Introduction

This Section contains information about the vocabulary associated with a number of common topics, together with notes on slang, idioms and related matters. For more about vocabulary problems, see Word formation and spelling and Word problems from A to Z.

Do you know what’s wrong with these, and why?

There’s an Irish in the house next door. (see here)

I have a lot of american friends. (see here)

We can say ‘one half’ as ‘nought comma five’. (see here)

I waited for him for one and a half hour. (see here)

A third of the students is from abroad. (see here)

King Henry Eight was born in 1491. (see here)

I want to live for hundred years. (see here)

I paid three thousand, a hundred pounds for the car. (see here)

Sorry, I have no change – only a twenty-pounds note. (see here)

‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m thirty years.’ (see here)

When I was at your age I was working in a coal mine. (see here)

He could already read in the age of three. (see here)

Wake me at five past seven o’clock.

Good morning, Mr Jack Smith. (see here) b

The painter Tiziano lived in Venezia. (see here), (see here)

There’s a spider in the bath. She’s enormous! (see here)

Congratulation on your exam results. (see here)

Please lend me a pen. (see here)

Thank you a lot for offering me that golden chance. But I’ve changed my thoughts. (see here)

I am as cross as two sticks because it is raining cats and dogs again. If this goes on I think I will kick the bucket. (see here)