Newsletters, verbing

and fun with English

Photo by Nils Huenerfuerst on Unsplash

Hello!

I hope you’ve had a good week!

1. Newsletter update

After a few weeks of writing the same email to two groups, I now have two different newsletters.

You’re welcome to choose which newsletter you prefer and unsubscribe from the other one, or, of course, you can get both!

Newsletter 1:

This now comes out on a Thursday. In this newsletter, I write about how to learn English, mindset, confidence and women’s issues. Some of this newsletter is aimed at professional women. If you’d like to sign up, you can go to learnenglishwithkatie.co.uk/newsletters.

Newsletter 2:

This is the one you’re reading at the moment, which I write on Substack. This now comes out on a Friday. I'm experimenting with some new ideas but plan to include learning tips, my best social media posts in case you missed them, puzzles and a few other things. This is for anyone, not just professional women!

If you’re reading this as an email, you’re already signed up for newsletter 2. But if you’ve just found me on Substack, you can sign up here:

2. Verbing

You may have seen this quiz on my LinkedIn or Facebook page.

Are these words nouns or verbs?

🔹Google

🔹friend

🔹text

🔹medal

In fact, all of these words were originally nouns but then people started using them as a verb too. This is called “verbing”.

Here are some example sentences where a noun is being used as a verb:

💙 Google:

I don’t know. Why don’t you google it?

💙 Friend:

Some of my old students have friended me on Facebook.

💙 Text:

Text me when you get home so I know you’ve arrived safely.

💙 Medal:

He’s hoping to medal in this year’s Olympics.

Here are some slightly silly examples:

“Beer me!”

“Now I can English!”

“Shall we café or pub?”

If you’d like to learn more about this, check out my latest blog post:

3. For fun

Last week, I asked you if you could understand this:

“I thought a thought.

But the thought I thought wasn't the thought I thought I'd thought.

If the thought I thought I thought had been the thought I thought,

I wouldn't have thought so much!”

Believe it or not, this is actually correct English! It works because “thought” can be a noun and a verb. It means something like this:

I had an idea.

But the idea which I had wasn’t in fact the idea which I believed I’d had.

If the idea which I believed I’d had had been the idea I really had,

I would have thought less. 

Or a bit more simply:

I had an idea.

Then I realised I’d actually had a different idea.

Don’t worry about it too much. It makes some sense but not 100%! It’s more just to sound silly!

4. Puzzle

Have you ever played Wordle? It’s a New York Times game in which you have to guess a word. The game tells you which letters are right and you have 6 guesses to find the word. If you’d like to try it, just put “wordle” into Google and you’ll find it.

A few days ago, halfway through, I had _ _ A _ E. I also knew there was an R in the word and the R was not the 4th letter. So _ R A _ E seemed the most likely.

It’s always difficult when you have _ _ A _ E because there are so many possibilities and you’re only allowed 6 tries!

Today’s challenge for you:

How many words can you think of which could fit _ R A _ E?

I’ll tell you some answers next week!

Bye for now!

Katie