Hi, I'm Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

Today we're studying a video called Lightning Versus Lightening from The Grammar Girl channel on YouTube.

The Grammar Girl is Mignon Fogarty. She makes a very popular podcast about grammar called: Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

And she's also written a book. This is her site.

In this video she explains the difference between lightning and lightening.

Do you ever get those two words mixed up? I guess it's more common to get them confused if you live in North America because they have the same pronunciation in American English.

Lightning, with no e, is the stuff that flashes in the sky, or that people draw on their faces. And lightening, with an e, is what happens when you bleach your hair.

If you do have trouble remembering which is which, Grammar Girl has a good tip. She says to think of a lightening bolt zapping out the letter e.

STICK NEWS

Kia ora in Stick News today a group of German high school students has won the Ugly Dance World Cup.

This year ten teams competed in the Ugly Dance World Cup in Germany.
The winning group was from a town in northwestern Germany.
Organizers said the group won because of their epic ugliness, horrible appearance and their signature move - the Shy Dance.

And that was Stick News for Thursday the 28th of October.
Kia ora.

Is your ugly face part of the costume?
Oooh! Did it take you all day to think of that one?

My team won the World Cup!
Football?
Mmm ... similar ...

I'd like to thank myself for being God's Gift!
Aw, bless, even the speech is ugly.

Word of the Day

Today's word is espresso.

Another one of The Grammar Girl's videos is called: Is It Espresso or Expresso?
And she says it should be espresso. And the word comes from the Italian for pressed out.

But in the Concise Oxford Dictionary under espresso it has in brackets (also expresso). So I guess the x is also acceptable. But still, I would recommend using an s, especially if you're writing it on a board in a café - I think it looks kind of amateur to use an x.

Question Time

We filmed today's question time in a suburb in Auckland called Parnell.

In New Zealand this vegetable is usually called an eggplant or an aubergine – but I wasn't sure which one was more common. So we decided to take one to the streets and ask people: What do you usually call this?

Zucchini? No? What is it? I don't know.
Um, well, it's either an eggplant or an aubergine.
And which one do you usually call it?
Eggplant.

Ah, either an eggplant or an aubergine.
And what do you usually call it?
Probably an eggplant.

Eggplant.

It's an eggplant, right?

Um, an eggplant ... or an aubergine.
Which one do you usually use?
Usually eggplant.

Ah, pomegranate. No, I'm just making that up – I have no clue.
I actually cooked two of these in the last week. He's, ah, crazy. It's eggplant. We call it eggplant in Los Angeles.

I call that an eggplant.

Conversations with Sarah: Why not aubergine?

Step 1: Repeat Dylan's lines.

Step 2: Read Dylan's lines and talk to Sarah.

Dylan: What do you usually call it?

Sarah: These days I usually say eggplant.

Dylan: Why not aubergine?

Sarah: I think I used to say aubergine, but then when I want to Japan most people seemed to learn eggplant, so when I was speaking English I usually said eggplant, and now I just say it out of habit I guess.

Dylan: What is it in Japanese?

Sarah: Nasu.

And that was The Daily English Show. If you'd like to subscribe to the show as a podcast, you can find out how to do that one this page. See you tomorrow, bye!