by Kevin Burton Johann Sebastian Bach wrote an ode to coffee, which means I wouldn’t have to. His would surely suffice. By all rights though, I should. Most of us wanted to sample coffee as young teens, exploring the world of grownups. That desire was heightened by the fact that adults tried …
Tag Archives: Mexico
Giving The Gifts Of Love And Devotion
by Kevin Burton The best jokes around our house don’t start with “knock knock” or “a guy walks into a bar.” They start with “what do you want for..” On our calendar we have spaced birthdays, Christmas, and our anniversary so that at all times there is some kind of gifting occasion on …
Hey Marketers, Watch Your Language
by Kevin Burton The good people at http://www.thoughtco.com have poked into some language-barrier marketing stories and discovered some of them are simply not true. The first one burst my bubble. I heard somewhere that Chevrolet had to stop selling Nova cars in Mexico because “no va” in Spanish means, “it doesn’t go.” …
Wobble Talk And Fighting Words In English
by Kevin Burton Here’s one subject that never came up when I was teaching English in Mexico – thank God! In English, when you see the vowel combination “ae” how do you pronounce it? This was brought to my attention on an otherwise glorious Saturday morning by our friends at the Merriam-Webster …
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Chip, Chip Hooray! It’s Potato Chip Day
by Kevin Burton Today is National Potato Chip Day, but I didn’t study for the quiz. My excuse, (there is always an excuse) Consumer Reports let me down. In the past the magazine has published consumer preference stories about chips of all kinds. But I found nothing on their website and by googling …
A Language That Goes Beyond Words
by Kevin Burton Surely you’ve heard this old joke: What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks only one language? American. A wicked, sweeping generalization that. Not entirely fair. But …
Thanking God For Closed Doors
by Kevin Burton One of my frequent prayers is that God will “open the doors that need to be open and close the doors that need to be closed.” This is a necessary prayer because I can’t see around time corners to see the future and I’m not always so good at the …
Saginaw USA, Why Not Exactly?
by Kevin Burton I think I’ve found America kids! This after considerable searching. You’ll never guess where. Listen to this: “The Saginaw Valley Rail Trail is one of Saginaw County’s gems, stretching 11 miles from St. Charles to Saginaw. It incorporates a number of natural features including: seven bridges over various rivers …
Speaking Of English, Speaking In British
by Kevin Burton Not smashing, not daft, something mid-table I’d say, to use a football analogy. I thought I was ready, so I had a go, with middling results. Every day Merriam-Webster sends me an e-mail to help me watch my language. A few weeks ago they announced “The Great British Vocabulary …
My Bilingual Doubletalk In Mexico
by Kevin Burton My career as an English as a Second Language teacher came to an abrupt early end one night under the streetlights outside a small taco shop in Puebla. To tell you how and why that happened, I first turn to BBC writer Nicole Chang, who recently wrote about what speaking …
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