Our Word for Wednesday theme for June is coffee. Coffee is made by roasting and grinding coffee beans and creating an infusion. The word coffee entered English around 1600 via the Dutch ‘koffie’, which comes from the Turkish ‘kahveh', from the Arabic ‘qahwah’. So far we’ve looked at the words espresso, cappuccino, macchiato, and latte. Our final word of the month is Americano. An Americano is made by adding hot water to espresso, and the word is simply Italian for ‘American coffee’. One popular theory behind the origin of the Americano ...
Work your way from a Spelling Newbie to a Spelling Grandmaster by earning achievement points! New Student Titles are now live on Spellzone. Click here to learn how many points you need for each level. If you are a teacher, you can find out a student’s current level by clicking on the star on their profile picture. We have also added Student Titles to the results overview spreadsheet. You can download this at the bottom of your student roll and class pages. We have recently added a bank of Tier 2 words to our Curriculum Word Lists page. Tier 2 words are less common than high frequency words (Tier 1) and are often integral to the compre...
Our Word for Wednesday theme for June is coffee. Coffee is made by roasting and grinding coffee beans and creating an infusion. The word coffee entered English around 1600 via the Dutch ‘koffie’, which comes from the Turkish ‘kahveh', from the Arabic ‘qahwah’. So far we’ve looked at the words espresso, cappuccino, and macchiato. Today’s word is latte. Latte literally means ‘milk coffee’ and refers to an espresso served with hot milk. The word comes from the Latin ‘lac’ meaning ‘milk’. ...
Our Word for Wednesday theme for June is coffee. Coffee is made by roasting and grinding coffee beans and creating an infusion. The word coffee entered English around 1600 via the Dutch ‘koffie’, which comes from the Turkish ‘kahveh', from the Arabic ‘qahwah’. So far we’ve looked at the words espresso and cappuccino. Today’s word is macchiato. A macchiato is an espresso with a small amount of milk added to it. In Italian, the word means ‘stained’ or ‘spotted’ and it was first used in reference to coffee when baristas needed to differentiate between esp...
Our Word for Wednesday theme for June is coffee. Coffee is made by roasting and grinding coffee beans and creating an infusion. The word coffee entered English around 1600 via the Dutch ‘koffie’, which comes from the Turkish ‘kahveh', from the Arabic ‘qahwah’. Last week we looked at the word espresso and today’s word is cappuccino. A cappuccino is made by topping an espresso with hot frothed milk. In Italian, the word cappuccino is the diminutive of ‘cappuccio’ meaning ‘hood’ (from the Latin ‘caputium’ – where we also get the word ‘cap&rsqu...
Our Word for Wednesday theme for June is coffee. Coffee is made by roasting and grinding coffee beans and creating an infusion. The word coffee entered English around 1600 via the Dutch ‘koffie’, which comes from the Turkish ‘kahveh', from the Arabic ‘qahwah’. Our first coffee-themed word this month is espresso. An espresso is a shot of coffee made by forcing steam through finely ground coffee beans. It is served in a small (2-3 oz) cup. The word comes from the Latin ‘exprimere’ meaning ‘press out' or 'squeeze out’. ...
In February, we are continuing with the Word for Wednesday theme of colours. The word colour entered English via Old French and comes from the Latin ‘color’, from the Old Latin ‘colos’ meaning ‘a covering’, from the PIE root ‘kel-’ meaning ‘to conceal’. The word has been used in reference to skin colour since the early-thirteenth century and in reference to pigments and dye since the fourteenth century. The spelling colour became the common English spelling from the fourteenth century, but a classical correction made color an alternative from the fifteenth...
Friday is National Cappuccino Day. Every year, on November 8th, people join to celebrate the creamy drink they love so much. After all, what’s better on a cold November morning that a hot cup of coffee to help you warm up? A cappuccino is equal parts of espresso and hot milk. Sometimes the drink might be topped with cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate, or whipped cream. Although versions of coffee and milk have been enjoyed since the 1700s, the cappuccino as we know it became widespread after the second world war as espresso machines became more common. The drink – first called 'Kapuziner' – comes from Viennese coffee houses where it was sold alongsid...
Over the last few weeks we’ve been sharing different methods which we hope will help make learning to spell a little easier and a bit more fun. Here is a recap of our posts – which ones did you find most helpful? In our blog post about why English spelling is so difficult, we discussed heterographs, homonyms, and heteronyms. These groups of words make it difficult to solely rely on the ‘sound’ of a word in order to figure out its spelling. The word heterograph refers to words that sound the same, but have different spellings and meanings. Hetero- comes from the Greek heteros which means ‘other’ or ‘different’, whilst -graph comes ...
Coffee is a morning ritual for many, a source of comfort for others, and for most an invaluable tool to get us through a long day at the office. However you look at it, the familiar inky beverage has become one of the world’s favourite drinks. It’s a Word for Wednesday that many of us will use on a daily basis (I know I do!) but where does it come from and why is it so remarkably similar almost in every language? Despite preconceptions we might have of coffee (think Italian ‘espresso’, or a big American ‘cup of Joe’) coffee, like alcohol comes from the Arabic tradition. The best coffee is considered to come from the Arabica bean, native to the Yemen ...
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