This Queen's English

15/12/2020

Hanukkah (also spelled Chanukah) is a Jewish holiday. It lasts for eight nights, and it’s very important here in the United States. In this episode, I talk about some words that you might need to know to start learning about this holiday. Some words: Oil Menorah Dreidel Saturday Night Live (SNL) A...

08/12/2020

In today’s episode, I talk about the phrase Happy Holidays, and why this greeting offends some people. I talk about why I use this phrase to be more inclusive, but why some people think this is part of the War on Christmas. I also talk about controversies around the annual holiday Starbucks cup. H...

05/12/2020

I was sleeping on the show Schitt’s Creek until just a few months ago. Now that I’ve watched it, I really appreciate it. It has great writing and amazing characters. It also does amazing work for positive representation of q***r characters. In today’s epiode, I talk about Schitt’s Creek and ...

03/12/2020

I listen to music all the time. Since high school, I’ve been using Spotify to listen to music. Every year, Spotify gives statistics to its users about the different music they’ve been listening to this year. In this episode, I share what music I’ve been listening to in 2020. I talk about why I...

01/12/2020

Today is World AIDS Day, a day to raise awareness and money for the elimination of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In today’s episode, I talk about HIV and AIDS. I share some statistics about the epidemic, and I talk about my own thoughts about this issue in the USA. Some words: HIV AIDS Díease CDC To tes...

28/11/2020

In my family, we eat a lot of food for Thanksgiving. That means that we have lots of food leftover. In this episode, I talk about the leftovers from our Thanksgiving meal. I also talk about three important shopping days after Thanksgiving: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Lef...

26/11/2020

Happy Thanksgiving! In this episode, I talk about some of my own memories of Thanksgiving. I talk about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I also share a little bit about hand turkeys, an art project we used to do as kids. Macy’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Balloon...

24/11/2020

Thanksgiving happens on the fourth Thursday of November every year here in the USA. In today’s episode, I talk about some of the mythology around the holiday as well as the context for that mythology. We learn this happy little story as kids about Pilgrims and Native Americans having a meal togeth...

21/11/2020

Our bodies can make all sorts of amazing sounds like farts and q***fs. We have lots of words in English to describe farts, and we also have the word q***f, a really specific word to describe a va**na fart. Today I talk about farts, q***fs, and one of my favorite English words: shart. Some words: Eve...

20/11/2020

The Amish are a group of people living in different places in the US. In general, they don’t use electricity and many of them ride around on horse and buggies instead of cars. I think the Amish community is a great example of a group of people that break stereotypes that many people abroad have of...

17/11/2020

Atheist is a word in English used to describe someone who does not believe in God. I do not believe in God, but I also think the word atheist doesn’t define my identity well enough. Cultural Christian is a word used to talk about people who were raised Christian but do not believe in God. I was ra...

14/11/2020

Oy vey is a Yiddish expression now used in English. Yiddish is a language spoken in some Jewish communities in the USA and around the world. English has borrowed lots of Yiddish words. I think of Yiddish words being common in New York City English. Even though I grew up in Mississippi (the American....

12/11/2020

easy A is a comedy that came out in 2010. It stars Emma Stone, and it recently got added to American Netflix. Olive, Emma Stone’s character, lies to a friend about having s*x with a boy. That rumor grows and grows until the whole school thinks that Olive is a slut. The movie is inspired by The Sca...

10/11/2020

A lame duck president is a president who has not been reelected. In 2016, president Obama was a lame duck president. Now, in 2020, Donald Trump is a lame duck president. I felt inspired by this word “lame duck” and wanted to make an episode related to this term and other duck words in English. S...

07/11/2020

Gay men in the United States have lots of different labels to talk about different body types. We use words like “twink,” “otter,” and “bear” to talk about different types of men in our community. On this episode, I introduce a few of these different labels and what they mean. Some words...

05/11/2020

Last week, we had a hurricane where I live. We lost power for three days, so we had to empty our refrigerator (which I usually just call a “fridge”). I’m always interested in what people keep in their refrigerator. It shows a lot about what people eat. I find that many people abroad think that...

03/11/2020

Daylight Saving Time ends every year on the first Sunday of November. This year, it started on November 1st. At 2:00am on November 1st, most of the United States changed their clocks back to 1:00am. Our clocks “fell back” one hour. On this episode, I talk about Daylight Saving Time (which you’...

03/11/2020

31/10/2020

Trick or Treating was one of my favorite activities when I was little. I still have many happy memories from that time. Today, I talk about trick or treating. I talk about where I trick or treated as a kid, and how I knew what houses to go to. I also talk about “Trunk or Treat,” another form of ...

29/10/2020

Hell Houses are kind of like haunted houses. They are meant to scare you. The difference is that Hell Houses use sins to scare you. They are usually organized by Evangelical Christians here in the United States. I went to one when I was younger, and it left a big impression on me. Today, I share a l...