30th November: Scotland day
On November, 30th Scotland celebrates its patron saint. How much do you know about this beautiful country? Try this quiz
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WRITE AND IMPROVE
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HEADLINESE
DEFINITION: The condensed, elliptical, or sensationalist style of language characteristic of (especially newspaper) headlines. Newspaper headlines make use of a great variety of less usual words, which can also make them harder to read by non-native speakers. Headlines also try to be ‘punny’ (making use of close synonyms or related words as a joke) and alliterative (using a string of words with the same initial letter or sound). They tend to use shorter words than normal, and often leave out unnecessary grammatical ‘extras’. All this makes headlines short and eye-catching (and less than easy to read). British newspapers also pander to the educational norms of their readers, and use vocabulary and references aimed at social classes. There is a world of difference between the style and content of UK newspapers The Times and The Sun, the former aimed at very well educated manager and diplomatic classes, the latter aimed at manual workers. Because space is limited, headlines are writt...
Alibaba Prepares a Grand Retail Experiment for This Singles’ Day
Jack Ma beat Jeff Bezos into grocery stores. Now China’s richest man is again showing his rival the way by targeting 6 million mom-and-pop shops, the biggest test yet of a vision to reinvent physical retail. Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is prepping for Singles’ Day -- an annual Nov. 11 online shopping fiesta dwarfing Black Friday and Cyber Monday that Citigroup Inc. estimates could generate a record 158 billion yuan ($24 billion) of sales. This year comes with a twist: the e-commerce titan has enlisted 10 percent of China’s convenience stores, about 600,000 outlets, to hawk goods and get billions of parcels shipped to customers nationwide. READ MORE...