#1242 Fairies Vs Faeries, English Central, Foreign Accent Syndrome, Affidavit

Show 1242 Wednesday 14 July
Watch today's show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

On the protest march against mining I went to in Auckland recently I saw a sign which said: Where will the faeries live?
Which I thought was quite cute. But I thought they’d made a spelling mistake.

Fairy is usually spelt f-a-i-r-y and the plural is usually f-a-i-r-i-e-s.

But I looked it up in Wikipedia and apparently fairy can also be spelt f-a-e-r-y and f-a-e-r-i-e.
So there you go. How do you usually spell fairy?

click here

Today I’d like to tell you about a fun site for practicing speaking.
It’s called English Central.

On this site you can watch videos and repeat after each line and it will record your voice and then give you a score for how good you were.

So I think it’s a fun way to do a bit of speaking practice. I wouldn’t worry too much about the score, because it is just a computer. And I’m a native speaker and I still couldn’t get full marks.

So if you haven’t already, please go and try it out and tell me what you think.

STICK NEWS

Kia ora this is Stick News. A woman in New Zealand is suffering from a rare medical condition which causes her to speak in a foreign accent.

Bronwyn Fox was born in New Zealand and has never visited the United Kingdom.
But for the last two years she’s been speaking in what sounds like a mixture of Welsh, Scottish and North London accents.
She’s suffering from a rare condition called foreign accent syndrome.
Apparently foreign accent syndrome usually occurs as a side effect of brain injury.

And that was Stick News for Wednesday the 14th of July.
Kia ora.


I'm from New Zealand.
No... I mean, where are you from originally?


SLAM!
It was some English woman claiming to be my sister.
Really? That's weird.


Does this mean if I wack my students over the head their accents will improve?



Word of the Day

Today’s word is affidavit.

Affidavit is probably not a word that comes up in conversation much … unless you’re a lawyer.

a written statement confirmed by oath or affirmation, for use as evidence in court

So for example, if you wrote something saying, I saw Mr X rob the bank at 10am on Monday. And then you went to court and said, I swear this is true, that would be an affidavit.

Last night I watched an episode of Outrageous Fortune, which is a TV series that I love … I talked about it a couple of weeks ago. And there’s a character called Pascelle who isn’t very bright and she had never heard of this word before.

And a police officer tells her she would have to swear an affidavit.
And then she goes and tells someone else that she wants to do this, but she says:
I want to swear and have a David.


Outrageous Fortune, Series 5, Episode 12
32:55, Zane Gerard: You’d have to swear an affidavit.

33:03, Pascalle West: I want to swear and have a David.

conversations with sarah
#792 What did you do?!

Step 1: Repeat Lucy’s lines.
Step 2: Read Lucy’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Lucy Have you ever been to court?

Sarah Ah, yes. Only once I think.

Lucy Really? What did you do?!

Sarah Oh, I wasn’t being tried. I was just there reporting.

Lucy For The Daily English Show?

Sarah No. When I was at journalism school. Actually I think I might have been to court a few times when I was writing stories at high school as well.

links

today's news

music

show start
artist: Kevin MacLeod
track: Future Cha Cha
from: Brooklyn, NY, United States
artist site

click here start
artist: #NarNaoud#
album: Green Vision
track: Oriental Standing
from: Gironde, France
artist at Jamendo
album at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: Kevin MacLeod
track: The Jazz Woman
from: Brooklyn, NY, United States
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack2
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm

artist: Still Playing Guitar
album: Still Playing Guitar
track: Nachtschatten
from: Heidelberg, Germany

album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo

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