I quite often come across the invented collocation light athletics in articles written by non-native speakers of English. Please, remember that one of the most popular sports is called just athletics in British English and track and field in American English. One of the races or competitions in a sports programme is an event, not a discipline. Athletics involves track events – races run on a track, and field events such as the long jump, the pole vault, or the shot put (not throwing a ball, as a certain bilingual dictionary claims). A weapon with a long handle and a sharp point used for fighting and hunting in the past is called a spear, but a piece of sports equipment similar to it is called a javelin. It is interesting that a metal ball attached to a wire, which athletes throw as far as possible, is called a hammer, although it is not similar to a tool used for hitting nails, which bears the same name. A race in which runners, also called hurdlers, have to jump over a series of upright frames is called a hurdle race/run, not an obstacle race. A 3000-metre hurdle run, including jumping over gates and water, is called a steeplechase, which was originally and still is a horse race. In an obstacle race the competitors have to climb over, under, through, etc. various objects, which is not an athletic event. In our country, it is sometimes called ‘a monkey race’. Obstacles are also used in showjumping, which is the sport of riding a horse and jumping over a set of fences in an arena. We can use both words, an obstacle and a hurdle, when we mean a problem or situation which makes it difficult for us to do or achieve something.
OK, enough sports for this month’s issue. Let’s have a look at some students’ mistakes I have come across recently. ‘Helvetians were a Celtic trunk that…’ The noun trunk has several meanings. It is the thick main stem of a tree, or the long nose of an elephant, or the main part of the human body, to mention just the most common definitions. A group of people of the same race, and with the same customs, language, religion, etc., living in a particular area in a developing country and often lead by a chief is called a tribe.
‘My brother went to a party and the next day he was after monkey.’ The sentence is a typical example of an incorrect (and funny) word-for-word translation. The headache and sick feeling that you have the day after drinking too much alcohol is called a hangover, so the student’s brother had a hangover the day after the party.
‘Chemistry is the heaviest subject for me.’ I wonder how much it weighs. Anyway, chemistry is definitely the most difficult subject for some students. We can use the adjective heavy in the meaning of difficult, however, when we are talking about a book, programme, style, etc., which is too serious and difficult to understand or enjoy.
And now, let’s discuss some false friends (words that look similar to ours, but have different meanings). By the way, we do not discuss about something, we discuss something. And we can discuss something even without talking (= write about something in detail).
A sympathetic person is kind to somebody who is hurt or sad, showing that they understand and care about their problems. Although the adjective sympathetic can carry the meaning of easy to like, it is not very common, and it is better to use likeable, nice or pleasant instead. The sentences ‘Maria is very sympathetic to me,’ and ‘I find Maria very likeable’ thus have completely different meanings. There is also the third meaning of the adjective sympathetic – showing that you approve of somebody or something or that you share their views and are willing to support them, as in the following sentence: ‘John is sympathetic to my ideas.’
An ordination is the act or ceremony of making somebody a priest or minister of a church, not a place where a doctor, dentist or vet is available to see patients, which is a surgery in British English and an office in American English (a doctor’s/dentist’s/vet’s surgery/office). We usually leave out the noun surgery/office, and call the place just the doctor’s/dentist’s/vet’s. It works in the same way with most shops. Here we leave out the noun shop, and thus a butcher’s/chemist’s/stationer’s shop is simply the butcher’s/chemist’s/stationer’s.
Speaking of shops, a hardware shop (in British English also the ironmonger’s) sells tools and equipment that are used in the house and garden (= hardware/ironmongery), not the machinery and electronic parts of a computer system, which are sold in a computer shop. A hardware dealer is a person who owns or works in a shop selling hardware. If you want to avoid ambiguity, call the person an ironmonger (which is, however, becoming old-fashioned).
