The alternative ELT jargon dictionary Part 20

Affirmative (also “a firmative”) – Viagra
Antonyms – trying to learn all the names of the swarms of tiny kids in a kindergarten you work at
Appropriacy – only taking off your clothes in the right kinds of classes
Authentic material – material that really exists, usually not the case when you say “I’m sure I have a worksheet to practice that point somewhere, I’ll try and bring it in next week”
Base words – lumpenproletariat ones that need an affix to look respectable
Cohesion – hesing together
Comprehension tasks – the opposite of incomprehension tasks (tasks given to students by CELTA trainees in their second week)
Conjunction – students who have recently hooked up and seem like they are attached at the hip
Contractions – the muscle spasms students go through when trying to pronounce “they’re” the same as “there” and “aren’t” like “aunt”
Denontation – a word that sounds particularly good on high quality hifi equipment
Diphthongs – underwear for diphsticks
Exponent (The) – the nickname for the 1972 Functional Language World Fair
Figurative meaning – the euphemistic meaning used to talk about the body of a fit woman sitting nearby
Glossary – shiny
Grammatical structures – an attempt to design buildings according to Chomskyian rules
Grammatical terms – periods during which prisoners are forced to study grammar as a punishment
Intonation – a band of panpipe playing former TEFL teacher fans of Incantation who dress up as Peruvians and haunt the streets of Madrid
Levels of formality – a mispronunciation of the Japanese English expression “rebel of formality”, the worst kind of rebel in Japan
Lexical sets – Pokemon for language mavens
Main stress – the thing about your observed lesson you keep on worrying about, making you forget completely about several other important things
Modal verb – a very fashionable action word
Model text – the bits of writing on page 3 of The Sun

If you’ve reached this far, you’ll be wanting to see how much I wasted my time on this in 2008 by clicking on The Complete Alternative ELT and Linguistics Jargon Dictionary.

Tags: ELT jargon, Humour

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