Need some help with a letter...

[Welly]

A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could listen to your iPod for a few hours one day, using half its power, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so you may take several days to complete a cycle. Each time you complete a charge cycle, it diminishes battery capacity slightly, but you can put notebook, iPod, and iPhone batteries through many charge cycles before they will only hold 80% of original battery capacity. As with other rechargeable batteries, you may eventually need to replace your battery.

Found here..http://www.apple.com/batteries/

Discuss........

[Welly]

f*ck I've just realised what was being said - Bailes was saying "once the battery IS dead" etc........

[DiscoPol]

And here we have the second form of the apostrophe, the 'possesive' and I tell my students english is easy. No wonder they look at me like im mad. The use of batteries as a term for multiple single battery units is another grammatical misnomer and should be added to the long list of exceptions we have in this wonderful language me ours.

[DiscoPol]

Welly..... Context context context context context. Lmfao

[Welly]

being smashed to peices by Polish roads

Try to remind your students the old rhyme - "I before E, except after C" and they'll be fine

[DiscoPol]

I have no answer to this piece of evidence.

[steve_earwig]

A battery is made up of cells, usually 1.5 volts, either all joined together in a tin box (think pp3) or in their own boxes grouped together. So my torch here that takes 3xD cells, when they're all in it they're a battery.

Although I'm sure you could have a group of batteries (a battery of batteries?) however what goes in my torch aint flaming batteries!

Dan: my wife teaches English, she has qualifications in teaching languages but is the school librarian (though she's really useful if someone's off). So does most of it from home "on the black" (cash in hand), so if you need any tips...

Edit: my wife despairs when, after she's spent months getting kids to learn the verb "to be", I come in and say "Hi kids, how is you?". I just tell here it's my language and I'll mangle it how I like

English should be easy, it has almost no cases or genders for a start, although the locals have a hard time with the words "a", "an" and "the", their languages just don't have anything equivalent. The real problem is English is a mix of two languages ( Saxon and Anglo-Frisian (moo) which is a form of German - the "en" of plurals like children and women is very Germanic) so we have at least two words for almost everything, plus some idiot in the dim and distant past decided it would be a good idea to force English into the Latin grammar mould, with hilarious consequences. The pronunciation of vowels has also changed over time, rising higher, although some words have been left behind. We also have too many past and future tenses, much more than anyone in their right mind should actually need. Pronunciation of words has also drifted closer (to, too, two) which also helps muddy the already solifying water. The only good thing is here they're bombarded with English, it's on the telly, in music, computers, advertising... I tell my wife's students they need to watch more telly - "what are you doing?" "Studying".

Go read Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, it's basically a very funny book about why English is so messed up.

[steve_earwig]

being smashed to peices by Polish roads

Try to remind your students the old rhyme - "I before E, except after C" and they'll be fine

I'm sure he's received your conceit and is no longer deceiving himself

[DiscoPol]

Its an awesome language to teach as every fecker wants to speak it,

but sadly as a race we know very little of the history of, or the correct usage of grammatical structures and when to use them,

but as you say Wiggy, "its my language and i will mangle it however i like",

i just point out to them that Standard English and Queens English are miles apart,

I mean how often do you use "when one is hungry, one eats"?

try explaining that little pearl of wisdom to a class of 15 Poles, all i get is "when jeden is hungry, jeden eats" jeden being 1 in Polish, and a lot of confused faces but as time goes on it gets easier and easier, it just takes a while to find the right explanation that works for all.

as for the i before e thing, Im going with the excuse that my useless fat fingers are not as accurate as they used to be and my coordination goes all wonky (its my age don't you know), after all i was 7403406 for ages when i set out to be 7402406

cheers for the advice on the book i will look into it, it may well answer some questions i have been struggling with

[steve_earwig]

i just point out to them that Standard English and Queens English are miles apart

I mean how often do you use "when one is hungry, one eats"?

As I've said to my wife many times, only the Queen speaks like that and she's GERMAN

[DiscoPol]

Wiggy out of curiosity which quali's has your Mrs got?

I have the TESOL and the TEFL, and was thinking of doing the DELTA or the CELTA over winter but would like to know if there is much difference from what I already have.

one is Cambridge uni and t'other is Oxford, are they just competing or is there anything new to learn from either

[steve_earwig]

Crikey, I don't know, I doubt my wife does either but I'll ask when she gets home (she's in ZG today). My wife is a professor

[DiscoPol]

Ta M8,

just PM me if she knows or has owt useful to say about either, saves us from polluting the post much more

Professor you say?

hmm does that make you the teachers pet

[DaiRees]

Go read Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, it's basically a very funny book about why English is so messed up.

I wouldn't recommend that book, Bryson is trying so hard to be entertaining that he doesn't let facts get in the way. It's full of mistakes and mis-quotes. A shame as I quite liked some of his other stuff but now I just think he's a knob!

[mjb]

[Try to remind your students the old rhyme - "I before E, except after C" and they'll be fine

I'm seeing my neighbour's weird science reigniting caffeine-induced visions of feisty foreign deities. Probably due to the weight of the counterfeit freight...