Easter words

Language tip of the week: Easter words

In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are usually based on areas of English which learners find difficult, e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc.

This week, we look at some Easter vocabulary.

Easter is a movable feast. The term itself describes a Sunday in March or April when Christians celebrate the time when Jesus Christ died then returned to life according to the Bible. It also refers to the holiday period that includes Easter day. Here are some more useful terms to know:

Easter egg (noun)
1 a chocolate egg that you give to someone as a present at Easter
2 an egg that children decorate in celebration of Easter

Cultural note: Children often go on Easter egg hunts to find eggs that have been hidden around their home by the Easter bunny.

Easter Sunday (noun)
the Sunday in March or April that Easter is celebrated on

Lent (noun)
the period of 40 days before Easter, starting on Ash Wednesday, when some Christians stop eating or doing something that they enjoy

Holy Week (noun)
in the Christian religion, the week before Easter Sunday

Palm Sunday (noun)
the Sunday before Easter, when Christians remember Christ’s journey to Jerusalem before he died

Maundy Thursday (noun)
the Thursday before Easter when Christians celebrate the last supper of Jesus Christ

Good Friday (noun)
the Friday before Easter, which Christians remember as the day that Jesus Christ died

Passion play (noun)
a play about the death of Jesus Christ according to the Bible, often performed at Easter

hot cross bun (noun)
a sweet cake for one person, marked with a small cross on the top and traditionally eaten at Easter

simnel cake (noun) (British)
a type of cake containing dried fruit, traditionally eaten at Easter

St. Patrick's Day

On March 17th The Irish celebrate St. Patrick. What do you know about this day? Read, watch the videos and find out.

And this is St Patrick as seen by science!

Lyrics:
In the year of our lord eighteen hundred and eleven
On March the seventeenth day
I will raise up a beer and I'll raise up a cheer
For Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Here's to brewers yeast, that humblest of all beasts
Producing carbon gas reducing acetaldehyde
But my friends that isn't all -- it makes ethyl alcohol
That is what the yeast excretes and that's what we imbibe

Anaerobic isolation
Alcoholic fermentation
NADH oxidation
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

My intestinal wall absorbs that ethanol
And soon it passes through my blood-brain barrier
There's a girl in the next seat who I didn't think that sweet
But after a few drinks I want to marry her
I guess it's not surprising, my dopamine is rising
And my glutamate receptors are all shot
I'd surely be bemoaning all the extra serotonin
But my judgment is impaired and my confidence is not

Allosteric modulation
No Long Term Potentiation
Hastens my inebriation
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

When ethanol is in me, some shows up in my kidneys
And inhibits vasopressin by degrees 
A decrease in aquaporins hinders water re-absorption
And pretty soon I really have to pee
Well my liver breaks it down so my body can rebound
By my store of glycogen is soon depleted
And tomorrow when I'm sober I will also be hungover
Cause I flushed electrolytes that my nerves and muscles needed

Diuretic activation
Urination urination 
Urination dehydration
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

HISTORY OF ST. PATRICK’S DAY

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17, the saint’s religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for over 1,000 years. On St. Patrick’s Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink and feast–on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.

ST. PATRICK AND THE FIRST ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE 

Saint Patrick, who lived during the fifth century, is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain, he was kidnapped and brought to Ireland as a slave at the age of 16. He later escaped, but returned to Ireland and was credited with bringing Christianity to its people. In the centuries following Patrick’s death (believed to have been on March 17, 461), the mythology surrounding his life became ever more ingrained in the Irish culture: Perhaps the most well known legend is that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) using the three leaves of a native Irish clover, the shamrock.

DID YOU KNOW?

More than 100 St. Patrick's Day parades are held across the United States; New York City and Boston are home to the largest celebrations.

Since around the ninth or 10th century, people in Ireland have been observing the Roman Catholic feast day of St. Patrick on March 17. Interestingly, however, the first parade held to honor St. Patrick’s Day took place not in Ireland but in the United States. On March 17, 1762, Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City. Along with their music, the parade helped the soldiers reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as with fellow Irishmen serving in the English army.

GROWTH OF ST. PATRICK’S DAY CELEBRATIONS 

Over the next 35 years, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, prompting the rise of so-called “Irish Aid” societies like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. Each group would hold annual parades featuring bagpipes (which actually first became popular in the Scottish and British armies) and drums.

In 1848, several New York Irish Aid societies decided to unite their parades to form one official New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Today, that parade is the world ‘s oldest civilian parade and the largest in the United States, with over 150,000 participants. Each year, nearly 3 million people line the 1.5-mile parade route to watch the procession, which takes more than five hours. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Savannah also celebrate the day with parades involving between 10,000 and 20,000 participants each.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY, NO IRISH NEED APPLY AND THE “GREEN MACHINE” 

Up until the mid-19th century, most Irish immigrants in America were members of the Protestant middle class. When the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland in 1845, close to 1 million poor and uneducated Irish Catholics began pouring into America to escape starvation. Despised for their alien religious beliefs and unfamiliar accents by the American Protestant majority, the immigrants had trouble finding even menial jobs. When Irish Americans in the country’s cities took to the streets on St. Patrick’s Day to celebrate their heritage, newspapers portrayed them in cartoons as drunk, violent monkeys.

The American Irish soon began to realize, however, that their large and growing numbers endowed them with a political power that had yet to be exploited. They started to organize, and their voting block, known as the “green machine,” became an important swing vote for political hopefuls. Suddenly, annual St. Patrick’s Day parades became a show of strength for Irish Americans, as well as a must-attend event for a slew of political candidates. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman attended New York City ‘s St. Patrick’s Day parade, a proud moment for the many Irish Americans whose ancestors had to fight stereotypes and racial prejudice to find acceptance in the New World.

THE CHICAGO RIVER ON ST. PATRICK’S DAY 

As Irish immigrants spread out over the United States, other cities developed their own traditions. One of these is Chicago’s annual dyeing of the Chicago River green. The practice started in 1962, when city pollution-control workers used dyes to trace illegal sewage discharges and realized that the green dye might provide a unique way to celebrate the holiday. That year, they released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the river–enough to keep it green for a week! Today, in order to minimize environmental damage, only 40 pounds of dye are used, and the river turns green for only several hours.

Although Chicago historians claim their city’s idea for a river of green was original, some natives of Savannah, Georgia (whose St. Patrick’s Day parade, the oldest in the nation, dates back to 1813) believe the idea originated in their town. They point out that, in 1961, a hotel restaurant manager named Tom Woolley convinced city officials to dye Savannah’s river green. The experiment didn’t exactly work as planned, and the water only took on a slight greenish hue. Savannah never attempted to dye its river again, but Woolley maintains (though others refute the claim) that he personally suggested the idea to Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY AROUND THE WORLD 

Today, people of all backgrounds celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, especially throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. Although North America is home to the largest productions, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in many other locations far from Ireland, including Japan, Singapore and Russia.

In modern-day Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day was traditionally been a religious occasion. In fact, up until the 1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on March 17. Beginning in 1995, however, the Irish government began a national campaign to use interest in St. Patrick’s Day to drive tourism and showcase Ireland and Irish culture to the rest of the world. Today, approximately 1 million people annually take part in Ireland ‘s St. Patrick’s Festival in Dublin, a multi-day celebration featuring parades, concerts, outdoor theater productions and fireworks shows.

Happy Andalusía's day

Happy Andalusía's day 

https://theenglishcam.wordpress.com/category/misc/andalusia-day/

(‘DÍA DE ANDALUCÍA‘ IN SPANISH) COMMEMORATES THE REFERENDUM FOR ANDALUCIA TO BECOME AN AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITY WITHIN SPAIN, WHICH WAS HELD ON FEBRUARY 28, 1980. SO THIS YEAR THE 33TH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR STATUTE OF AUTONOMY IS HONOURED.

Andalusia is internationally renowned for its impressive natural beauty, but also for the warm and hospitable character of local people. This is why everyone is more than welcome to come in and join the festivities. The question is: how do they celebrate Andalusia Day?