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English Similes

“It’s been a hard day’s night and I’ve been working like a dog” In English, whenever we want to compare two things to each other we can use a simile. The main difference between a simile and a metaphor is that the comparison in similes is always indirect. In fact we need to employ words like ‘as’, ‘like’ or ‘than’. On the other hand, the writer or speaker using a metaphor would be implying that something IS something else. Let us look at some examples to illustrate the difference…. 1. Life is a journey. 2. Life is like a journey. 3. Life is as eventful as a journey. In the first example we have a metaphor (because life is being directly compared to a journey. The second and third examples are similes and this is illustrated by the fact that both examples include ‘like’ or ‘as’. Why are similes necessary? “One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts -just mere thoughts – are as powerful as electric batteries – as good for one

An Owl With a Feather

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Winter Wonders What a fantastic photo, not taken by me, I must add. I love the way only a few colours are evident, which has the effect of making the stark yellow eyes stand out all the more.

With the Swans at Osterley Park

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A lovely quiet spot in Osterley Park a few days ago.

English Grammar The Semicolon

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THE SEMICOLON The semicolon is somewhere between a full stop and a comma. Semicolons can be used in English to join phrases and sentences that are thematically linked without having to use a conjunction (example 1 below). Semicolons can also be used instead of commas to separate the items in a list when the items themselves already contain commas (example 2 below). EXAMPLES I like your brother; he's a good friend. Many great leaders, Churchill, leader of Britain during the Second World War; Alexander, the great Emperor and general; and Napolean, the brilliant French general, had strong characters, which were useful when their countries were at war but which did not serve them well in times of peace.

Hurry Up Harry

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Week 1 Walking Back to Health We completed a brisk 4 mile walk today around  Gunnersbury Park.   T his is a park in Brentford, West London, England. Purchased for the nation from the Rothschild family, it was opened to the public by Neville Chamberlain, then Minister of Health, on 21 May 1926.
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Walking up a hill back in September 2014. Sometimes we all need a bit of support along the way.

Cats are boring don`t you think?

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Top 10 Photos

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This is one of my favourite photos. It was taken a few years ago in Lanzarote. I was sitting having a coffee looking across the harbour with the mountains in the backround.

Sean`s Old Austin Car

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This car used to live in West London. I can remember sitting in it several times waiting in the cold for it to finally start so we can get moving. I wonder where it is now, is this car even still on the road somewhere? 

This England

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A view of the English coast near Eastbourne September 2014

Fireflight by Sean Gunning

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Fireflight A jagged-edged charcoal line in the sky - three, maybe four dozen birds flying north, a mile above the 22 freeway, five, maybe six miles south of Garden Grove. Ahead, just hours into its rise, the sun: a goddess, naked and burning with life behind a thin swath of white chiffon cloth; blinding; illuminating creation. Almost invisible, like kite strings caught in some holy pull, side-by-side for miles, thousands of migrating gulls; each beating heart a part of a family heading home. To the north, mountains. To the east, mountains. To the southwest, the weight of an ocean. An avian etch-a-sketch in the sky. God shaking out his electric razor. How do they know when everyone's leaving? How do they know about wingtip vortex and drag? Do they really communicate on such an advanced, organized level? Did they know to wait for yesterday's rain to wash the dark choking smog from the air, so they could breathe in the full majesty of late-fall, snow-

DMG English Teaching Service

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Footy is back

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