Random thoughts on 'Kiss me quick'

Preparing a possible post on flat adverbs (adverbs that take the same form as their adjective equivalents) I started wondering about the origins of the expression 'Kiss me quick'.

In Britain, 'Kiss me quick' is perhaps best known from being printed on hats traditionally worn at seaside resorts such as Blackpool, but the origins seem likely to be American.

Clicking on the clippings will take you to the original at Google Books.

Song lesson - Nicest thing by Kate Nash

Practise I wish constructions with this song and and a couple of exercises

Anchorage - Michelle Shocked - Song exercise for Past simple

A short song exercise for elementary to pre-intermediate learners to practise basic Past simple forms.

Prince Philip, My Dear - Mighty Sparrow - Song lesson

On July 9th 1982, a man managed to climb up to the roof and get into Buckinham Palace, for the second time in a month. But this time, he also managed to get into the Queen's bedroom, where the Queen was sleeping alone. This lapse in security caused a big scandal in Britain at the time, and inspired Trinidadian calypso singer Mighty Sparrow to write a song very loosely based on the event. Do a couple of exercises and listen to the song.

Song exercise - Don't you want me - Human League - prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs

This exercise originally appeared in a post about prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs. I thought I would make it more 'visible' by giving it its own post. If you want to work on recognising the differences between these word classes, the original post is here.

Song exercise - Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison

This song was written and recorded in 1967 by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, and kicked off his solo career after he left Belfast band Them. The only real reason for making it into an exercise is that I love the song and for its use of present participles.

Is it a preposition? Is it a conjunction? Or is it an adverb?

Exploring grammar - telling the difference between prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs by looking at them in context.

We all know that in, on and from are prepositions.

Most of us know that and, but and because are conjunctions.

And I'm sure you all know that well, carefully and unfortunately are adverbs.

But what about words like after, since and until? Do these exercises to find out.

Is 'it' a preposition?

Quite a lot of people are finding this page by googling, "Is 'it' a preposition?". For them, ' it' is a pronoun, so we won't be dealing with it in this post but you can read all about ' it' here.

Song exercise - Don't you want me - Human League

After the exercises there are some notes on the distinguishing features of prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs. I also take a look at phrasal verbs and their particles.

Song lesson - 'It's All Over Now Baby Blue' by Bob Dylan

This song has to be one of the all-time greats. Recorded by Dylan in 1965, and covered by many others including notably, Them (with Van Morrison), the Animals (with Eric Burdon), the Byrds and the Grateful Dead.

The meaning of the song has been highly debated. All people seem to really agree on is that Dylan is saying goodbye to someone (a woman perhaps), or to some people (his folk fans maybe), or to something, perhaps to a part of his life (his accoustic folk days?).

This song is from the time when he was changing from being an accoustic folk singer to being part of the new (electric) rock mainstream, and not all his fans appreciated that. (See Wikipedia link below)

1. Vocabulary matching exercise
2. Song lyrics gap fill exercise
3. Extra activity on relative clauses, reduced relatives and nominal relatives

Song - 'America' from 'West Side Story'

America is one of the greatest songs ever from possibly the greatest musical ever, West Side Story.

A distinctive characteristic of this song is its rhythm, which mixes 6/8 time with 3/4 time (see Wikipedia link below). Some cover versions see fit to remove this feature, in my opinion totally ruining the song.

"In the 1961 film version of the musical, Anita (played by Rita Moreno) sings in favor of the United States, while Bernardo responds to her praises with corresponding criticisms satirizing latent racism in American society, especially towards Puerto Ricans"- Wikipedia

Song lesson - These Boots Are Made For Walking - Nancy Sinatra

Written by Lee Hazlewood and recorded by Nancy Sinatra, this record was released in February 1966 and was a Number One hit in the US and UK Pop charts.

There have been many cover versions in a range of styles: metal, pop, rock, punk rock, country, dance, and industrial. (Adapted from Wikipedia)

• Simple song vocabulary exercise
• Vocabulary - different meanings of the verb mess

Song lesson - 'A Boy Named Sue' by Johnny Cash

"A Boy Named Sue" was first recorded live at California's San Quentin State Prison at a concert on 24 February 1969. The song became Cash's biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his only Top 10 single there, spending three weeks at #2 in 1969. (Wikipedia)

1. Pre-listening vocabulary exercise
2. Pre-listening grammar exercise
3. Find the 'non-standard' grammar
4. Vocabulary exercise - different meanings of mean
5. Grammar exercise - different uses of would

Song - 'One of us' by Joan Osborne - exercise with Second Conditional

I've already talked about this song in another post, but I thought that perhaps it deserved its own post with a full exercise.

Song - 'Time in a bottle' by Jim Croce - exercise with Second Conditional

Jim Croce (1943 – 1973) was an American singer-songwriter. His song Time in a Bottle was recorded shortly before his death in an air crash, and was a No. 1 hit in the Billboard Hot 100, as was his other well-known song - Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. (Wikipedia)

Song exercise with Second Conditional

Song lesson - 'She's got issues' by the Offspring

This song is rich in contemporary expressions to do with relationships and personal psychology, such as: to have issues, baggage, closure, validation, as well as alluding to possible past incest. It also has some interesting verb phrases and a couple of grammar points.

1. Pre-listening vocabulary matching exercises
2. Lyrics gapfill exercises
3. Grammar exercises 1 - if type questions
   Grammar exercises 2 - constructions with I wish and if only

Random thoughts about If I were a boy, You've got another thing coming and if clauses.

Since I wrote my last post I've been thinking about these lines from 'If I were a boy'

If you thought I would wait for you
You thought wrong

When I originally saw this, I was thinking 2nd Conditional, because I only paid attention to the first line. It was only later that I realised it didn't quite fit that pattern. In fact it's a good example of a another pattern that we sometimes use, especially when we think somebody is wrong in their opinions or thinking. This pattern is especially used with these verbs:

think, expect, believe, reckon, suppose, imagine

Here are a couple of exercises, involving some idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs, to illustrate this pattern.

Song lesson - conditionals in If I were a Boy

One of the good things about blog stats is that you can see what search terms are being used by the people who land up on your blog. A couple of days ago, somebody from Winnipeg in Canada googled 'teaching conditionals using If I were a boy'. I had included a line from the song in an exercise about conditionals in songs, but thought that perhaps it was worth a closer look.

And it proved to be a very interesting song indeed from a grammatical viewpoint. So I've decided to have a go at doing a little lesson based on it.

Random thoughts on National Grammar Day and Joan Osborne's One of Us

Is National Grammar Day a good thing?

March 4 is National Grammar Day in the United States. Not being American and therefore not having experienced it first hand, I don't know if that's a good thing or not. If it's used as an opportunity to explore the way grammar works, and how what we regard as acceptable grammar changes over time, that's great.

But if it's just another excuse to trot out all the old half-baked grammar shibboleths, to be endlessly repeated on forums and notice boards by oh-so-clever adolescents, I'm not so sure.

And my doubts seem to be shared by Gabe Doyle at the linguistics blog, Motivated Grammar, where he lists some of the perfectly acceptable grammatical forms which are considered by some to be 'bad grammar'. (There was one of them in that last sentence, by the way). It includes one of my favourites - singular they - one of the most useful, and I would argue, elegant constructions around. See links below.

Second conditional exercise - Joan Osborne's One of Us

Update - There is now a post with the full song available here

Why I think Snow Patrol got it spot on

There is a lot of chatter in forums etc about the chorus to Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars - whether or not it is grammatical (many people seem to think not), whether or not it is confusing, is it some weird Scottishism (where that idea came from, God knows).

Even the illustrious Grammarphobia had their say, and sticking my neck out, I think they got it wrong. Strangely enough, I think this is where foreign students might have a better idea of what's going on than many native speakers.

Maybe if we sang a song, we'd learn conditionals quicker

You can find tutorials on just about everything on YouTube, including English grammar. Some of the best are videos illustrating English grammar with extracts from popular songs. But sometimes you have to be a little careful.

Revise and practise your conditionals with these quizzes using song lyrics.