Locky's English Playground

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

Business Vocabulary: The Cogs -- The Cash Group

Let's continue with the next group of Business Vocabulary, people who need to deal with cash. If you want to recall the business vocabulary in the last entry, click Business Vocabulary: The Cogs -- The Law Group

Image from HedgeWizardDiary

Short Change - From cheating someone by giving them less change than they should after a purchase. Refers to a person who treats others unfairly or deceitfully. Alternately, someone who borrows money but fails to pay back the lender in full.

Image from CartoonStock

Penny Pincher - Someone who spend little money, who is exceedingly careful with expenses and money. (such as Ebenezer Scrooge)

Image from coverbrower

Tightwad - A cheapskate, or someone who is stingy. "Wad" means a number of especially flat and/or small objects pressed tightly together, say cash notes.

Image from TruthWorks

Bean Counter - A financial person who is concerned with quantity of products, such as bookkeeping or accounting, often neglecting other matters.

Image from north-carolina-lemon-law

Number Cruncher - A person who performs numerous calculations.

Image from Instructify

Money Bags - A rich, often extravagant person.

Image from Like a Whisper

Loan Shark - Someone who lends money with excessive rates of interest.

Interest costs an arm and a leg.

Image from the Brooding Lizard

Robber Baron - Someone who becomes wealthy by unethical means, such as questionable stock-market operations and labor.

Image from DakotaVoice

C.F.O. - Chief Financial Officer. The corporate executive having financial authority to make appropriations and authorize expenditures for a firm

Image from prophix

Resources:
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2010/05/business-vocabulary-cogs-law-group.html

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shortchange
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/penny_pincher
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/wad
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bean_counter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_cruncher
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/robber_baron

Monday, 7 June 2010

News Article: The Ugly Side of Beauty Parlour

As a man, I honestly don't mind seeing more pretty ladies on the street. As the lady herself, I suppose being more beautiful gives her more confidence. Sound like a win-win, the end result is that Hong Kong will become a prettier place to live.

Botox Injection

Image from Wrinkles Cream Reviewed

Then what is the problem when there isn't a problem?

I still remember my dearest friend John's concern he told me many years ago. He said that he wanted to marry a girl who is extremely beautiful, because only a pretty girl carries a "pretty gene" and thus the offspring of him and his beautiful wife will surely be gorgeous.

Charles Darwin

Image from Jacob's Weblog

Reminds me of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory on natural selection and sexual selection. Anyway, I suppose my friend John will have big trouble now since the lovely ladies he sees might not carry any "pretty gene" and Charles Darwin must be really impressed with how modern ladies play their own role of God.

Charles Darwin's illustration of sexual selection.

Image from Wikipedia

But if you remember Newton's Third Law of motion, the action-reaction law,

Skaters forces on each other are equal in magnitude, and in opposite directions

Image from Wikipedia

"To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions."

So maybe,
"To every surgical action done on the face to improve the look there is always an equivalent amount of action done on your cash in the opposite direction."

But is that all?

Please read the article below from the Standard:

The ugly side of beauty parlors

Patsy Moy
Monday, June 07, 2010

Plastic surgeons have expressed alarm over a sharp increase in complaints against beauty parlors.

The biggest rise in complaints involved injections of beauty serum and chemicals, such as botox and skin-whitening serum, according to the Hong Kong Surgical Laser Association.

The Consumer Council has received 48 complaints against parlors in the first four months of this year, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the 124 recorded last year and in 2008.

Until the end of April, 11 complaints were about injection of beauty serum and chemicals such as botox, placenta and skin whitening, compared to 16 complaints last year and 15 in 2008.

Hong Kong Association of Cosmetic Surgery president Walter King Wing-keung attributed the rise in complaints to the growing use of syringe treatment in beauty parlors, which gives consumers the wrong impression that it is safer than plastic surgery.

King warned most parlors are run by non-doctors who do not have enough medical knowledge to conduct risk assessment. Some customers ended up suffering from severe allergies and rashes after injections, he added.
However, the parlors fail to provide follow-up treatment.

Surgical Laser Association president Chan Wai-man also blamed the parlors for ignoring health risks by organizing tours for customers to receive plastic surgery in Japan and South Korea.

Chan warned against the use of laser treatment in beauty parlors particularly. He said the equipment requires highly competent technical staff to operate it or both customers and equipment operators could be put at risk.

Chan said there were complaints from customers and even repair workers that their eyes were burned accidentally by the laser equipment, causing permanent injuries.

He called for tighter government controls and advised customers to be more cautious before receiving beauty treatment.

Instead of seeking treatments from beauty parlors, customers should go to doctors for better and safer services, Chan added.

Do you remember the Online English Manga website I have recommended? There you might just find the truth for obtaining non-gifted beauty:

Image from Bokutachi No Blog

From FullMetal Alchemist,
"Human kind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one and only truth"

Of course, now we know that something of equal value must be lost can be more than just money. So, are you willing to pay?

BOTOX (from Wikipedia)
Botulinum toxin is a medication and a neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, and is known to be very toxic with an LD₅₀ of roughly 0.005–0.05 µg/kg making it the most toxic substance known to man. Despite its deadly toxic effect, it is sometimes used in very small doses to treat muscle spasms. Popularly known by one of its trade names, Botox, botulinum toxin is now commonly used in various settings for cosmetic procedures

Side effects:
muscle paralysis: drooping eyelid, double vision, uneven smile or loss of the ability to close eyes, headaches, dysphagia, flu-like syndromes, and allergic reactions.

Vocabulary:
beauty parlour /salon/shop -- (n)[C] a place where your hair, face and body can be given special treatments to improve their appearance
serum -- (n)[C or U](plural serums or sera) a substance in beauty products that is designed to improve your hair or skin and make it less dry
placenta -- (n)[C] (plural placentas or placentae) the temporary organ which feeds a foetus (= developing baby) inside its mother's womb
attribute sth to sb/sth -- (phrasal verb) to say or think that something is the result or work of something or someone else
syringe -- (n)[C] a hollow cylindrical piece of equipment which is used for sucking liquid out of, or pushing liquid into something, especially one with a needle which can be put under the skin and used to inject drugs, remove small amounts of blood, etc.
allergy -- (n)[C] a condition that makes a person become ill or develop skin or breathing problems because they have eaten certain foods or been near certain substances

Resources:
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=99094&sid=28496026&con_type=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception_of_Darwin's_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_laws_of_motion
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2010/05/comics-online-english-manga-free-2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botox#Side_effects

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/beauty-salon-parlour
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/serum
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/placenta
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/attribute-sth-to-sb-sth#attribute-sth-to-sb-sth__2
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/syringe_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/allergy#allergy__3

Friday, 4 June 2010

Vocabulary: The Other F-words

Image from What I did for music

Don't be scared by the title. You know I am not the type of teacher who will teach how people use the "F-word". Then why do I use that title? Well, if you are my ex-students, you may recall that I have mentioned about the odd coincidental relations between certain "F" starting words with "finger", "movements" or "finger movements"

I mentioned that in my class, but I have never put down a list of vocabulary and I just pull words out from my brain, so I thought, since there is such an odd news from the Standard with one of the f-words as title, might as well starting putting this vocabulary list together today.

Whew! Took me 4 hours to write this entry. Hope you can learn something today.

Fingers crossed!

"Fingers crossed" for Good luck Image from Keepin' It Real ... Organized	"Fingers crossed" for nullifying promises Image from Zazzle.com
fatfinger Image from Russell Heimlich	fiddle Image from Reuters
fidget Image from Starmony	file (nails) Image from Mont Bleu Design
finger Image from modestosurgery	finger wag Image from Zero Percent Chance
flash Image from Illustrated Photography	flatten (a dough) Image from EgglessCooking
flick (the hair) Image from	flicker (eyelid) Image from i.ehow
flip (a phone) Image from MultiCellPhone	fondle (a woman) Image from GodHaven

Breast-fondling secretary guilty

Patsy Moy Friday, June 04, 2010

A former secretary at Henderson Land has been convicted of indecently assaulting a female colleague by groping her breasts inside an office washroom.

Chung Sau-kuen, 33, was found guilty at Eastern Magistrates' Court yesterday of two counts of indecent assault.

Chung had denied the charges.

Magistrate Johnny Chan Jong- herng ruled Chung's behavior was indecent by the moral standards of Hong Kong people.

He said the accused was not justified in poking and fondling another woman's breasts simply because she thought they were friends.

Chung should have understood her behavior was not the same as touching a colleague's waist and hand like she would do in the office.

The assaults occurred inside a washroom at Two IFC on two separate occasions last year.

The victim, who worked as a receptionist in the same building, testified that Chung suddenly grabbed her breasts inside the washroom one night after work.

She said she didn't take any action over the initial assault because she wanted to avoid making enemies and causing embarrassment at work.

Then on November 4, also inside the washroom, Chung commented that the victim's clothes were "very sexy," the court was told.

Chung said to the victim: "Your breasts do not look fake" before poking them.

The victim then decided to lodge a complaint with her supervisor who, however, described it as a "personal matter," and would not take further action.

The victim then told her boyfriend, and filed a police report.

In mitigation, the defense lawyer said Chung had left her job of 12 years after her case was widely reported by the media.

Chung got married earlier this year.

She was allowed bail pending sentence on June 17.

Vocabulary:
nullify -- (vb) [T] to cause something to have no value or effect

fatfinger -- (vb)[T] informal to press the wrong button by accident when you are using a computer keyboard
fiddle -- (vb)

[T] formal to act dishonestly in order to get something for yourself, or to change something dishonestly, especially to your advantage
[I] to move things about or touch things with no particular purpose
[I] informal to play the violin

fidget -- (vb)[I] to make continuous small movements which annoy other people
file -- (vb)[I + adv or prep T] to use a file in order to make an object smooth or to change its shape
finger -- (vb)[T] to touch or feel something with your fingers
finger wag -- please see Business Vocabulary: The Cogs -- Boss Group
flash -- (vb)

[T] to show something for a short time
[I or T] informal If someone flashes, they show their sexual organs in public
[I + adv or prep T] to move very fast
[I or T] to shine brightly and suddenly, or to make something shine in this way
[I] literary If someone's eyes flash, they look bright because of the anger or excitement the person is feeling.

flatten -- please see Vocabulary: Suffix "-en"
flick -- (vb) [I or adv or prep T] to move or hit something with a short sudden movement
flicker -- (vb)[I or T] to appear for a short time or to make a sudden movement
flip -- (vb)[I or T usually + adv or prep] If you flip something, you turn it over quickly one or more times, and if something flips, it turns over quickly
fondle-- (vb)[T] to touch gently and in a loving way, or to touch in a sexual way

grope -- (vb)

[I or T] to feel with your hands, especially in order to find or move towards something when you cannot see easily
[T] informal to touch someone's body in order to get sexual pleasure, usually when the person does not want you to do this

Wednesday, 2 June 2010

Vocabulary: It's raining cats and dogs!

Image from Sicc.sk.ca

Rain, rain, rain...... It's raining cats and dogs!!! Downpour!!! Cloud-burst!! Rainstorm!!

Most people are sick of rainy days. For me, I don't quite agree. Well, yes, I won't get to practise my football, but without rain, plants can't grow, and we almost had to go into water ration last Winter if you recall, so without rain, we have no water to drink.

Anyway, back to our main topic for today.

Have you heard about a new British survey which reported how much British people talk about weather? Here's one of the many (from Digital Journal). In short, it was a survey carried out by Lloyds TSB Insurance and British People Discuss Weather 49 Hours a Year. Is it such a great topic to have a chinwag over? In my opinions, "no", because like what the Digital Journal wrote,

"It's often been said that if people can't think of anything else to say then they'll happily discuss the weather."

So if I have lots of other topics queuing up on my list, weather will show up in my conversations almost only when either the weather or my conversation has gone incredibly wrong. But after reading the news article, you should know that it is always safe to chit-chat with a British lady about weather. Then again, you need to know the words first......

British People Say Hello and Talk about Weather

Ever since I have recommended the Hong Kong Observatory website in the article Website: Hong Kong Observatory, have you learnt anything useful from there? The website has changed the layout such that the satellite and radar images are now shown on the front page. Yet, the most useful of all in terms of learning English weather vocabulary, is the Local Weather Forecast section, on which you can find blue links to weather terms we need.

For instance, rain, can be classified into the following:

Drizzle	Precipitation of water drops of very small size.
Isolated showers	Showers occur only in small parts of the territory at a time
Occasional showers	Showers occur only in most parts of the territory occasionally
Scattered showers	The rain-bearing clouds do not stay together and are distributed spatially, resulting in showers occurring in parts of the territory. It may be rain-free in other parts of the territory.
Showers	Brief precipitation usually from convective clouds. It is characterized by the sudden start and end of the precipitation as well as the fine weather before and after its occurrence.
Rain	Precipitation of water drops from deep and thick cloud layers. It is more persistent than showers but the rainfall amount is less.
Squally showers	Showers accompanied by brief but sudden strong or gale force winds.
Thundery showers	Precipitation of water drops from cumulonimbus clouds. It is characterized by its sudden start and end with rapid changes in the intensity of rain, accompanied by thunders.

There are many other terms to learn from the website, so do spend some time to study the rest as well. You don't need to go too specialised though, in my opinions, I think I will just need to know the difference between drizzle, showers, rain, squally and thundery showers.

I'm really fond of weather, so maybe next round, I can talk about typhoon, since the season is coming.

By the way, British people like to talk about weather is not really a new discovery. See Nov 2008 Talking about weather is top British trait. I'm sure there are many more surveys done earlier.

Don't forget to check the radar / satellite images from the HKO website before leaving home!

Vocabulary:
It's raining cats and dogs! -- (old-fashioned) something that you say when it is raining heavily
downpour -- (n) [C usually singular] a lot of rain in a short time
cloud-burst -- (n) [C] a sudden heavy fall of rain
rainstorm -- (n) [C] a weather condition with strong wind and heavy rain
chinwag -- (n) [C] informal a long and pleasant conversation between friends
precipitation -- (n) [U] specialized water which falls from the clouds towards the ground, especially as rain or snow
spatially -- (adv) relating to the position, area and size of things
convective --(adj) from the word convection -- (n) [U] specialized the flow of heat through a gas or a liquid
squally -- (adj) a sudden strong wind or short storm
cumulonimbus --(n) [U] specialized a large, tall type of cumulus cloud that is often dark and brings heavy rain or a thunderstorm

Cumulonimbus Clouds

Image from Bill Adams