This short scene is a very well-known one from the cult film PULP FICTION. Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta want the suitcase of their boss back from those guys. But as it’s a Quentin Tarantino movie it’s very special one and the dialogues are just really crazy sometimes.

“Hamburgers, the cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast”

The mention what a quarter-pounder cheese is called in France and he says it’s called a Royal with cheese. The reason is the metric system which has not quarters or inches or anything like that everything is decimalised.

In the U.S. there are pounds as a measure for weight or inch for 2.54 centimetres of the metric system. Today we still use inches to describe the size of screens for example. A 42 inch LCD.

By the way, the word “fuck” is used 271 times in that movie.

Vocabulary:
smart = intelligent
beverage = something to drink

Today, we’ll watch a excerpt of the David Letterman Show. The show is a typical late night show, late night shows are quite popular in the U.S.. David Letterman is just one of those guys who invite stars to their show and talk with them about recent films, books or anything else that interests the audience in the states.

So, here we go with tonight’s guest whose name is Sacha Baron Cohen. A well-educated Cambridge graduate of history and entertainer best known as Ali G. and Borat. He’s introducing his movie Brüno which is coming into cinemas.

Reviews of Brüno idicate that the movie is a has-to-be-seen one for people who can neglect the immorality and disgust of the film itself and see its message behind showing that a lot of people are just pretending to treat all others equal.

USA Today wrote:
Brüno offers more shock value for your moviegoing dollar than any other movie this year.

LA Time wrote:
Brüno is an idiot savant of penetration — breaking through borders, boundaries and anything that resembles good taste on his way to whipping up as much cultural anarchy as he can[...]

Vocabulary:
excerpt = one part of the whole
recent = quite now, not long ago

Barack Obama has killed a fly. Oh, for heavens sake, how could he just do that? It’s on all news:  TV, radio and newspaper. It’s like this would be the most important piece of news I have to hear about today. God, that man is the most powerful man in world but killing a fly doesn’t make him something better or worse than us and it’s not in any way more interesting than when I kill a fly.

Some people do even read too much into it and judge the whole foreign policy on this deed.

For example:

Examiner.com writes:
“He is not interested in alleviating the suffering of all beings.”
“He’s behaving just like he did with the fly, acting without considering the consequences of his actions.”

See the entire article

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) thinks he should have “exercised more restraint”.

All those people are just exaggerating.

Let’s imagine a different situation. Let’s say hypothetically that this fly – rest in peace you little insect – wouldn’t have been killed by Obama.  Killed is such a strong word, isn’t it? Anyway, I think that newspapers would have written about how the most powerful man in the world could not do anything against it or that he is a sissy not being able to kill a small even a small fly. This sounds like non-sense but what we watched, heard or read actually is non-sense too.

There’s a very suitable saying in German for such things: “Aus einer Mücke einen Elefanten machen” It is quite funny because in this context it fits even more than usual. Which in English would be: “Make an elephant out of a fly”. Mücke means fly. An English idiom which means the same like the German one is: “to make mountains out of molehills“.

So much for today. Thank you.

Just if someone’s interested, the brutal and vicious kill of Obama – Ninja Style:

Vocabulary:
kill = make stop living
read into = interpret
exaggerating = to make something seem more than it actually is

And you may be asking yourself: “What on earth is this site supposed to be?”

Well, I am a learner of English and I try to improve my skills all the time. So, I decided to build that little blog here and post regularly some interesting bits of news or anything else that’s on my mind. You, who reads my posts, are free to comment on them and tell me what thoughts ran through your head when you read it.

Tell me if I’m right or if I’m wrong. Tell me about my grammar and other mistakes. Tell me everything you want me to know.

This blog’s purpose is to improve my language. Fortunately,  technologies of the 21st century allow me to share my knowledge, tips and also mistakes. I hope that someone out there will like this blog and that it will help people to benefit from what I’m doing here.

The end of the first post is the beginning of www.semironie.ch. Enjoy it.