ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

Peep (verb)

偷窺

Peeper (noun)

Have (got) a thing with / for / about

= be obsessed with / for / about

Err on the right side.  Err on the safe side.  Err on the side of caution

 What exactly do these terms mean?

***6/13/2010:  I was reading some of my older blogs and found this poll I created.  It didn't work at that time.  Now I have fixed it, so if you are still interested in voting, please cast your vote.  It is just for fun and for my understanding of why you visit my blog.  By the way, you can select multiple choices and leave me comments too.  Thanks!

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I find something interesting today, so I thought to give it a try.  It is a website that allows you to create polls in your blog.  I cannot think of any interesting poll question at this moment, so please bear with me and my lousy question while I try out this gizmo. 

I have just talked about the prepositions of time and their correct usage.  I would like to continue the topic and talk about the prepositions of places since the usage of which confuses many people too.   

When should we use “at”, “in” or “on” when referencing place?

What is a scavenger hunt?  I never realized that you might not know its meaning when I wrote the article: A Bone Scavenger Hunt, until recently when I found out that someone was directed to my article when searching for its meaning.

A scavenger hunt 尋寶遊戲 is a game where teams of players are provided with a list with specific items to be collected and tasks to be completed.  These items are hidden in various areas of a specific location.  Hints are provided to help players locate the items, so it is not like finding a needle in a hay stack.  Whichever team completes gathering the items and performing the tasks from the list first wins the game.  

It is a popular team building activity in the US.  The one I attended last was at Mall of America several years ago.  It is a huge mall if you have visited the place, so it was quite interesting trying to figure out which item was hidden in which store and then to pinpoint out where in the store that item could be located.  One of the tasks I remembered was to mimic the mannequins, which was rather embarrassing. 

    Recently, I got a comment from someone confused with the usage of “in old age” vs. “at old age”.  I thought that it would be beneficial to share what I know with you.  A lot of people seem to have confusions around the usage of prepositions “at”, “in” and “on”, when referencing time or place.  If you commit a usage error of the prepositions of time or place, you are not alone and are among many, including native speakers.

When should we use “at”, “in” or “on” when referencing time?