It’s Spring – Let’s Party!

Spring is here, and in the next few weeks U.S. students will be getting one week of vacation from elementary (kindergarten to 5th grade) and secondary schools (middle school/junior high school and high school), and from colleges and universities.

For students, especially college students, spring break is a time to go on vacation with friends and to go to a lot of parties. Whether you’re partying for spring break, attending a friend’s birthday party, or going to a more formal gathering (social meeting), you might find these terms useful to talk about parties and the people who attend them.

Americans have many terms to talk about party-goers (people who go to parties). A guest of honor is the person for whom a party is held (organized and hosted). For example, at a birthday party, the person who is celebrating a birthday is the guest of honor. At a graduation party, the person who has completed his or her studies is the guest of honor. Often there are VIPs (an acronym for “very important people”) at a party. If your boss comes to a party, then he or she might be a VIP even if he or she isn’t the guest of honor.

Sometimes people come to a party without an invitation (a request to attend or go to an event). These people are called party crashers. In American movies, you sometimes see parties on college campuses (the buildings and land belonging to a college/university,) which are ruined by party crashers who drink too much alcohol and damage the home where the party is being held.

A party pooper is an informal term for a person who isn’t very much fun at a party–or any social event. A party pooper is someone who is sad or depressed and makes it difficult or impossible for other people to have fun. Often a party pooper is a person who doesn’t want to do what everyone else wants to do.

The opposite of a party pooper is a party animal or the life of the party. The term party animal isn’t used very often today, but you still hear people use it jokingly to refer to a person who really enjoys going to parties and has a lot of fun, often getting too wild (out of control). The life of the party is simply someone who makes the party more fun and is often the center of attention (the person other people notice because he or she is interesting).

Finally, some people who go to parties are known as wallflowers. A wallflower is a very quiet and shy person who doesn’t enjoy talking to other people and sits quietly somewhere and is not noticed. This is especially true at dances, where wallflowers sit and watch everyone else dance, but are too timid (shy) to dance themselves.

So the next time you throw (have) a party, let’s hope you don’t get any party crashers or party animals attending the party and upsetting the VIPs or the guest of honor (but don’t forget to invite me!).

~ Jeff

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* This post was adapted from “Culture Note” from Daily English 338. To see the rest of the Learning Guide, including a Glossary, Sample Sentences, Comprehension Questions, a Complete Transcript of the entire lesson and more, become a Select English Member.
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10 Responses to It’s Spring – Let’s Party!

  1. emiliano says:

    Jeff, now I can´t say anything about a party, I know it is usual over there in your country but it has not been so here in Spain.
    Why?.
    I don´t really know.

    Being young, very young, it was frequently among younger people to have something similar just to dance. I went to some “guateque” it was the name of
    it, where there were girls and boys with a pick up and something to drink, not alcohol, or to eat.
    Where we had these meetings?
    At some home when parents were out, or may be a peculiar site like a garage
    or garden in summer.
    Cuca also went being young to some of these “guateques” but after some years young people started to go to “discotecas” or they use to be at the street of some part of the cities just drinking alcohol, they call the drinks “litronas” and it has been really a very very bad custom, sad custom and dangerous because girls or boys with fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen years drink too much alcohol what is really bad for their health.

    Just a disaster, but it is so and this society we live in it is something peculiar and not very nice.

    Thank you Jeff, watching so many movies from your country we have seen all this very peculiar kind of party.
    The vocabulary used by you explaining persons of the party has been really
    interesting.

    Do you go now to adult party?
    Tell us Jeff, we are interested about your own participation in this English
    customs.

    emilliano

  2. Peter says:

    Hey Boss
    How have u been ,chief
    Man
    Ur posts never get old.
    Ur posts are solid yet u never go out of ur way to squeeze in wordy words 🙂

    I see that u r delineating the variation of party terms in this post.
    Couldn’t be more cheerful!!

    Well
    I must admit
    Growing up ,I was this reserved ,taciturn kid who didn’t get out much. But , boy , oh boy , in my adolance and post adolance years I turned into this party animal who partied hard through all hours of the night.

    Don’t go there and judge me folks.

    There was No narcotic involved.
    I simply was and still am fond of dancing and well , I was ,and still am playing the field. 🙂
    Well ,to tell the truth, I take after my father. He was this sweet talker son of the gun who were on top of the game, if u catch my drift. 🙂
    U know what they say :like father ,like son.

    I hear you jeff ,though
    I have this friend who is very shy
    He is text book wallflower
    I m telling u
    The minute we step in the party of sorts, he disappears into a dark corner away from all the fun-filled activities going on in the dance floor.
    Well
    Once or twice I tried to hook her up with girls
    But , not anymore
    Between you and me sometimes he could be a party-spoiler.
    Well
    Enough about my friend
    I know jeff doesn’t like gossiping
    But I am admittedly a big gossip
    It is fun

    Boy
    God knows ,The dirt people have on me

    Nice chatting with u chief

    See you around 🙂

    Well , I must say , unlike what u think ,my head is not just a hat rack :)))))

    🙂
    Pete

  3. Tania says:

    Hi,

    I am still ill… but indeed it’s spring and in my country.
    And I like very much the spring flowers.
    I have bought some of them just to admire them once in a year.

  4. Tania says:

    Hi,

    It was the Mother Day on the 8th of March…
    It was the highest selling of flowers of the year.
    In the streets… everyone held a flower, a bunch of flowers,
    even more… to those we love.
    Especially roses.

  5. Tania says:

    Yes…it’s spring…

    From my palm the cranes will fly higher than the clouds.

  6. Tania says:

    Hi,

    A spring flower to all our dear teachers and Podcast team.
    Have a nice spring!

    Tania

  7. Tania says:

    Hi,

    A spring flower to all our dear blog friends.
    Have a nice spring!

    Tania

  8. emiliano says:

    My own opinion about hollly week here, something similar as to have a week
    of holidays on Spring, it is a way of running away of our own life and problems.
    At least it happens here in Spain, but sure it is the same outside on other
    rich countries.

    It was written some time ago but next month is going to happen just the same
    here in Europe or North America.
    +++++++++++++++++++

    RUN AWAY FROM OUR OWN LIFE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

    It seems to me that on “holy week” (easter) we run away of ourselves, and the best form of doing that is going to other place far away from home.

    Is it possible that we are so unhappy with our daily life as to do that year after year?.
    If it is not so why this escape into highways or to catch the first plane to takes us nobody knows where?.
    To me it seems that the objective is to get out of our daily lives that seems us so bored.
    It is not my case, it is just what I see around me and just I can´t understand such general flight, as fast as posible if we have a bit of money to do that.

    It doesn´t matter that the roads are full of cars, hours inside a metalic box with the children shouting and moving fed up with the trip.
    It doesn´t matter the place, if there is not any we can invent one that seems attractive to go far from home or from our own life.
    It doesn´t matter to have money enough to do such a trip, if there is not money we ask for a credit to escape or at least it was what millions did some years before this crisis.
    Each one travel in relation with their position, may be a trip to the little village of our parents. or to the beach despite too much rain,or to much cold it could be there, we don´t care about the weather.
    Even more, it doesn´t matter to be hours in a plain to go as far as possible to see a place that means nothing in our life, or to be on a beach far away of our place of living.
    From mountains to the beach, from beaches to the mountains, from little cities to big cities, and of course from the big cities to the little one, it is just the same.
    All consist in escape from the daily routine that seems to crush our way of living day after day.
    Let me say there are more than tweenty years I don´t go any place on easter time, to me is a time to rest and enjoy my not crowded city, Remaining here it is like Paradise, not cars, not so much people to go shopping, to see a museum and so on.
    Home it is the best place to be, at least for me, so I have been happy for years having some days to be indoors. Reading, listening to music, going for a walk to the park, walking along the streets more empty, just a pleasure.

    For christians it could be also a good time of meditation, alone, or going some church not so crowded, but all depends of every one. I don’t need to go to a particular place to meditate, home is good, or a bench in the park ir enough or just a walk.

    The mistery to me is always the same, why so many people need to go out from their lives?. Mobbing the roads for hours to go and again once the days pass away mobbing roads to return into the daily routine?. Every year the same, is it we don´t think or we don´t like to stop the wheel of our life?.
    Yes, something to think about, if we have time to stop and to think a subject I doubt, sorry but seeing what I see I doubt there is enough time to think if we are going and coming as son as we have some days free.
    This year the crisis has been a retreat to hundred thousands who could be have more time to rethink about their lives, what evidently it could be a drama if they have enough time to feel their sorrows, the lack of work, what we are going to do in future?, where is the house close to the beach that we had last year to go on “holly weeks”?. What has happened with our world of yesterday?……
    Such a lot of questions to thousands that this year are not on the road.
    When I was a child this time of “holy week” (easter) there were days to meditate, to pray, to think about Christ Jesús, about Christ’s sufferings on the cross that gave His life for us.

    Of course, not every body did that, the same now that there are also some people who do just this kind of Christian meditation or prays, but are the less one.
    Even the processions are a tourist party, a way of getting lot of money from foreigners or visitors, but not a time to pray or just a time to stop and think about our own life.
    I am not a good believer, I could say I am a bad believer more an agnostic than other thing, but I like to meditate about life, God, other different life than this, and so on.
    May be that´s the reason I am so astonished about what “holy week” is it for lot of Christians, just a reason to be off from their own life or beliefs if they believe in something.

    I wish you a peaceful time of rest and meditation.

  9. Mary Carmen says:

    Hello everyone

    Emiliano, you are talking about doing staycation, aren’t you?. It seems that this is a new composed word made out of the words “stay” and “vacation”, and it just consists on not going out when one is on holidays and enjoy their own town.

    Be in or out of your town, have a nice weekend!
    Mari Carmen

  10. emiliano says:

    Thank you so much Mari Carmen.

    Be sure about that, doing it yesterday nigh I attend to an incredible
    good Opera, in fact the first Opera written and he was
    Monteverdi the composer.
    It was L Orfeo singed and played by Les Arts Florissants
    so extraordinary musical group founded by William Christie
    some years ago.
    Being inside the Theater I could see people from outside Spain,
    England, France and some from Germany.
    The occasion of watching the group Les Arts Florissants
    was unique.
    I have some CD of them, but watching and listening them
    alive was a great great pleasure.
    I was thinking on Cuca that she couldn´t be with me at that moment, just
    such a pity.
    I could phoned her and told her about the play once the first act
    was finished.

    Yes I am a mania-tic person about the Baroque music and Operas of
    that age.
    Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Handel, etc., yes a mania-tic absolutely.

    A memorable night to me. emiliano

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