Being "woke"

What is marvellous about languaje is that is renewed and reinvented constantly with new words and meanings. 

Nowadays we can often listen to the word WOKE used by politicians, journalist and social networks. 

We all know that it is the past tense of wake= despertar, but it is being used in a different way, it is used as an adjective meaning " despierto, concienciado", the correct word would be "awake" in this sense and it has led to other new words such as "wokeness" (a noun meaning being woke or belonging to this movement) instead of "awakening".

It has good but also a bad meaning at present. But let's make some history. 

The Oxford dictionary defines it as follows:

It was used in this sense for the first time in USA by Afroamericans who wanted people to stand up, be conscious and wake up to the injustice they were suffering, the singer Lead Belly in 1938 used that term in his song " Scottboro Boys", he wanted his brothers to wake up and be alert to being accused of something they hadn't done.

Since that moment it became a symbol of social justice for black citizens and it increased with the movement "Black Lives Matter" in 2014, when the motto " stay woke" was used to rebel against police abuse to black people. 

In recent years it has spread to defend other rights such as women's rights o LGTBI rights and fight against any kind of discrimination, it has been associated to the left and progressive people. 

Conservative people consider them extreme left people who are fanatic, insincere and people who tend to censore anyone who doesn't think in the same way as they do. 

They are also considered to impose their ideas of social justice in films, books etc. (black characters or LGTBI people in traditional books ot films and series) they are thought to follow what is called Cancel Culture

Cancel culture is a cultural phenomenon in which someone suppected of having acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner is boycotted, fired or insulted specially in social media even when there is no proof of it. 

 

 

 

This movement has not only been criticised specially by Republicans such as Trump or Elon Musk, but also by democrats such as Obama when it becomes too extremist or too capitalised. 

Being woke is not so bad as it is meant to avoid discrimination, but we must be careful not to get in the same faults we are criticising. 

LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS

We are close to February, which some people consider the love month because of Saint Valentine's Day. 

There are lots of expressions and idioms that are used to talk about love and relationships and new ones are created everyday. Most of them come from songs. Here you have some in case you want to use them with the person you love. 

LOVE EXPRESSIONS AND IDIOMS

• to have a soft spot for someone / to have a crush on someone = to be attracted to someone  
• to love somebody to death = to have a extremely strong affection for someone
• to fall/ be head over heels in love = to be completely in love with someone as Alanis Morrisey said in her song "Head over Feet"

•  to have the hots for…= to feel sexually attracted to someone
• to be the apple of your eye = to love someone deeply, this is what Stevie Wonder said to his daughter  in his famous song " You are the Sunshine of my Life" 

•  To be an item / a couple= to be in a romantic relationship with someone. 
• A match made in heaven = a very successful combination of two people or things
  

• 
   

  To act / to be lovey- dovey = when people show they love in public, kissing, touching each other or saying loving things, which could be a bit embarrasing sometimes, don't you think? 

 

• someone or something is out of someone's league = someone / something is too good or expensive for someone to have

• to pop the question = to ask someone to marry you

 What are the weirdest situations that you have seen in films or TV series when someone popped the question?

  

How would you like to be asked to get married?

 

 

 Listen to Bruno Mars in " Marrry me" and you'll get an idea.

• to  tie the knot / to get hitched = to get married

FRIENDSHIP AND RELATIONSHIPS

• Birds of feather flock together =   they have so much in common and they get along so well that it’s almost impossible to think of one without thinking of the other one. Like Annie, Brooke and Haydenin " Chicken Girls" 

•  A friend in need is a friend indeed =   You can use it both as a cry for help and as a way of saying “thank you” to someone who has stayed by your side through tough moments.
  

• to give someone the cold shoulder = to intentionally ignore someone or treat someone in an unfriendly way

• to be your ride or die =  To be very loyal to someone and to do whatever for someone you love.
  

like "Thelma and Louise"

    or such as " Bonnie and Clyde", where this expression comes from.

• to cross someone’s path = to come into contact with someone or something, often surprisingly or unexpectedly 

• to have friends in high places  to know important people who can help you get what you want

I hope you enjoy it as much as me writing this and now you can write at least five examples using them and leave them in comments.  

The language of COVID pandemic

    It is amazing how Covid19 has changed our lives. It's been with us for almost a year and we have adapted to wear masks, clean our hands compulsively, avoid touching other people, working/ teaching online or semi-online with windows and doors open (almost frozen) etc. 

Language has changed and adapted too, we have got used to a medical and technical jargon that some moths ago was completely unknown. 

I have decided that it would be interesting to summarize some of the most commmon words and expressions that are here to stay. 

I must thank Oxford and Cambridge blogs for their useful posts on it. 

  Some of the words you see in the photo above are quite common nowadays, but I thought it could be great to know some others that are also present in the news we listen to or read everyday. 

Referring to people we can talk about.....

(a)symptomatic (adjective): showing symptoms or not of a particular disease - She had no idea her husband had coronavirus because he was asymptomatic.

Carrier (noun)= portador: a person or animal that transmits a disease to others, whether suffering from it themselves or not - People who are asymptomatic can still be carriers.

It is important to track those people to avoid virus spreading and get immunity...

Contact tracing (noun)= rastreo: identification and monitoring of people who may have had contact with an infectious person - By insisting on strict contact tracing as soon as someone was potentially infected, they managed to control the spread of the disease.

Droplets (noun)= aerosoles : the spray produced when people cough or sneeze, and which can spread diseases - Health care personnel wear protective clothing to guard against the disease carried in droplets when infected people sneeze or cough.

  

 

 Herd immunity (noun)= inmunidad de rebaño: an indirect protection from a disease resulting from a large percentage of the population gaining immunity (either through vaccination or through recovering from the disease) - This virus is unlike the seasonal flu because there is currently no vaccine or herd immunity.

Not to get infected it is important to have the correct protection....

Personal protective equipment (PPE) (noun)= EPI: special clothing, headgear, goggles, masks and other garments that shield people from injury or infection. - Much of the PPE worn by doctors and nurses has to be worn once only and destroyed after use.

Vaccine (noun)/ˈvæksiːn/= vacuna: a substance used to protect humans and animals from a disease- A vaccine for cholera was invented in 1879.

 

  You could be tested with a PCR test using a swab (hisopo) or with an antibodies / antigen test (test de anticuerpos). 

 

 

If you are not lucky enough and you are infected you can have some of these symptoms:
rash ( erupciones) sore (dolores) vomiting, headache, fever ( fiebre),  fatigue, cough ( tos) chills (escalofríos),  breathless ( problemas respiratorios)

 Some governments have taken measures such as curfews (toques de queda), lockdowns (confinamientos) or restrictive timetables, but please try to avoid 
panicbuying (buying large quantities of particular products because of fears of shortages) or  stockpiling ( store large quanties of stuff) 

If you want to know more or practice with this vocabulary, I recommend you to watch the following video  

or read the following blog by Oxford with an interesting post by Janet Phillips

https://learningenglishwithoxford.com/2020/03/27/the-language-of-coronavirus/

or do the following lesson plan for level B2, C1 by Cambridge