This month, we’ll be celebrating President’s Day on the 20th of February. Actually, the holiday is officially called “Washington’s Birthday” because, well, we’re celebrating the first president of the United States, who was born on February 22, 1732. However, most Americans know it informally as President’s Day and as a day to remember all presidents, not just our first.

The current president of the United States is our 45th president. Presidents of the United States are often given nicknames, informal names they’re known by. So far, President Trump hasn’t been given a commonly-used nickname, though there are many people with definite ideas.

A nickname can be a shorter version of the person’s real name. Sometimes people give presidents nicknames because of something in their past. Abraham Lincoln was given the nickname “Honest Abe.” The story goes that when Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) was young, he was the manager of a small store. When he saw that a customer had been charged (required to pay) too much money for an item, he closed the store and walked to the customer’s house to return the money. He was given the nickname “Honest Abe” because of this and other similar stories.

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) was nicknamed “Teddy.” A newspaper started calling him this as a shortened version of Theodore after an incident (occurrence) while hunting (searching for and killing animals for sport or food) for bears (see English Cafe 300). The name became popular, and soon a toy company made a stuffed animal (a soft toy made to look like an animal) in the shape of a bear and called it a “Teddy bear” after Theodore Roosevelt. To this day, we still call similar toys teddy bears.

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was a popular actor before he became president. In one of his films, he played a character called “The Gipper” which was based on a real person, an American college football coach (leader of a team). Reagan had many fans when he was an actor. These fans started calling him “The Gipper” because they liked him in that role (character in a film).

As you probably know, two U.S. presidents shared the same last name because they are father and son. George Herbert Walker Bush (1989-1993) was the father of George Walker Bush (2001-2009). Both men were president within a few years of each other. In order to lessen (reduce) the confusion, the older Bush is sometimes called “Papa Bush.” The son is often called “Dubya,” which is the way Texans and other Southerners pronounce his middle initial (letter representing a  name), “W.”

* This post was adapted from “What Insiders Know” from Cultural English 392. 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.

Image credit: Wikipedia

It’s either feast or famine.

Feast refers to a large meal, especially one that celebrates something, like a wedding. Famine refers a shortage (too little) of food, often so much so that people suffer or die because they do not have enough to eat.

Today we use the phrase feast or famine as a metaphor to talk about situations when there’s either too much of something or too little.

When I wrote about California’s drought (a long time with little or no rain) in 2014, it was three years old. It continued for three years more. Our water supply became dangerously low. Most of our reservoirs, large lakes for storing water, were nearly empty. So much of our underground water had been pumped out (purposely removed) that the ground above it dropped (fell down) in some places. The snow in the mountains that provides our water when it melts in spring and early summer didn’t come, and when it did, it didn’t last long. It was the driest five-year period (length of time) in almost 140 years. It was, you could say, a water famine.

Today, in contrast, we are experiencing a feast of water, almost too much water. Our water year – the date we begin to measure rain and snow each year – begins October 1. Since last October, Los Angeles has received more than 200% – twice as much – of the amount of rain we usually get during the first few months of our water year.

Our reservoirs aren’t full yet. But nearly all of them are at or above their average level – the amount of water they usually contain from one year to another for many years. The snowpack (snow that collects on the ground) is deeper than it has been; we’ll know how much deeper on April 1, when scientists measure it. One area, near Yosemite National Park, has received 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 meters) of snow!

What happened? How did five of the driest years in history become one of the wettest? The answer, or at least part of it, is the Pineapple Express.

The atmosphere is the envelope (surrounding layer) of oxygen and other gases around the earth. In the atmosphere above the eastern Pacific Ocean, there’s a powerful air mass (large amount of) that often pushes winter rain and snow storms away from California. If it doesn’t break up (into pieces) or move, we don’t get rain or snow.

This year, this air mass has broken up, moved around, and opened the door for the Pineapple Express to bring rain and snow to California.

What is the Pineapple Express? Think of it as a river in the atmosphere that starts near Hawai’i – that’s why we call it the Pineapple Express, since pineapples are grown there. As it travels from Hawaii, it collects water which, when it arrives in California, becomes rain and snow storms that may last for several days, resulting in large amounts of rain and snow. This year the Pineapple Express has been busy.

If you’d like to see a good example of how much rain we’ve received, visit the KQED Science website, where you can look at satellite photos of three of our reservoirs. You can use your mouse or finger (on a tablet) to move the control back and forth to see how much water there was a year or two ago and how much there is today. I think you’ll agree: it looks like we may be moving . . . from famine to feast.

~ Warren Ediger – ESL coach/tutor and creator of the Successful English website.

Photo of Shasta Dam courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Americans love to complain about the United States Postal Service (USPS), which we more commonly call the “post office.” They are blamed for lost or late mail, even for the amount of junk mail (unwanted mail, including advertisements) we receive. But if we step back and look at the extraordinary lengths (efforts) the USPS goes to to deliver mail, we might appreciate the post office a little more.

The Grand Canyon (see English Cafe 245) is the 277 mile (440 km) long and 6,000 foot (1,800 meter) deep gorge (low area between two mountains) in Arizona. It’s a place of wonder (causing awe and admiration) and natural beauty.

At the bottom of the Canyon, but outside of the national park the Canyon is located in, lives a Native American tribe called the Havasupai. They live on the Havasupai Reservation, land officially set aside by the U.S. government for their use.

Most of the Havasupai live in the village of Supai. Both the reservation and the village are in a remote (difficult to get to) place, but it is very beautiful, with four blue-green waterfalls. There are no roads. To get there, you will need to walk, ride a horse or other animal, row a boat, or travel by helicopter.

Even so, the people on the reservation get their mail six days a week. How does it get there? It arrives by mule (see photo).

The U.S. Postal Service uses contractors (people who are hired for a service by agreement) for this service. A contractor picks up the mail from the nearby town of Peach Springs, Arizona, and travels by car for about an hour to the top of the canyon. From there, the owner of the mule team (group of animals working together) who has done this job for over 25 years, loads up the mail onto the mules, each mule carrying up to 200 pounds. The mule team then travel the eight miles down into the canyon, usually taking three hours down and five hours back up.

Most of the “mail” that makes this trip isn’t mail at all — it’s supplies (necessary things for one to live or work). So without mail service, the village could not survive. The mail service delivers basic items, such as soap and medicine, but also modern amenities (useful and desirable things), such as packaged food (food in bags, boxes, or containers), small appliances (machines used in the home), and even orders from Amazon.com!

If spending time in this remote place sounds good to you, then you can visit the village of Supai. In addition to hiking, horseback riding, or picnicking (eating a meal outdoors) in this beautiful place, you can visit the village store and cafe, and there is even a museum for tourists. If you’d like to stay at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, you can rent a room at Phantom Ranch. Interestingly, if someone sends you mail while you’re staying there, your letter or package will have a stamp (official mark in ink) on it that reads, “Mailed by Mule.” In fact, Supai is the last official mail-by-mule route in the United States.

~ Lucy

Photo Credit: From Wikipedia