, a 35-year-old mother with two young boys.

 

  1. Eager: excited about a future event; looking forward to something.
  2. to rely (heavily) on something: to use something as help. If you rely heavily on something it means that you are using it a lot as help. For other meanings of rely on, please look here.
For some families, the contents of the box would be unaffordable if they were not free of charge, though for Vayrynen, it was more a question of saving time than money.
She was working long hours when pregnant with her first child, and was glad to be spared the effort of comparing prices and going out shopping.
“There was a recent report saying that Finnish mums are the happiest in the world, and the box was one thing that came to my mind. We are very well taken care of, even now when some public services have been cut down a little,” she says.
When she had her second boy, Ilmari, Vayrynen opted for the cash grant instead of the box and just re-used the clothes worn by her first, Aarni.

 

  1. unaffordable: so expensive that you can’t pay for it. (to afford: to be able to pay for something)
  2. free of charge: you don’t have to pay anything.
  3. to be spared the effort: if you are spared the effort, you don’t have to do something that would have been an effort for you. See spare.
  4. to take care of: to make sure that something or someone is in good condition, safe, healthy.

 

A boy can pass on clothes to a girl too, and vice versa, because the colours are deliberately gender-neutral.
The contents of the box have changed a good deal over the years, reflecting changing times.
During the 30s and 40s, it contained fabric because mothers were accustomed to making the baby’s clothes.
But during World War II, flannel and plain-weave cotton were needed by the Defence Ministry, so some of the material was replaced by paper bed sheets and swaddling cloth.

 

  1. deliberately: something has been done with a specific intention.
  2. fabric: a clothing material elaborated in a specific manner: cotton, wool, polyester, spandex, flannel…
  3. flannel: a fabric used very commonly for things such as winter pyjamas or shirts. Very warm.
The 50s saw an increase in the number of ready-made clothes, and in the 60s and 70s these began to be made from new stretchy fabrics.
In 1968 a sleeping bag appeared, and the following year disposable nappies featured for the first time.
Not for long. At the turn of the century, the cloth nappies were back in and the disposable variety were out, having fallen out of favour on environmental grounds.
Encouraging good parenting has been part of the maternity box policy all along.
“Babies used to sleep in the same bed as their parents and it was recommended that they stop,” says Panu Pulma, professor in Finnish and Nordic History at the University of Helsinki. “Including the box as a bed meant people started to let their babies sleep separately from them.”

 

  1. ready-made clothes: clothes which you buy in the shop, instead of buying the fabric and making them at home. 
  2. stretchy fabrics: fabrics such as spandex (lycra) which are very useful for some baby clothes.
  3. sleeping bag: you sleep in one of these when you go camping.
  4. disposable nappies: one-use nappies which you buy at the supermarket.
  5. Cloth nappies: nappies made of cloth (usually cotton or linen) which are washed and re-used.
  6. fall-out of favour: something which people used to like, but not anymore.
  7. on environmental grounds: for reasons connected with the protection of the environment.
  8. to encourage: to motivate someone to do something, helping them, creating favourable conditions…
  9. Parenting: the activity of being a parent (being a father or a mother).
  10. all along: from the beginning to the end without relevant interruptions. See along.
At a certain point, baby bottles and dummies were removed to promote breastfeeding.
“One of the main goals of the whole system was to get women to breastfeed more,” Pulma says. And, he adds, “It’s happened.”
He also thinks including a picture book has had a positive effect, encouraging children to handle books, and, one day, to read.

And in addition to all this, Pulma says, the box is a symbol. A symbol of the idea of equality, and of the importance of children.

 

  1. to remove: to take away from a place or situation.
  2. breastfeeding: giving a baby its mother’s milk.
  3. picture book: usually a children’s book, with very little or no text.
  4. to handle: to use and manipulate. Typical in boxes “handle with care“.
Additional reporting by Mark Bosworth.
3rd February 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
GrammarLearning MaterialsReading Comprehension SkillsVocabulary

DDT linked to Alzheimer’s

written by Francisco Sanjurjo

A new post in my series dedicated to reading skills, we will have a look at an interesting article about the connection between DDT, a banned pesticide in most countries, and the current epidemics of Alzheimer’s disease.

See below the link to the original article. Thanks to BBC News and the article’s writer for the excellent work!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25913568

28 January 2014 Last updated at 00:32 GMT

DDT: Pesticide linked to Alzheimer’s

By James GallagherHealth and science reporter, BBC News

Exposure to a once widely used pesticide, DDT, may increase the chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease, suggest US researchers.
A study, published in JAMA Neurology, showed patients with Alzheimer’s had four times as much DDT lingering in the body as healthy people.
Some countries still use the pesticide to control malaria.
Alzheimer’s Research UK said more evidence was needed to prove DDT had a role in dementia.
  1. Exposure: contact with something, like a chemical product or radiation or UV rays…
  2. once: in the past
  3. widely used: many/most people used it.
  4. researchers: scientists looking for some information.
  5. four times: a multiplying factor. e.g. He earns four times as much as I do: I earn 20,000 he earns 80,000.
  6. evidence: something that proves a theory or a crime, etc… in this context “scientific evidence”.


DDT was a massively successful pesticide, initially used to control malaria at the end of World War Two and then to protect crops in commercial agriculture.

However, there were questions about its impact on human health and wider environmental concerns, particularly for predators.
It was banned in the US in 1972 and in many other countries. But the World Health Organization still recommends using DDT to keep malaria in check.
  1. massively: very widely and in big quantities.
  2. crops: plants grown by humans in a systematic way.
  3. concern: if you are concerned about something, you are interested, usually because you are affected. Also a little worried.
  4. to keep (malaria) in check: to control malaria, to keep it under control.

 

Not clear

 

DDT also lingers in the human body where it is broken down into DDE.
The team at Rutgers University and Emory University tested levels of DDE in the blood of 86 people with Alzheimer’s disease and compared the results with 79 healthy people of a similar age and background.
The results showed those with Alzheimer’s had 3.8 times the level of DDE.
However, the picture is not clear-cut. Some healthy people had high levels of DDE while some with Alzheimer’s had low levels. Alzheimer’s also predates the use of DDT.
The researchers believe the chemical is increasing the chance of Alzheimer’s and may be involved in the development of amyloid plaques in the brain, a hallmark of the disease, which contribute to the death of brain cells.
to linger: to stay longer than expected or needed. Click here for more information.
Prof Allan Levey, the director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centre at Emory, said: “This is one of the first studies identifying a strong environmental risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.
“The magnitude of the effect is strikingly large, it is comparable in size to the most common genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s.”
Fellow researcher Dr Jason Richardson added: “We are still being exposed to these chemicals in the United States, both because we get food products from other countries and because DDE persists in the environment for a long time,” .
Dr Simon Ridley, the head of research at the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “It’s important to note that this research relates to DDT, a pesticide that has not been used in the UK since the 1980s.
“While this small study suggests a possible connection between DDT exposure and Alzheimer’s, we don’t know whether other factors may account for these results.
“Much more research would be needed to confirm whether this particular pesticide may contribute to the disease.”
  1. Strikingly: surprinsingly.
  2. onset: start to develop
  3. chemicals: chemical products.
  4. charity: a charity is an organization that wants to do positive things for other people. 
  5. relates to: is connected to
  6. suggests: says, but not directly
  7. whether: if 
3rd February 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
Language SkillsLearning MaterialsLearning TipsListening SkillsMusic Video reviewSong review

Katy Perry’s Lyrics Videos

written by Francisco Sanjurjo

Hello everyone,

When I was a teenager, listening to music helped me a lot in order to boost my confidence in speaking and to improve my listening. Usually people tend to listen to some music over and over, because they are their favourites. That means they end up memorizing some songs and those can become a very good guide to expand your abilities in those two skills.

In this post I am going to use as an example one of the most popular artists in pop music these days, Katy Perry. She is probably the artist who has made most official “lyric videos” (as they are known). You can find many of these videos for many artists, but they are usually made by fans. For each of them, there is a conventional video, of course.

PART OF ME

The first video is for the song “part of me”. The conventional video features a story about a girl who finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her and leaves him to start a new life… as a Marine! The lyric video transmits the energy and determination which can be found both in the lyrics and in the story told in the video.

But the reason I have chosen this video is, obviously, because we can learn english with it! The most interesting thing about this song is how packed it is with … phrasal verbs! I keep repeating to my students how phrasal verbs are useful, condensed pieces of meaning and that is why native speakers use them so often. So here is a list of the interesting vocabulary in this song, including its phrasal verbs:
  1. To drive away: to go away, to leave a place driving a car. Other similar phrasal verbs include sail away (by boat), fly away (by plane or helicopter…), run away, and many other possible combinations with similar meanings.
  2. Shadow: it is easy to confuse shadow and shade. Shadow is the shape projected by something which stands in the sun or any other source of light. Shade is the effect created by a shadow or also a reference to very small differences in colours. See “50 shades of Grey”. Check out the word nuance, with a similar meaning.
  3. To fade: to disappear gradually.
  4. To chew up: to chew (break in pieces with your teeth) something completely. Here in the song she is referring to how she felt her boyfriend treated her. There are probably hundreds of phrasal verbs in which “up” creates a similar meaning (doing something completely or with great intensity).
  5. To spit out: to expel from the mouth. Spit is also the liquid we produce in the mouth to prepare food for digestion. Someone or something which is nearly identical to another thing or person is said to be its “spitting image“. By the way: it is an irregular verb: spit-spit-spit or spit-spat-spat.
  6. Like I was: In red because you need to be careful. This is a colloquial way of saying “As if I were“. Feel free to be colloquial, but be aware of it!
  7. You drained me down: the lyric video effect at this point is perfect, because to drain down means to extract all liquids from a place or thing. What a vampire would love to do with your blood, actually!
  8. To take away: extremely common phrasal verb. Also found as a noun: tonight we are having Chinese takeaway; or as an adjective as in “Chinese takeaway food”. 
  9. Throw your sticks and stones: a reference to a nursery rhyme in english “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. The meaning is that if you are insulted that does not really hurt, only physical violence.
  10. Throw away: another phrasal verb. Get rid of something by putting it in the garbage bin.
  11. Find out: another phrasal verb. I lost count, honestly!
  12. To rip someone off: To rip means to separate two things which are naturally connected. For example to rip a piece of clothing in two pieces. To rip someone off has the meaning of making someone pay an abnormally high price for something which should be much cheaper. In this case the price is not money, but the singer’s unhappiness. 
  13. Tearing at the seams: this means that something is at full capacity and a little more. Seams are the connections made with thread between pieces of clothing, for example at the side of a pair of trousers. So if something is tearing at the seams, it is probably near breaking.
  14. To let down: to make someone unhappy because they expected something better from you.
  15. To put out: to extinguish a fire.
  16. It don’t mean nothing: again a colloquial, grammatically incorrect expression. It should be “it doesn’t mean anything.

 

WIDE AWAKE
Here the video is cleverly structured as a Facebook timeline. Here are the interesting expressions in this song:

 

  1. I’m wide awake: it means that you are completely awake, not sleepy and your eyes are wide open.
  2. I was in the dark: I was completely ignorant.
  3. To read the stars: to be able to predict the future or to find which way to go, as sailors do.
  4. ain’t: this verb form is colloquial and it is used instead of “aren’t”, “isn’t”and “am not”. 
  5. to dive in: Literally to jump head first into the water. Instead of water it could be any kind of situation.
  6. to bow down: to lower your head showing submission or respect.
  7. falling from cloud 9: cloud 9 means a place or situation of extreme happiness. So to fall from cloud 9 is very bad, isn’t it?
  8. I’m letting go tonight: to let go means to eliminate self-control.
  9. to lose sleep: as in spanish, it refers to the idea of not sleeping for an unimportsnt reason.
  10. to pick up every piece: after something falls to the floor and breaks, you pick up every piece. In this case, it must be her heart.
  11. To land on your feet: what cats are supposed to do when they fall! See here.
  12. born again: after some traumatic experiences, people feel they are born again.
  13. the lion’s den: where a lion and his family sleep. A very dangerous place.
  14. thunder rumbling: the sound of thunder. 
  15. castles tumbling: to fall rolling on itself. So a combination of rolling and falling. Also what ice cubes do in a tumbler, which is a kind of glass used for drinks such as whiskey. After you wash your clothes, you can put them in a tumble dryer, and they will come out all warm and dry. Your clothes tumble inside it. For an example of a building (not a castle) tumbling down, see here.
  16. To hold on: to stay in a position or situation, for example on the phone.
  17. To see the bright side: to be optimistic. See the expression “every cloud has a silver lining”. (Lining, the inside protection layer of some clothes like jackets, coats, etc. )

 

ROAR

 

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/e9SeJIgWRPk&source=uds

This one, “roar”, is a bit tricky. The “emoji” icons from the well known app “whatsapp” are used but you can still follow the meaning. As with the other videos we can discover or review a number of useful words and expressions.

 

  1. To bite my tongue: exactly the same as in Spanish. What you do when you would love to say something but if you say it the effects will be negative.
  2. To hold my breath: to stop breathing. For example under water. Here it is a figurative meaning. 
  3. Rock the boat: to rock means to move from side to side. If you rock a boat what happens? And this is a rocking chair.
  4. To make a mess: to make something dirty, disorganized, chaotic or create a problem which is difficult to solve.
  5. To push someone past the breaking point: to annoy or make someone suffer so much that they can’t stand it anymore.
  6. To stand for something/anything/nothing: to defend something, to show that you are in favour of it.
  7. To brush the dust: Usually when you fall to the ground, you get dirty and you need to brush the dust from your clothes. If you fall in a metaphorical, non-physical way, when you recover you brush the dust too.
  8. The eye of the tiger: from a song in the 70’s which became famous for being part of the film “Rocky”. It means absolute focus.
  9. Stinging like a bee: bees have stings at their back, so they can defend themselves or their beehive (colony).
  10. To earn your stripes: the expression comes from the military. The more stripes you have, the higher ranking you are and the more merits you have made to achieve it. Also, bees have stripes and fight (a reference to the previous expression.

 

8th February 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
App ReviewBook ReviewLanguage SkillsLearning Materials

Practical English Usage: The book and the App.

written by Francisco Sanjurjo
Probably if you are reading this, you are already familiar with Practical English Usage as a book, and know how practical it is. There are many other interesting, well-known books, like Quirk and Greenbaum’s A Student’s grammar of the English Language which I used in college. There are plenty of books on grammar geared specifically either to students or to their teachers.
Other grammar books include exercises. I have already spoken in one of my old posts about the classic English Grammar in Use which continues to be an excellent reference book for students and teachers, either in its original form or in its manifold reincarnations.
But this one is just there to help you solve doubts. It is clear, easy to use and to the point. And now there is an app and for which I gladly paid a little over 20€. The opening screen looks definitely familiar.

The look and feel inside is equally practical and nifty. Since it is an app, the in-built instructions on how to navigate it are welcome:

 

The app offers you several “views” or approaches to the information. Watch out for the icon (flower? cabbage?) which appears on the front of the book and to the right of the word index in the following screenshot. (To the right of the word “index”):

Here the same icon appears next to “contents overview”,  but transformed, because it is a different view.

Yet another view, the topic index search. Again, the icon tells you which environment you are in.

Do you remember that grammar point you searched a while ago? The app remembers it for you.

And if you want to keep tabs of the grammar points you like, you can create favourites. Remember your old book full of bookmarks and highlighted sections?

Although I wonder what this is doing in a grammar book, I think it is very welcome anyway in a reference book.

All in all, it is as complete as the book on which it is based, the interface is simple and practical and it allows to manage the information in useful ways. The creators seem to have had in mind what people use the book for, and so the result is really functional. Because I am a sentimental, sometimes I go back to my old paper version, but I can carry this around with me, even in my phone!

9th February 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
GrammarLearning MaterialsReading Comprehension Skills

Google pays for the ride

written by Francisco Sanjurjo

Reading skills are important! Today, I will look at this article about how authorities and corporations can collaborate to benefit the community.
See below the link to the original article, from a great newspaper, the New York Times (NYT for short!) Below the link you will find the article chopped in pieces (not pretty, I know!) With my comments. Feel free to leave your opinions in the comments section or contact me directly here.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/google-pays-for-the-ride/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Google, which has been at the center of a controversy in San Francisco over tech company shuttles using public infrastructure, is giving $6.8 million to fund a city transit program.
Shuttle :a transport service between two points. Usually a bus (although spaceships that go to the orbital station are also called shuttles!)
To fund: to provide (give) money for some activity or project.
The program, whose city funding runs out in June, provides monthly bus and streetcar passes to 31,000 low-income San Francisco youths ages 5 to 17. It began last year after the San Francisco school system reduced the use of buses transporting students to and from school. The program gets youths to school, after-school programs and jobs.
To run out: to use completely some resource or supply. “We will run out of petrol, we need to go to a petrol station soon.
Streetcar: a vehicle , between train and bus, that runs on electricity from a cable, usually on rails, on the streets. They are an iconic image of San Francisco.
Low-income: it applies to people whose salaries are low.
Youths: young people.
 
Mayor Ed Lee’s office called the gift “one of the largest private contributions towards direct City services in San Francisco history.” Google will fund the program for two years.
Towards: in a specific direction.
Protests against Google began with anti-eviction activists, angered by the increasing gentrification of San Francisco, blocking its commuter shuttles that run down to the valley. The private shuttles use city bus stops to load and unload their passengers, which prompted lots of ire among less privileged residents. A resolution worked out with the city means Google and other tech companies will pay $1 per stop.
Eviction: to make someone leave their house or office because they can’t pay it.
To anger: to make someone angry
Gentrification: a process by which an area’s population changes and only richer people live in it. (From gentry=aristocracy and/or rich people)
To load: to put something in a place, usually a vehicle or something that moves like an elevator or machine. You can load a truck (BrE: Lorry), a car, a computer. Other connected words are unload (the opposite) and download/upload used to talk about files and the internet.
To prompt : to motivate, to make something happen, to cause something to start. A teleprompter is a machine used on TV by presenters which will show them the text they need to say.
Ire: extreme anger.
 
On Feb. 15, members of Heart of the City interrupted the Wisdom 2.0 conference. As three Google speakers introduced a presentation on “Three Steps to Build Corporate Mindfulness the Google Way,” demonstrators rushed the stage with an “Eviction-Free San Francisco” banner.
 
Demonstrators: people who walk on the streets to protest against something. This action is called a demonstration.
To rush the stage: to occupy the stage quickly.
Banner: A (usually big) piece of cloth or plastic with a message written on it. Also a very common form of advertising on websites.
“San Francisco residents are rightly frustrated that we don’t pay more to use city bus stops,” said Meghan Casserly, a Google spokeswoman. “So we’ll continue to work with the city on these fees, and in the meantime will fund Muni passes for low-income students for the next two years.”
Rightly (frustrated): you have a solid reason to feel frustrated (or any other feeling).
Fees: amount of money paid for a service.
In the meantime: the period that happens between to points in time, two events. Synonym for “while”.
Passes: A card or similar document that allows you to use a service by paying only once a month or once a year. Common for means of transport.
 
San Francisco Muni (Municipal) passes. (Photo credits: About.com)

9th March 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
GrammarLanguage SkillsLearning MaterialsLearning TipsReading Comprehension SkillsVocabulary

Hackers and fridges… internet security!

written by Francisco Sanjurjo

Here you have, yet another article: here some investigators found that among the devices used by hackers in an attack there was… a fridge. Yes that’s right. Here is an article (see the link below for the original) about what happened.

Warning: the topic is very interesting, but the article is very advanced and has incredible quantities of vocabulary…

Hacked by your Fridge? When the Internet of Things bites back

In the rush to embrace the Internet of Things and weave connectivity into every aspect of our everyday lives, security must not be forgotten argues Stephen Bonner
 
To hack: to cut into something with a heavy weapon like an axe. In internet vocabulary to access without permission a website or network, by breaking their security barriers.
Internet of things: a recent concept which means that “things” (computers, kitchen appliances or climate control systems) use the internet to “talk” to each other, without interaction with humans.

To bite back: to defend yourself by biting, like a dog, when you have been bitten first.
Rush: impuse to do things quickly, often with the risk of making mistakes.

to weave: the traditional way to make some kinds of clothing or carpets, by inserting different threads or yarn, forming patterns. See here.
To argue: to defend an idea by giving arguments to support it. 

A man holding open the world's first touch-screen fridge

Security first: are we forgetting the risks in a rush to embrace the Internet of Things? Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
The common kitchen fridge has always been a potential source of trepidation. Most people will admit that, at some point in their lives, they have opened the fridge door fearful of finding food well past its ‘best before’ date, leading to the scuppering of well-made dinner plans, or worse infecting the household with unfortunate viruses.
 

Trepidation: being nervous or worried about something.
Fearful of: feeling fear that something will happen or appear.
well past its “best before” date: the best before date is the recommended date to consume some products. If it is “well past” it is probably dangerous to consume that product.
scupper: to ruin

As technology advances, so too it seems does our fear of fridges. Only last month there were reports of web-enabled domestic devices (including fridges) being hacked and used to generate spam email messages.
 

Only last month: “Only” here is used as “just” to reinforce how recent this happened.
Web-enabled: Devices that can connect to the web.

It led to wonderful headlines such as “Help! My fridge is full of spam!”, but the humour belies a simple truth. We live in a world where ever more devices are becoming network enabled. Just a few days ago, for example, a heating ventilation contractor was alleged to be under investigation as the possible source of intrusion into a major retailer’s electronic point of sale terminals. Remote monitoring of store temperature and energy consumption is commonplace in the retail sector and might have provided a possible route in.


It led to: to lead/led/led. To give directions, guide or give someone example. also to introduce the consequences of some action. Here the funny headlines are a consequence of the hacker attack. Also, a person who leads is a leader.
to belie: to contradict and invalidate. e.g. What the police found out belies what the criminal declared in court.
Ever more: constantly increasing quantities
heating ventilation contractor: a contractor is a supplier that provides you some services, like building or maintenance. And you have a contract with them.
Alleged: not necessarily true or false but people think so. The alleged thief (we don’t know if he was the thief or not).
Point of sale terminals. A point of sale is a place were things are effectively (* check second meaning) sold, usually with machines that can manage money or credit cards. Those machines are called terminals nowadays because they are connected to a central computer.

In the labs, we have already seen attacks against Insulin Pumps and Pacemakers; with the Food and Drug Administration in the US issuing guidance on the cyber security of medical devices. At home, it might be the Internet connection on your television or games console, the smart meter talking to your domestic devices over a home area network, or your car providing remote diagnostics and maintenance information back to its manufacturer.


labs: places where scientists work making experiments.
insulin pumps: devices that supply insulin to patients, usually fixed inside their bodies.
pacemakers: devices that help the heart regulate its rhythm in patients who have a history of cardiac arrest.
smart meter: devices that measure your utility consumption (e.g. water, electricity, natural gas) and send the information wirelessly to the supplier. Therefore they don’t need to send anyone to read the meter regularly.
home area network: the area and electronic devices connected to a local area network (LAN) in a house. 
remote diagnostics: using electronic devices to diagnose medical conditions without going to a hospital.

In our commercial environments we see intelligent printers and photocopiers, sophisticated building management systems, and now, the advent of Bring Your Own Device – at this stage ‘only’ a phone, but who knows what employees will wish to connect to the corporate network longer term.
 

Bring your own device (BYOD): Option some companies and schools choose, where they let workers or students use their own hardware (laptops, tablets…) for work or to attend classes. 


Bring Your Own Device
Analysts suggest that this explosion of multi-connected devices, known as ‘the Internet of Things’, will grow to over 26 billion connected devices by 2020, a thirty fold increase on today’s figures, and a market valued at over a trillion dollars.


thirty fold: Thirty times: if you multiply something by a factor of thirty, you make it thirty fold.
a trillion dollars: the number ONE followed by twelve zeros. A spanish billion. Compare:

1,000,000 = a million
1,000,000,000 = a billion (USA); a thousand million (Spain)
1,000,000,000,000 = a trillion (USA); a billion (Spain)

Yet, before we become too excited about the prospects offered by new connectivity, it is worth pausing to think about security.


Excited: anticipating or feeling something intensely. (sexual excitement is called arousal and the verb is to arouse/to be aroused).

On many occasions we have seen functionality fielded first, with security following as an afterthought. For example, we are now seeing industrial control system security rise to the top of the list of concerns, even though the first SCADA systems were fielded in the mid 1960s, albeit with very much more restricted network connectivity.


to field: to deal with something, usually a problem or some work. (= to address a problem)
afterthought: something added, casually, after something has been said and finished.
e.g. He signed the contract and as an afterthought he said: Maybe I should have read the contract more carefully, but what’s done is done.
albeit: however

In my experience, attackers, whether they are Nation-State driven or organised crime, can be surprisingly innovative in their choice of attack technique. An unprotected device can provide the first toe-hold for an attacker, allowing them to establish a presence in your company or home network, before moving on to their final, more lucrative, target.


nation-state: a state where all citizens are supposed to have a feeling of belonging to the same nationality. e.g. France
to drive: to lead, to make something or someone move in a specific direction. In this case crime motivated by the government of a country.
toe-hold: a very minimal contact or support point. This expression takes its meaning from the sport of climbing, where you use your feet – and your toes, if you are barefoot – and you hold to the mountain wall with your hands and your feet. Usually foothold is the word used. In contrast toe-hold means that the position is very weak and unstable. 
Note: toes are the fingers in your feet. In your hands in contrast, we have eight fingers and two thumbs (the big, thick opposable fingers).

While we will never conceive of the whole range of attacks when we first design a device, it does make sense to spend a little time thinking about the dependencies it introduces, how it might fail, and what might be done to counter the more obvious attacks including some basic design changes.


to counter: to compensate for something, for example by defending yourself from an attack.

At the risk of complicating how our devices work, some basic use of encryption to protect communications against tampering would help, along with authentication to ensure that only authorised users can interact with or manipulate devices.
 

to tamper: to manipulate something in an inappropriate manner, by someone who doesn’t know how to do it or to make it stop working properly.
to ensure: to make sure. (contrast: to insure: to sign a contract with an insurance company to protect people or goods; to assure: to make someone feel sure about something with words or evidence.

We may also need more flexible approaches to how we protect our networks. For instance, our home computer may be well protected behind a firewall and running malware detection, but possibly segregated from guest networks which host less well protected devices such as our fridge and games consoles. Corporate networks often now make use of Network Access Control, which ensures that only devices which are patched and running anti-virus are allowed to connect to the network. We could see these approaches extended to home networks.
 

Firewall: a protective system in computer networks. Also a wall in a building which will prevent the spread of a fire.
To run: to operate, to make something work. Often used with computer sofware.
Malware: a kind of computer software whih is designed to attack or damage computers an/or networks.
To host: a term used when talking about computer servers, to speak about the information or software that is stored in it. The collocation “host server” is common.
to host also means: to let someone stay in your house or to organize an event, such as a party, in your own house. People attending a party are the guests. A TV host is a TV presenter. 
To patch: to fix a hole by using a piece of material that is applied on the hole to cover it. Traditionally in clothes.

Perhaps we should also be a bit more picky about which traffic leaves our networks. Many security professionals have been surprised at just how many different internet sites our devices choose to talk back to, even when we think they are idle or even switched off.
 

Surprised at: surprised in a “negative way”.
idle: not working, but ready to do so, like the engine of a car at a traffic lights
switched off: completely disconnected.
grammar point: it is quite common to find prepositions at the end of a sentence in English. Usually there is some kind of complement that is before in the sentence. For example here the object of “talk back to” is “how many different internet sites”.

 
So, in short, the innovative new business model you are adopting around the latest smart device may not just benefit you or your organisation. Expect organised crime to exploit the opportunities they offer as well. It means you have to think like an attacker. You’ll be surprised what comes out of the process and it’ll certainly give you a different perspective on your fridge.
Stephen Bonner is partner for Information Protection & Business Resilience at KPMG
 
in short: an expression to introduce a summary of ideas previously expressed.

Grammar point: in contrast with Spanish, in English complements to a noun go before it in most ocasions. Moreover, those complements introduced in Spanish by “de” are also moved to the front, and they do not need any preposition: a noun in English can be modified by another noun. Here we have a noun “model” modified by a combination of a noun and two adjectives which modify it.

2nd April 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
GrammarLanguage SkillsLearning MaterialsReading Comprehension SkillsVocabulary

Spanish ghost towns

written by Francisco Sanjurjo

In my series on articles about diverse topics, this time I chose the Spanish housing bubble. It is always interesting to get the view from outside about any problem, in this case, a foreigner’s point of view about the housing bubble in Spain. 

I did not write this article so here is the link to the source, in Fortune magazine. Image credit to the blog “deserted places“. The image is not from the town they mention in the article but from Ciudad Valdeluz, another famous ghost town after the economic bust.

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/15/the-road-to-demolition-inside-a-spanish-ghost-town/

The road to demolition: Inside a Spanish ghost town
November 15, 2013: 12:08 PM ET

There are still about 750,000 unsold new housing units in Spain. Now that the real estate bubble has popped, the
question is what happens to all the excess housing.

By Ian Mount

FORTUNE — On the outskirts of Zaragoza, a provincial capital on the semi-arid plains 200 miles north of Madrid, fields of huge electricity generating windmills surround the tiny town of La Muela. One might think that, in the land of Don Quixote, these giants would serve as a prosaic warning of the dangers of engaging in flights of fancy.

  1. Unsold: Something that has not yet been sold.
  2. Housing units: houses, flats.
  3. To pop: when a bubble pops it explodes and disappears.
  4. Outskirts: the outer areas of a town or city. For example in Madrid, Las Tablas, Montecarmelo or the “P.A.U. of Vallecas”
  5. Semi-arid: not completely desertic, but with few plants and trees. 
  6. Windmills: Don Quixote thought they were giants and wanted to fight them.
  7. Tiny: very small.
  8. Prosaic: realistic, not imaginative.
  9. to engage in something: to spend time and effort in doing something.  
  10. flight of fancy: something impossible and impractical to achieve.


 Walking the streets of La Muela, it quickly becomes clear that they have not. Barely two blocks outside of the village center, historic stone houses give way to condo complexes that have been finished, boarded up, and left empty. Further out, tinfences surround windowless townhouses and condos, and at the edge of town, where it returns to scrub, a half-finished concrete skeleton features stairways to nowhere.

  1. Barely: it expresses a very small quantity of something, a very small distance or time. e.g. I had barely arrived home when the phone rang.
  2. Condo complexes: a condominium is a block of flats where each flat is owned by a different family and they have to decide by voting. The most common form of real estate ownership in Spanish cities.
  3. Boarded up: to prevent people from breaking them and entering empty or abandoned houses, windows are covered with wood boards.
  4. Tin fences: metallic walls that usually surround areas where something is being built. 
  5. Windowless: the space fo the window exists, but the window has not been installed.
  6. Townhouses: A townhouse is a traditional kind of quality row-house, which used to be common in places like cities in the US. Here is an example.These were typical for – rich – people who lived in the country but kept a house in the city for their visits.


There is finished, empty housing for some 2,000 people and unfinished housing for another 1,000 just in the center of the 5,000-person town, according to Enrique Barrao of La Muela’s town planning department.

“There are so many empty houses;; thank god people haven’t gone in like in the big cities, where there are squatters,” says Victor Canales, 49, as he gestures at a shuttered building across from his row house. Canales brought his family from Zaragoza to La Muela in 1999, attracted by the quality of life of the small town, which then had about 2,500 residents.

  1. Housing: buildings or parts of them dedicated to live in them, in contrast with factories, offices, warehouses or other structures.
  2. Squatters: people who live in buildings without a legal right to do it. Usually they live in abandoned buildings such as factories or warehouses.
  3. to gesture: to make a movement with the face or other part of the body such as a hand, to indicate something.
  4. Shuttered: closed with shutters. Shutters are elements added usually to the outside of a window. When these elements are closed, light and noise are mostly or completely blocked.
  5. A row house: also known as terraced house, is a house that is part of a long line – a row – of usually identical houses.


 Like many towns in Spain — not to mention Nevada, Florida, California, and Ireland — La Muela tried to ride a speculative real estate boom during the 1990s and 2000s. With money coming in from the windmills and real estate developments, mayor María Victoria Pinilla — since brought up on real estate-related corruption charges — built a bullring, a concert hall, a sports stadium, an aviary, and three museums. (The museums are “temporarily closed for technical reasons,” according to a sign on the town’s tourism office, which is also closed.)
La Muela is not alone. Even with a 38.9% drop in home prices since a 2007 peak, according to real estate consultancyTinsa, there are still about 750,000 unsold new housing units in Spain. 

  1. To ride: to stay on top of something while it moves (for example: a bicycle, a motorbike, a horse or a wave)
  2. Speculative real estate boom: an economic period of growth and prosperity motivated by a lot of activity in the real estate market. Real estate: property like land, or buildings.
  3. Real estate developments: building projects from one building or a few houses to places like Seseña or Marina D’or.  
  4. Mayor: the highest authority in a town or city. Compare the pronunciation of Major, Mayor and mare (a female horse)
  5. Brought up on: faced with court charges (on introduces the reason she was brought up (to court) (to bring up: to make someone go up, get near)
  6. Corruption charges: official accusations of being corrupt.
  7. Bullring: the place where bullfighters fight the bulls. e.g. Las Ventas in Madrid.
  8. An aviary: a place where exotic birds are kept an exhibited.
  9. A drop: a sharp, quick fall. As with thousands of words in English, “drop” can be used both as a noun and as a verb. To “drop” means to fall, “a drop” means the action of something falling from a higher level. Finally, that explains why a drop is a very small amount of liquid.  
  10. Peak: the top of a mountain. Figuratively, the highest point in something, for example, house prices.
  11. Real estate consultancy: a company that offers advice and help on matters connected with real estate (property, see definition above). 
  12. Unsold housing units: houses or flats that have not been sold.



Now that the bubble has popped, the question is what happens to all the excess housing. And the answer to the problem may be simple, and ugly: demolition.
“If you can’t anticipate demand for housing within a manageable period, say five years, the cost of mothballing houses, even completed ones, to keep them serviceable and habitable for the future is very expensive,” says Alan Mallach, a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. “And if you don’t, it gradually turns into an eyesore and blight for people who live around it.”

  1. Within: inside. commonly used to refer to periods of time. 
  2. manageable: that can be managed
  3. “say five years”: a colloquial way of saying “for example five years”.
  4. To mothball: to keep something in good condition while it is not being used, so that it can be used in the future. 
  5. Serviceable: that services (like water, gas, electricity) can be provided because the necessary infrastructure is in working condition.
  6. Eyesore: literally a visible infection in your eye. Also something so ugly that seeing it you feel that way.
  7. Blight: deterioration, in this case deterioration of urban areas. 


 While it’s hard to pinpoint the economic effects of vacant houses, a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland studyfinds that having a vacant property within 500 feet reduces a house’s selling price by at least 1.4%.

 

Of course, making the decision to demolish housing is dangerous for a politician, especially during a crisis when many people have lost their homes to foreclosure. This may explain why so little excess housing has been demolished and why those overseeing Spain’s housing problems are not touting it as a top option.

  1. To pinpoint: to signal something with precision, as if using a pin.
  2. A recent Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland study: notice that some words (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) are written with initial capital letters. This means that it is an official name. The Federal Reserve of the United States is the equivalent of Banco de España and is structured in districts as you can read on the wikipedia article here. Each district has a branch of the Federal Reserve, in this case in Cleveland. The same as Banco de España or the European Bank, they make economic studies.
  3. Vacant property: land or buildings (“real estate”) which are not being used.
  4. Within 500 feet: inside a space located at a maximum distance of 500 feet. (1 foot= 30.48 cm)
  5. Foreclosure: the administrative process of canceling a mortgage (a loan obtained to buy real estate) before the time originally planned, because the owners can not meet the monthly payments. This includes evicting people, that is, forcing them to leave their foreclosed home.
  6. To oversee: To supervise in order to control.
  7. To tout: to promote.


 Spain set up a “bad bank,” known as Sareb, to take over bad real estate assets during its financial crisis, and it now has an inventory of about 90,000 properties (including 55,000 housing units). The entity has set aside 103 million euros (about $140 million) for demolition, but Sareb’s communications head, Susana Díaz, stresses that the entity has no definite plans for demolition and would never demolish housing with value (though this hasn’t stopped the country’s demolition companies from preparing for business).

  1. To take over: to assume control. (In driving, to move the car’s position from behind other vehicle to in front of the same vehicle.)
  2. To set aside: to separate something in order to use it for a specific purpose, different from the rest.
  3. To stop someone (or something) from: to make it impossible for someone or something to do some specific task. another example: Her mother stopped her from crossing the street because a big truck was coming. This verb works in the same way as others such as “prevent someone from something” which is a synonym.


 Still, some governments and banks have come around to demolition. Ireland’s “bad bank,” NAMA, demolished a 12-unit apartment block in County Longford last year. And there have been isolated demolitions of new and partially built houses in California. In some situations — especially in the case of unfinished, isolated developments — there may be no alternative.

  1. To come round: to be convinced about something, often after having an opposite opinion in the past.
  2. A 12-unit apartment block: a block containing 12 appartments.
  3. Isolated: separated from everything else. (notice: not to be confused with “insulated” which means deliberately separated from something [cold, heat, water, noise…] by using specific methods or materials.)


“If you have a development far from any town, forget about it. It will never bounce back,” says Antonio Argandoña, a professor of economics at Barcelona’s IESE Business School.
On a bluff overlooking the highway to Zaragoza, five miles from La Muela, deteriorating concrete skeletons mark what was once supposed to be Ciudad Zaragoza Golf, a golfing community housing development. Of the 2,316 units planned for the first phase, only 36 have been granted occupancy licenses, says La Muela town planner Enrique Barrao. The development’s handful of residents complain about non-existent municipal services, and when I ask the driver of the Zaragoza-La Muela bus line how these people get home, she shakes her head. “No bus goes there,” she says.

  1. Development: in real estate the word development means a group of housing units or industrial facilities built at the same time as a group. In some cases it could be similar to the spanish concept of “urbanización”.
  2. to bounce back: the movement of something elastic as it goes back to the original or previous position. For example if you throw a tennis ball against the wall it will bounce back towards you.
  3. Bluff: a higher place, often a rocky place, from which you can see the area around you, which is usually flat and at a clearly lower level. 
  4. to overlook: to look at something from a high place (so you look over it).
  5. Once: this word has two meanings: 
  6. 1) “one time” (on one occasion) example: He only tried a cigarette once and he didn’t like it. 2) “in the past, in contrast with the present) example: Detroit was once a big industrial town. Now there are thousands of empty buildings and the town is bankrupt.
  7. to grant: to give an official permit.
  8. Occupancy licences: an official document that states that a house is in good condition to live in.
  9. Handful: a quantity of something that can fit in your hand. Compare with a “fistful” which is what you can keep inside your fist, your closed hand. Ironically where in English you use “handful” in Spanish you would use “fistful” (“puñado”).


In downtown La Muela, however, residents are not yet thinking about demolitions;; they’re still coming down from a boom in which the town even subsidized their vacations. “The town paid, wherever you went,” says Victor Canales, who took subsidized trips to the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. “We were a famous town for our quality of life.”
There still may be hope for La Muela. A passel of new residents have moved in, attracted by small town life and low real estate prices. At the edge of town, where the sidewalk goes to dirt, Susana Escaño straps her baby into a car seat in front of a new, sparsely occupied complex. She moved from Zaragoza three years ago, because her family couldn’t afford anything in the city.

  1. Downtown: the central area of a town, as opposed to the “outskirts”.
  2. Subsidized: paid with public money (subsidies).
  3. Passel: (very rare) a big number, a lot.
  4. Sidewalk: area in a street where pedestrians can walk.
  5. Dirt: waste material. If something goes to dirt it means it is not properly maintained and it is deteriorating.
  6. To strap: to fix something or someone in place by using straps. Straps: long narrow pieces of material made of some fabric or plastic. The safety belt in a car is made of straps. Interesting for women when they go buying underwear: strapless bra
  7. Sparsely occupied: very few houses are occupied, and people are not concentrated in one place.


“Now, you hit yourself in the head because what you bought is worth so little, but, oh well, I like it,” she says. Why?
“Mucha tranquilidad.” 

  1. To be worth: to have some value (no necessarily economic value). A famous slogan from L’Oreal: Because I’m worth it.

 

20th June 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
GrammarLanguage SkillsLearning MaterialsLearning TipsReading Comprehension SkillsVocabulary

Chlorine: From toxic chemical to household cleaner

written by Francisco Sanjurjo

Here’s yet another interesting article that I found. This time it is about one of the most common chemicals around us. It is massively used for cleaning and disinfection. We can say that we have mastered the beast, because it is a very dangerous chemical. However, we use it every day.

This article is as dense as it is interesting. So I split it in paragraphs for easier digestion.

This is the link to the original article, in case you want to read it directly:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27057547

BBC News Magazine 18 April 2014 Last updated at 23:26 GMT

Chlorine: From toxic chemical to household cleaner

By Justin Rowlatt BBC World Service

Few chemicals are as familiar as table salt. The white crystals are the most common food seasoning in the world and an essential part of the human diet. Sodium chloride is chemically very stable – but split it into its constituent elements and you release the chemical equivalent of demons. The process is brutal. Vast amounts of electricity are used to tear apart the sodium and chlorine atoms in salt molecules through the process of electrolysis. It happens at vast industrial sites known as chlor-alkali plants, the biggest of which can use as much electricity as a small country. Which is why the price of both chlorine and sodium tend to track the price of electricity very closely. It also explains why Industrial Chemicals Ltd’s chlor-alkali plant in Thurrock, Essex, is right next to an electricity substation.

 

  1. Seasoning: products like spices, used to improve or change the flavour and taste of some food. 
  2. Constituent elements: the parts of something.
  3. vast amounts: very big quantities
  4. tear apart: to separate by breaking something which is very strongly connected. For example a piece of cloth, paper, cardboard or meat (for example a roast chicken leg).
  5. right next: immediately next to something, very very close.

David Compton, ICL’s chief chemist, shows me a huge mound of pure white salt. It comes, he tells me, from the rock salt deposits buried under Cheshire, in the north of England, a resource that was first mined by the Romans. And it’s at least as pure, he says, as the salt you sprinkle on your dinner. It is mixed with water in huge basins to make a concentrated brine, which is pumped into a big industrial barn that contains what looks like a giant chemistry set. A series of huge tanks are connected by a web of pipes painted in different colours, all leading back to a big black tank. This is the business end of the process, the electrolyser. It exploits an equivalence between chemistry and electricity that was first codified by Michael Faraday.

 

  1. mound: an accumulation of something like salt, sugar, sand…
  2. buried: kept under the surface, for example, dead people in a cemetery.
  3. resource: something needed to do something else. For example oil, wood, gas…
  4. sprinkle: to distribute something in a way that it will not be concentrated, for example salt over a piece of meat. In many office buildings there are sprinklers on the ceiling, which spray water in case of fire. 
  5. basin: a container for liquids which is open at the top. For example, in a bathroom you have a washbasin, at which you brush your teeth, wash your face and your hands.
  6. brine: water with a very high concentration of salt. Often used in the past as a preservative for foods such as meat, fish or others.
  7. barn: a storage building in a farm, where food for the animals or farming equipment are stored.
  8. to exploit: to use something to your advantage.

Sodium and chlorine are both highly reactive – bring them into contact with each other and an electron passes between them, gluing them together to become salt. Reverse the process – by creating an enormous electrical current in the opposite direction – and you can split them apart again.

Inside the electrolyser, the brine is fed into a series of cells each separated by a membrane. Chlorine gas is produced at one electrode, and hydrogen gas – split off from the water molecules in the brine – at the other, leaving behind a solution of sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda. Until fairly recently the process used mercury as one of the electrodes. This produced chlorine-free sodium hydroxide, but released tiny traces of mercury, which is very toxic, into the environment. So mercury cells are gradually being phased out around the world.

 

  1. to glue: to put to things together so they will not separate, by using glue (e.g. “Loctite”)
  2. by: this preposition introduces some instrumental meaning. e.g. if you travel by car, it means you use the car to carry yourself from one place to another. 
  3. split them apart: to split means to break. to split apart means to break and separate.
  4. brine is fed: (see brine above). to feed means to introduce some material (solid or liquid) into a system. This includes food and drink in animals and people. You can also use it with things, such as “I fed the printer more paper”.
  5. split off: same meaning as split apart. Off means separation or disconnection. 
  6. tiny traces: very small quantities.
  7. to phase out: to gradually stop producing or using some product. For example mercury-cadmium batteries or CFC gases have been phased out. 

Inside ICL’s laboratory, Andrea Sella, professor of chemistry at University College London, hands me a fragile-looking glass balloon. It is an evil-looking greenish-yellow colour. “That’s chlorine,” says Professor Sella, with a wicked grin, “one of the most ferociously aggressive materials out there.” I grasp the bulb of lethal gas more carefully. Andrea describes chlorine as aggressive because it is very reactive. That makes it extremely useful, but also very dangerous. It takes its name from its sickly colour – chloros is the Greek word for green. As all chemists know, you need to be very careful with chlorine. Its reactivity makes it very toxic. If you inhale chlorine, it reacts with the water in your lungs, converting it into powerful acids.

 

  1. evil-looking: if something is evil it might have a negative effect or intention. Something evil-looking is something whose image gives you that impression.
  2. wicked: a wicked person is a very bad person. 
  3. grin: a face gesture between a laugh and a smile.
  4. to grasp: to hold something. Metaphorically you can grasp concepts or ideas.
  5. sickly: something with the appearance of being sick or causing sickness.
  6. inhale: to absorb through the nose or mouth some gas or smoke. The opposite is to exhale. 

The effects can be horrific, as the World War One poet, Wilfred Owen, witnessed first-hand. “Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”

 

  1. dim: if something is dim, it means it is difficult to see clearly, for example if there is a lot of smoke. If light is dim, it means it is not strong enough to help you see clearly. If you ask someone to dim the lights, it is because they are to intense for you. Finally if you say someone is dim, it means their intelligence is limited.
  2. misty: as if you see something through the mist. So not very clear or defined. If someone has misty eyes it is because they are full of tears.
  3. panes: each section of glass in a window.
  4. to plunge: to throw something or someone (including yourself) into some liquid or substance. e.g. As soon as I arrived home, I changed into my swimsuit and plunged into the swimming pool.
  5. to gutter: to cry tears so they make gutters (channels) down your face.
  6. to choke: to have difficulty breathing because something is in your mouth or throat.
  7. to drown: to die of asfixiation caused by a liquid. e.g. he could not swim, so he drowned in the river.

In his poem Dulce et Decorum Est, Owen describes the effects of the deadly chlorine gas used by both the German and British armies during World War I. It was particularly effective as a chemical weapon because it is heavier than air and, on still days, would collect in the trenches. “Drowning” very accurately describes what happened to soldiers who were exposed to the gas. Their bodies responded to the irritation caused by the acid by filling their lungs with liquid. Many died from suffocation.

 

  1. deadly: something that can kill you
  2. still days: days when the wind doesn’t blow.
  3. accurately: with precision.
  4. suffocation: not being able to breathe.

But while chlorine may have been put to some dastardly uses over the centuries, its reactivity has also been incredibly useful to humanity. It means chlorine is relatively easy to incorporate into other materials and often makes compounds more stable. “That’s because,” says Andrea with relish, “chlorine hangs on like grim death to the atoms it bonds with.” One of the best examples is polyvinylchloride, or PVC, which consumes a third of chlorine. This incredibly versatile and durable plastic celebrated its centenary last year. PVC crops up everywhere – packaging, signage, old-fashioned vinyl records, the leatherette effect of many car seats.

 

  1. dastardly: intentionally bad or cruel. (in my opinion, very unusual, literary word)
  2. relish: pleasure, enjoyment
  3. hang on like grim death:ok let’s go one word at a time: a) hang on: to continue hanging, to insist on hanging from something. grim: sad, sinister. So to hang on like grim death means that something sticks to you so strongly that you can compare it with death (because death hangs to you forever… ) In Spanish you would say something like “hang on like a piece of chewing gum in your hair”.
  4. to bond: to connect in a solid way. 

But it is the construction industry that is by far the biggest end-user of this plastic. Over 70% of PVC ends up in everything from drainpipes to vinyl floors, roofing products to double-glazed window-frames. “We call it the construction polymer,” says Mike Smith, chlorine market expert at the consultancy IHS. “Chlorine also goes into construction in other forms,” he adds. “Polyurethane, which is a great insulation material.” And that has the odd consequence that the demand for chlorine rises and falls in line with property booms and busts.

 

  1. by far: this means there is a very big, clear difference between two things. So it is not only the biggest user, but the second is very clearly below. 
  2. end-user: final user in a production chain. This expression appears a lot in software products. (End-user agreement.)
  3. drainpipes: pipes (conducts) used to evacuate liquids from places, for example a roof or a kitchen sink. If they are open they can be called gutter (see gutter as a verb above).
  4. double-glazed window: a window which has two layers of glass to offer protection against temperature changes.
  5. insulation: double glazing is an insulation system. Insulation is protection against factors such as noise, heat, cold, humidity…
  6. odd: strange, unusual.
  7. in line: in parallell, at the same time.

And because the supply of sodium is inextricably tied to that of chlorine, it has an even odder consequence. A collapse in the housing market – as Spain suffered in recent years – can make it more expensive to manufacture staple products like soap and paper, which rely on sodium. But PVC is just one of chlorine’s many industrial applications. Chlorine is one of the most versatile and widely used industrial chemicals. “It is a real workhorse,” says Mike Smith, adding that much of the chemical industry would be impossible without it. Something like 15,000 different chlorine compounds are used in industry, including the vast majority of pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals.

Often chlorine is used during the production process and doesn’t actually turn up in the final product. That’s true of the production of two vital elements. From a battered cardboard box Andrea produces a cylinder 15cm long and 3cm wide, encrusted with crystals of a beautiful silver-coloured metal. It is, he tells me, titanium. Titanium is the basis of much of the paint industry. It is used in hi-tech alloys for aircraft and bicycles as well as in dental implants and chlorine is an indispensable part of the purification process. Similarly the incredibly high-purity silicon essential for the production of computer chips and solar panels is only possible thanks to a process that uses chlorine.

 

  1. staple products: basic products used by the vast majority of the population, such as soap, paper, milk, bread, eggs…
  2. workhorse: something or someone who will do a lot of heavy-work.
  3. to turn up: to appear, to be present.
  4. alloy: a mix of metals, for example, steel is an alloy of iron with different proportions of other metals.

But it was chlorine’s cleansing power that led to the first commercial applications of the element. Its efficacy as a disinfectant was discovered thanks to an early 19th Century effort to clean up the gut factories of Paris. The “boyauderies” processed animal intestines to make, among other things, strings for musical instruments. A French chemist and pharmacist called Antoine-Germain Labarraque discovered that newly-discovered chlorinated bleaching solutions not only got rid of the smell of putrefaction but actually slowed down the putrefaction process itself. Within a few decades chlorine compounds were being used to disinfect everything from hospitals to cattle sheds as well as to treat infected wounds in patients. Chlorine is credited with deodorizing the Latin Quarter of Paris, until then infamous for its terrible stench.

 

  1. cleansing: to clean or purify.
  2. to clean up: to clean something completely.
  3. gut factories: guts are things such as the intestines. These factories make their products with the intestines of animals.
  4. newly discovered: discovered recently.
  5. cattle-sheds: small buildings, usually made of wood, where you keep cattle. There are other kinds of sheds, like the garden shed, which many people have and where you keep your gardening tools.
  6. to be credited with: what happens when someone recognizes you did something, usually good things. 
  7. infamous for: the opposite of famous for. Being famous for a negative thing.
  8. stench: a very penetrating smell, like food in bad condition, or something putrid.

The early advocates of chlorine did not know how chlorine worked, they just knew that it helped clear the “miasmas” thought to spread contagion. It would be half a century before the microbes that chlorine destroys would be identified. Chlorine is used around the world to treat water to ensure it is safe to drink. It is the basis of many disinfectants and a key ingredient of the bleach you use to clean surfaces in your home and to purge any microbes from your toilet bowl.

It is also used to keep swimming pools free of bacteria, hence the distinctive smell. But here’s something you probably didn’t know, and if you are a regular swimmer, may not wish to know. That smell isn’t chlorine, at least not the element. It is actually a chlorine compound called chloramine, which is created when chlorine combines with organic substances in the water. So what are those organic substances? We are talking about sweat and urine. So if you’ve ever noticed that the “chlorine” smell is stronger when the pool is full of kids, well now you know why.

 

  1. advocate: someone who defends an idea or a cause. Not to be confused with “abogado” which is to be translated as lawyer, attorney, barrister and others…
  2. bleach: cleaning liquid extensively used to clean and disinfect floors and other elements. It’s main element is chlorine. It is also used to make clothes white, so the process of making something white by using bleach is “to bleach”. This verb is also used for intense hair lightening processes. 
  3. toilet bowl: an element in the bathroom where you sit and… do I need to explain more?
  4. hence: therefore, for that reason
  5. sweat: liquid coming out of your skin pores when it is very hot or you are performing some intense activity.
  6. urine: waste liquid from the body that usually goes into the toilet.

Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook BBC
BBC © 2014 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

26th June 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest