Wordwizard

Actually, the RNIB site (Royal National Institute for the Blind) sells voice controlled microwave ovens that also talks back to you. At between ten and twenty times the price of a simple one with two knobs. I dread to think what a proper oven and hob would cost! If I can light my own pipe without co...

Then I thought that making it a touch-screen would be cool. Except it gets real hot. Bad idea. Serious point here. When I had my kitchen renovated a few years back, I wanted to fit an induction hob because, with my visual impairment, I am liable to touch things I shouldn't, and induction hobs do no...

I was thinking of something a little more ... well ... "hands on" ... or perhaps "foot on". But I prefer not to dwell on it.

As I said, in the UK, "on the hob" explicitly means "not in the oven". Cooking on the hob means cooking in a saucepan, stock pot or frying pan with direct heat from the bottom. Generally, I would only use "on the hob" in cases where it is possible to cook similar dishes either in the oven (e.g. cass...

I think most native speakers would use "a mistake" in all cases if a single mistake on three occasions is meant.

I dread to think how you deal with contraception in your family, trolley.

Could be another UK thing. In most modern kitchens, you have two (fitted) appliances for cooking. The "oven" and the "hob". The oven is the enclosed space with a door in which you roast things, bake, make casseroles, etc. The other appliance is usually fitted on top of the oven and usually comprises...

I seem to remember having this one before, but it was only mentioned in passing once before. For clarification as to UK usage: "Harry is in hospital" (he is ill and is receiving treatment as an in-patient - i.e. with at least one overnight stay) "Harry is at the hospital" (He is visiting somebody or...

Thank you for the correction. "In hospital" is mandatory usage in the UK to express a stay in hospital as a patient.

Firstly, in a and b, you need to say "in hospital", not "in the hospital". a implies that you have left hospital and started sleeping better after you left hospital or while you were in hospital. If you intend to say that you started sleeping better after you left hospital, that is probably how you ...

Nice find, Tony.

The old thread did remind me of a genuine occurrence about 25 or more years ago in Germany. In the brief time I was actually employed in a large translation department, one of my colleagues was a tiresome feminist. Not tiresome because she was a feminist, but because she had no other conversation wh...

Just get the Corgis to drive:

Now that set me thinking. Apples. Some people peel apples and throw away the peel. Do those of us who do not do so eat the skin or the peel? Is peel only peel if it has been peeled? This article from the Huff Post can't decide either: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/never-peel-apple_n_4791328 It uses...

Oh, you are naughty...