David's Extra English Class

“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...

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.

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

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.