Wednesday, July 14, 2010

MAME IS TO BLAME!



An extract from the relevant Wikipedia page:
Put the Blame on Mame" is a song by Allan Roberts and Doris Fisher, originally made for the film Gilda in 1946 - where it was sung by the title character, played by Rita Hayworth and with the singing voice actually that of Anita Kert Ellis.
In keeping with the film character Gilda being "the ultimate femme fatale", the song sung by her at two scenes facetiously credits the amorous activities of a woman named "Mame" (the name evidently chosen to rhyme with "blame") as the true cause of three well-known cataclysmic events in American history: The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Great Blizzard of 1888 in New York City and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

This is a song invariably mentioned in advanced learners' classes as a little mnemonic device that will (hopefully!) place the phrase 'put the blame on somebody' in the long-term memory. The lyrics can be read here.

What other songs/ films/ books do you know that contain useful phrases in their title?

6 comments:

  1. CarlosJuly 19, 2010 at 3:42 AM

    Thanks for spreading this content overseas, keep up doing the great job, here is Carlos from Brazil http://www.englishtips-self-taught.blogspot.com Can we link our blog?

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  2. Christina MarkoulakiJuly 19, 2010 at 3:45 AM

    Hello Carlos! Nice to see you here, too, and thank you for your comment! :)

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  3. m@ri@*July 21, 2010 at 7:27 PM

    Here are two songs with useful phrases!!!!

    http://markaki-fce.blogspot.com/2010/07/paramore-ignorance-official-video_21.html

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  4. Christina MarkoulakiJuly 22, 2010 at 2:32 AM

    Bravo Maraki!

    Here are some students' posts about songs or movies containing useful phrases!

    http://markaki-fce.blogspot.com/search?q=songs+with+useful+phrases

    http://markakifcpe.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/rumor-has-it/

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  5. AnonymousJuly 22, 2010 at 8:40 AM

    Here's another song using the despite+noun form something I should really learn to do myself too.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-iN6ONVZGc

    There is also a poem I really love called 'If' and I'd like to post here for obvious reasons

    http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm

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  6. Christina MarkoulakiJuly 22, 2010 at 2:13 PM

    A Kipling poem... what an idea! Bravo Irene and to the rest of the resourceful CPE students!!

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