For you, dear, anything

• A couple, preparing to host a dinner party.
• Husband: “Darling, is there anything I can do besides bring in firewood?”
• Wife: “What, you’ll do anything other than that? You swine! Leaving all the heavy work to me!”

I love the trick words in our language. 

Besides  can mean other than  OR in addition to  — which are opposites-ish, right?

No wonder learning English is such a pain for people from other language groups.

Tomorrow I’ll head to Belarus for 10 days or so of humanitarian volunteer work with NewThing.net, where I’ll make my Russian-speaking friends a little bit crazy, because as you know, English is a complicated language.

Join the adventure by choosing one or more of these channels today:

• Your email inbox (use the Sign Up button) — updates about once a week
• Instagram — daily
• Facebook — daily
• Twitter — it’s random, to be honest
• The Web — uh… whatever

Next time I talk to you, Я буду в Минске!