Litnax

Fancy reading "Henry Darrow: Lightning in the Bottle"?

Enrique Tomás Delgado or better known as Henry Darrow is a Puerto Rican-American actor of stage and film, best remembered for his role as Manolito Montoya on the 1960s television series The High Chaparral. He is greatly instrumental in helping Latino actors land non-stereotyped parts.

I didn't read Twilight but saw the movie, so NO. As for 50 Shades of Grey, it's not for me  :nerd:

Give me Tolkien, Hemingway or Anne Rice anytime.

I attribute a lot of my knowledge of English grammar to my love of Archie comics growing up. I think it helped me a lot with sentence structures and word usage, since it was a comic that rarely used slang and was always "proper".

I love Archie comics, and Jughead is still my favorite character. He actually have ways with words compared to the others. 

Okay, here's mine  :grin:

Jazz something up

If you jazz something up, you add something to try to improve it or make it more stylish.

"The dress needs a scarf or a necklace to jazz it up."

And all that jazz - used at the end of a list; means: "all similar things included"

ex. Tim asked Angela, "What do you plan on doing tomorrow?"  She responded, "Cooking, cleaning, and all that jazz."

As a jazz lover, I really love this one!  :love:

That figures. I'm more inclined to use 'learned' so I think I'll better stick to that.

I would like to be able to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics - if that counts.

According to some 'language expert' when learning a language you should listen to it for a long time [this could be up to one year] so that you can 'acquire an ear' for the language. After that, learning how to speak the language will be faster.

So, is that true or false?

Sounds pretty much like an immersion technique to me. And yes, this definitely works. That's how I learnt English and how I acquired 'an ear' for Japanese. 

If a poem is bound too much to grammatical rules, it would be less appealing as a poem to me. I say break the rules. I see poets do it all the time.

I agree with your brother. Japanese is straightforward when it comes to pronunciation so I really think you should give it a try. 

When it comes to appearance or clothing wise, I would use 'smart' as in dress sharply and 'elegant' as in beautifully dressed.

However, I do like Phoenix, like the late heartthrob River Phoenix which I think is an amazing name. But not one I would personally give to myself or my child.

For word name lovers here is a little list for you.

Savannah

Dawn

Ivy

Paige

Patience

Liberty

Amber

Jasmine

Madison

Justice

Skye

Love

Grace

Phoenix and Skye definitely!

Desuetude, nemesis, offing, opulent and elixir - mainly because of the way one pronounce these words. I just like the way they sound to my ears.

I always stick with Oxford, either hard copy or as online reference. I don't think I will switch to any other anytime soon.

That all Americans are New Yorkers, or all British are Londoners.  :grin:

Appreciate if English British native speakers could shed some light to this: what is and when do you actually use the word 'ruddy' as an expletive (if this word is expletive at all)?

I know several people from my country that went to France to study had bad experience with the locals. They were teased (quite rudely) when they try to converse in French. Now, I don't want to paint the same picture to all French people, but everyone that I knew who went there as a student or an expat had to face similar situation. 

Have someone to practice with you but I definitely recommend books.

English - it is part of my country's education so no choice really  But I loved it. When I finally able to read my Archie comics without a dictionary, that was when I fully realized the benefit of being knowledgeable in a foreign language. My next target is Japanese by the way.

I would like to see my Japanese learning go well this year 

I find this one quite funny 

Golf widow - a wife who is left alone most of the time because her husband is playing golf.

No offence to any golf lovers...

I used to be confused about this one  :grin:

Face like thunder - someone who is clearly very angry or upset about something.

And I LOVE this idiom  :love:

Shoot the breeze - chat in a relaxed way.

:grin:

Dead right - absolutely correct.

Dead wrong - absolutely incorrect.

The few I can remember are two peas in a pod, spill the beans and sells like hot bread. A lot of those mentioned I even forgot so having been reminded of them is a good thing.

I heard 'sells like hot cakes' before but not 'hot bread'. Something new to learn 

Back to the drawing board - to have to start something from scratch again.

Penny for your thoughts? - Asking someone what they are thinking

Sit on the fence - To not take or avoid taking a decision

In dire straits - in dangerous trouble

I used these often