​Happy belated new year!  Let's talk about time.  Time is a funny concept.  You can save it and spend it when you have it, but you can’t get it back once you lose it. You can’t buy time, but you can give your time to any cause.  The most precious gift you can give someone is your time, because you can’t get it back.  We are looking at a few time idioms that you should know. In this post I’d like you to also think about the telephone, what it used to be and what it has become.  If you've watched NCIS then you've heard some talk about drugs, so see if you get the joke. There is an essay correction exercise and ways of thinking about time. The difference between having time and doing time and a puzzling paradox about time that hopefully you can figure out. So, let’s get started!

What super hero used a phone booth as a closet. If you know this cultural reference then you know something about American culture.  Who was it?  Superman!  The answers to the exercises: Ahead of time, behind the times, have the time of your life, Time will tell, Only a matter of time.  If you can't figure out what these idioms mean, look them up.  What the difference between in due time and do time?  In due time, means in the appropriate or time given to finish a project. Do time is slang for to go to jail and have a prison sentence.  If you give someone a hard time, that means you pressure them annoy them or make it difficult for them with sarcasm or some kind of verbal kidding or abuse.  If you do hard time, again this is slang for to have a very long jail sentence 5 years or more. In the U.S. or in American films you will here these idioms.
Find the errors and correct them.  There are ten.  1. peace/piece, 2. passed/past  3. nowdays/nowadays 4. remembered/reminded  5. ananosecond/ a nanosecond 6. fiend/friend  7. hood/hook  8. a ugly face/ an ugly face 9. witch/which 10. losser/ loser. Thanks for spending time with me and learning some English and Culture at Bauenglish. 

Reacting to bad news is always like- What should I say?  Reacting to what someone has said is always a bit stressful in a bad situation.  You may not really have an answer.  Most of the time when an American doesn't have an answer they reach for an idiom.  It is a way to express something without saying too much.  Or to say the right thing when there is really nothing more you can say. Sometimes saying little is "enough said". Also, we will look at the right word versus the almost right word. Really, it just depends on what you're trying to say.  It's not all bad news.

Answers to exercise 1will vary. Exercise 2.  1b 2a, 2. 1.a 2.b 3. 1b. 2a  4. 1. a 2.b 5. 1b. 2a.

The Chance: F-100% is not chance, 2.  F- You can have bad luck, but chance is possibility and positive, 3. T-When you certainly don't think something will happen. 4. T-yes a likelihood is half a chance. 5. T-There are games of chance like Risk.
​An Opportunity: 1. a second chance 2. big chance 3. outside chance 4. slight chance 5. pure chance.
​A Possibility: 1. likely, 2. unlikely, 3. unlikely 4. unlikely (you have a chance means possibility.) 5. likely-unlikely it will happen (this is 50-50).
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