Hi everyone, this is Annie from China, and you're listening to Everybody ESL.
Welcome to episode 449 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English or just learn more English.
My name is Ben and I have a mini episode for you today where I am going to teach you about one English topic.
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Okay, let's get on with this mini-episode.
In this episode, I am going to tell you a secret of native speakers.
I'm not sure if this is really a secret of native speakers, but it is the kind of thing you will probably not find in a dictionary and you will probably not learn it in a class.
It has been a long time since I have used that secret of native speakers sound and I wanted to use it again.
Today, I'm going to tell you about a special suffix in English.
The suffix is rama, rama.
That's spelled R-A-M-A, rama.
And sometimes it shows up as a-rama.
A-R-A-M-A, or o-rama, O-R-A-M-A.
What does this suffix mean and why am I telling you about it?
Why do I think it is important or at least interesting?
When we add the suffix rama or a-rama or o-rama to a noun, we are turning it into a new noun.
That means something like a great example of that thing or a spectacle involving that thing.
A spectacle is a wonderful thing to see, a wonderful event to see.
This suffix comes from a very old ancient Greek word.
And you will not see it used in very many words that you could find in the dictionary.
But this is the part that I think is more interesting than that.
This is a suffix that we can use to make new words.
You can make a new word.
I can make a new word.
Anybody can make a new word that uses this suffix.
You might see an example of this suffix in an advertisement.
Imagine some place like a car dealership, a business that sells cars, having a sale-a-rama, sale-a-rama.
What does that mean?
Well, you won't find that word in the dictionary, but even if you have never seen or heard that word before, you could probably guess that it means some kind of big sale or some kind of spectacular sale, a big event where there is a big sale.
Here in the city of Seattle, where I live, we used to have a big fancy movie theater called Cinerama.
Cinerama.
That uses part of the word cinema, that means movie theater, and the suffix rama.
Cinerama was a very big, fancy movie theater.
So it made sense that the name included that suffix rama.
Maybe you have seen or heard of the animated series Futurama.
Futurama.
That's a combination of the word future and this rama suffix, Futurama.
Here's another example that shows how we use this suffix.
If you were going to have a big party with lots of friends and the plan was to order many, many pizzas, you were going to have a big pizza party.
If somebody called this big party a pizzarama, everyone would understand what that meant.
It would mean a big event that featured or included pizza, a big pizza event, a big pizza party.
Now, I have never seen the word pizzarama before, but if someone used it I would understand what they meant, because people can create or invent new words by using this suffix -rama.
That is this interesting suffix, rama or arama or orama, an interesting feature of English that I think you should know.
This is the end of episode 449 of Everybody ESL.
Remember If you have questions about English or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes.
The same way, Annie recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode.
Send an email to everybodyesl at gmailcom.
I'll be back soon with a new episode.
And until then, keep going, keep practicing and keep learning.
I'll see you soon.
Goodbye.
