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| Image by Camille Seaman |
There are numerous English words to learn out there, you just have to find the ones you are interested in.
To my surprise, photography news can also be very resourceful in terms of vocabulary. Peta Pixel recently posted an article recommending the supercell storm clouds photographs taken by Camille Seaman. A supercell is a kind of thunderstorm common in the Tornado Alley in the USA, usually generating actual tornadoes!
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| Image by Camille Seaman |
That's a real beauty! Isn't it?
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| By the water, by the water by Greg Image from Photography Blogger |
The next word is from an article by Photography Blogger, hammock. Exactly what you see from the photos above and below.
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| hide and seek by marco Image from Photography Blogger |
I would love to have one of those, too bad my home isn't big enough.
Do you know what is time-lapse? Peta Pixel has another article showing 3 months of Europe with 30,000 photos combined together into a 5-minute video. Here's the video.
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| Image from The Economist |
What do you do when you want to ask someone for a kiss at Christmas? You stand under the mistletoe -- a parasitic plant that lives on the other trees. However, The Economist tells us that there is more than just one worthy function of the mistletoe. A research has been carried out to test the importance of the mistletoe and found that the mistletoe is highly important in attracting insects and small critters, which in turn attract more birds to feed on them. Thus, mistletoe is a keystone species -- it supports an entire ecosystem, and removing it has drastic effects for the whole.
The next news from Daily Mail is pretty interesting! A study of 2000 British women by Lil-Lets shows that the British women
- feel proud of their figure 50% of the case,
- are more proud of their eyes than their boobs, of their boobs than the brain,
- want to have better-looking legs 41% of the time,
- feel sexiest at the age of 28 and,
- feel most confident at the age of 32
- suffer from broken confidence when being dumped by a partner.
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| Image from Daily Mail |
Results are expected to differ from places to places, especially in Hong Kong, but it is always interesting to know what women think, might benefit the men in many ways by keeping the women happy.
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| Thiago Silva Image from The Footy Blog |
Lastly, something for the men, Soccernet reports that football club Paris St Germain has successfully signed Brazilian star Thiago Silva from AC Milan, good for PSG! But Thiago Silva himself is upset because people called him mercenary, which means money-minded. I don't care much about AC Milan, but thanks to the selling, I have bagged another word.
Vocabulary:
epic -- (adj) informal extremely large
supercell -- (n)[C] a thunderstorm that is characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, persistently rotating updraft.For this reason, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms.
tornado -- (n)[C] a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as twisters
hammock -- (n)[C] a type of bed used especially outside, consisting of a net or long piece of strong cloth which you tie between two trees or poles so that it swings (= moves sideways through the air)
mistletoe -- (n)[U] an evergreen (= never losing its leaves) plant with small white fruits and pale yellow flowers which grows on trees, often used as a Christmas decoration
critter -- (n)[C] [C] (also crittur) US not standard a creature
keystone species -- (n) it supports an entire ecosystem, and removing it has drastic effects for the whole.
boob -- (n)[C]very informal a woman's breast
broken confidence -- (n)[U] confidence which has been broken (Isn't this obvious?)
mercenary -- (adj) disapproving interested only in the amount of money that you can get from a situation
Resources:
Epic Photos of Supercell Storm Clouds Over the American Midwest @ Petapixel
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/07/13/epic-photos-of-supercell-storm-clouds-over-the-american-midwest/
Camille Seaman Photography
http://www.camilleseaman.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=3258&Akey=WX679BJN
Supercell @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercell
14 Relaxing Hammock Photos @ Photography Blogger
http://www.photographyblogger.net/14-relaxing-hammock-photos/
30,000 Photo Time-Lapse Shrinks Three Months in Europe Into Five Minutes @ Petapixel
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/07/15/30000-photo-time-lapse-shrinks-three-months-in-europe-into-five-minutes/
Mistletoe @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistletoe#Culture.2C_folklore.2C_and_mythology
Under the mistletoe @ The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21558551
Why women feel sexiest when they are 28 (That means Pippa Middleton and Mila Kunis are both at the magic age!) @ Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2177701/Why-women-feel-sexiest-28-Pippa-Middleton-Mila-Kunis-magic-age.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Thiago 'upset' by Milan exit @ Soccernet
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1125731/thiago-silva-left-'upset'-by-ac-milan-exit?cc=4716
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/epic_2
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/hammock?q=hammock+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/mistletoe?q=mistletoe+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/critter?q=critter+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/boob_2
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/mercenary_1?q=mercenary