Joe’s Cafe 🍳

World’s largest English-speaking country?
Josef Essberger
USA? Think again 🙂

The King is dead. Long live the King!
Josef Essberger
I received the following question from Jeanette about using capitals: “I am a writer and always have problems with the following: ‘The king is dead. Long live King Edward.’ ‘She told me Captain Lorca read the book. The captain could read.’ I am referring to the same king in the first sentence, and to the […]

Manners
Josef Essberger
“It is possible to be born an aristocrat without ever becoming a gentleman.” (Nicholas Ridley)

Life
Josef Essberger
“Life is what happens while you are making other plans.” (John Lennon)

Divorce
Josef Essberger
“Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.” (Dr Johnson on divorce laws)

The Oxford Secret
Josef Essberger
“It is a secret in the Oxford sense. You may tell it to only one person at a time.” (Lord Franks)

Meeting the eye
Josef Essberger
“There is less to him than meets the eye.” (Tallulah Bankhead) The normal expression is “there is more to something/somebody than meets the eye”, meaning that the thing or person is deeper than surface appearances suggest.

Arguing with a woman
Josef Essberger
“Arguing with a woman is like trying to fold the airmail edition of The Times in a high wind.” (Lord Mancroft) The Times is a newspaper. It used to be large format (ie, it had very large pages). The airmail edition was printed on very thin, light-weight paper.

Advice on reviewing books
Josef Essberger
“I never read a book before reviewing it. It prejudices a man so.” (Sydney Smith)

Do come again
Josef Essberger
“You must come again when you have less time.” (Walter Sickert to Denton Welch)

When words lose their meaning
Josef Essberger
“When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom” (Confucius)

The R Word
Josef Essberger
In these times of apparent worldwide economic gloom and despair emanating from the collapse of the USA’s financial system, you may have heard reference on TV or elsewhere to the R word. What on earth is the R word? Sometimes it is difficult for people to accept facts.  At such times, there may be certain […]

optimum or optimal?
Josef Essberger
Is there a difference between optimum and optimal? As adjectives, they have the same meaning: best; most favourable; most conducive to a good result They both come from the Latin optimus, meaning “best”. Look at these examples: What is the optimum/optimal childbearing age? We need to find the optimal/optimum solution. In our case, the optimum/optimal […]

The Winepress
Josef Essberger
“You don’t have to be French to enjoy a decent red wine,” Charles Jousselin de Gruse used to tell his foreign guests whenever he entertained them in Paris. “But you do have to be French to recognize one,” he would add with a laugh. After a lifetime in the French diplomatic corps, the Count de […]

practical or practicable?
Josef Essberger
Let’s try to understand the difference between these two words. practical (adjective): useful and suitable for a particular purpose I love your kitchen. It’s really practical. Everything is in the right place, and at the right height. practicable (adjective):  able to be done; can be put into practice Your idea about making a new car […]

presume or assume?
Josef Essberger
People are often unsure about the difference between these two words. Indeed, they are very close in meaning. to presume something (verb):  to believe something to be true, but without being 100% sure I presume you’ll come to my party. (I’ll be surprised if you don’t come, but I’ll accept your decision.) to assume something […]

“near miss”, “cause”
Josef Essberger
Today we will look at two different terms: “near miss” and “cause”. We will use a short video to understand their meanings. In the video you will see Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, throwing both his shoes at the US president, George Bush Jnr. The journalist throws his shoes quite accurately, but the shoes don’t […]

Smiling Moon
Josef Essberger
What can it mean? The Moon is smiling over Thailand. Here are two pictures I took tonight 1st December around 7pm in Bangkok. Have YOU have seen a smiling moon? What do YOU think it means?!

e.g. or i.e. ?
Josef Essberger
People often confuse these two abbreviations. e.g. means “for example”. (It comes from the Latin exempli gratia “for the sake of an example”.) Some foods are good for us to eat (e.g. fruit, fish, vegetables). Other foods are bad, or should be eaten in moderation (e.g. fatty foods, foods with additives, sugary foods). i.e. means […]

nosedive
Josef Essberger
You may have seen those scary headlines in financial papers, or on TV: “Markets nosedive” What does “nosedive” mean? These two pictures should make it clear. The first one shows an aircraft nosediving. The second one is a chart of a stock that opened at $90 at 9am and then nosedived between 3pm and 4pm […]

New dollar bill
Josef Essberger
To support the bailout of AIG, Lehman, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac the US Treasury Department has issued a new one dollar bill…

Another bank, another bailout
Josef Essberger
So the joke going round the financial centres these days is “You’re not a bank unless you’ve had a government bailout.” The UK, Europe, USA, Japan, now South Korea…they’re all bailing out the banks. To the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars for each region, trillions globally. But just what do bail out and […]

So just how big is a trillion anyway?
Josef Essberger
With all these trillions of dollars that banks have misplaced and central banks are throwing around, it’s getting difficult to keep track of the money. We used to talk in terms of millions, and sometimes billions. But these amounts now seem somehow inadequate, paltry almost. The new paradigm is trillion (preferably in pounds, but even […]

Willful panic
Josef Essberger
Watching CNN (or one of the other cable channels endlessly broadcasting the end of the world as capitalism knows it) I heard one of the “expert commentators” describe last Thursday’s sell-off on the London Stock Exchange as “a bloodbath – sheer, unadulterated, willful panic”. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with “willful panic”? Please add […]

College Entrance Exam
Josef Essberger
Time allowed: 1 minute Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll down for the answer… Scroll […]

What is “Wall Street meltdown”?
Josef Essberger
The word “meltdown” is being bandied about a lot in relation to the current Wall Street crisis. What does it mean? Let’s look at melt first. Melt is a verb: to melt. It means to change from solid to liquid, usually because of heat. So if you put an ice-cube outside in the sun it […]

7 of my Favourite Quotations
Josef Essberger
A “quotation” is usually a short text – perhaps one or two sentences – written or spoken by one (usually famous) person and often repeated or at least known by others. Here are 7 of my favourite quotations, arranged (loosely) from humorous to serious. Have a look at them and try to understand them. You […]

How do you use the Internet?
Josef Essberger
And do you have any tips for others?

Morality Test
Josef Essberger
This test only has one question, but it’s a very important one. By giving an honest answer, you will discover where you stand morally. The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation in which you will have to make a decision. Remember that your answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous. Please scroll down slowly […]

Why do people write 0:00AM? What does it mean?
Josef Essberger
AM means before noon. And PM means after noon. So what the hell is 0:00AM?

Principle or principal?
Josef Essberger
Here are two more words that sound exactly the same but have different meanings.

Discreet or discrete?
Josef Essberger
These two words sound exactly the same but have different meanings

Some seek knowledge
Josef Essberger
“Some seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge – and that is curiosity. Some seek knowledge that they may be known to have knowledge – and that is vanity. Some seek knowledge that they may give to others their knowledge – and that is charity.” Bernard of Clairveaux Saint Bernard of Clairveaux was a French […]

I shall not pass this way again
Josef Essberger
I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow-creature,

April Fool’s Day
Josef Essberger
April 1st is called April Fool’s Day in English, and it’s a day when people play jokes on other people. They can be small, personal jokes or tricks, or big “industrial-size” hoaxes by newspapers or television channels like the BBC.

Swiss Spaghetti Harvest Hoax
Josef Essberger
Below is probably the most classic April Fool’s Day hoax of all time. On April 1st, 1957 the BBC ran a short programme about a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland, showing spaghetti growing on trees. Many people believed the programme and phoned in to ask how they could grow their own “spaghetti tree”.

I wish I loved the Human Race
Josef Essberger
I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face;

How many words in Shakespeare?
Josef Essberger
Several sources claim that Shakespeare used nearly 30,000 different words in his works. However, we need to ask what we mean by “different words”. Is it reasonable to count go and going and gone as three different words? If we count go and going and gone as one word (GO), then Shakespeare used fewer than […]

What is it?
Josef Essberger
Riddles are short poems or texts that ask a question that seems difficult to answer. The following famous riddle by Catherine Fanshawe is talking about something, but what is it?

Best holiday
Josef Essberger
Your dream trip

Perfect age?
Josef Essberger
Life begins at 40. Really?

7 That’s in a row
Josef Essberger
How many times can you repeat that?

Next life
Josef Essberger
You can choose 🙂

The Billion Dollar Question
Josef Essberger
So how much is a billion? Answer: 1,000,000,000 (one thousand million) Sub-plot: In American English a billion is 1,000,000,000. In British English a billion used to be, and technically still may be, 1,000,000,000,000 (one million million); but in practical usage British English now treats a billion the same as American English does: 1,000,000,000. Nevertheless, a […]

What do you want to own?
Josef Essberger
That special something

Amzanig huh?
Josef Essberger
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid […]

Rainy day
Josef Essberger
🌧️💧☔️

The quick brown fox…
Josef Essberger
What is special about the following sentence? The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. This sentence contains all 26 letters of the English alphabet and is (was?) used by typists to test their keyboards. Such a sentence is called a “pangram”.

Good book
Josef Essberger
Tell us about a book you are reading (or have read). What is its title? Who wrote it? What is it about? Why do you like it?

Around the World in 80 Days
Josef Essberger
🛸