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Published on September 4, 2007

Could you please explain their meaning with examples? Thank you for your time.

Ladda Eamsrisakul

"Perk" is the short form of the word "perquisites" and refers to any extra benefits received from an employer in addition to salary. Travelling allowance, accommodation, car, mobile phone, holiday package and health insurance are all perks. You might have heard of or be more familiar with "fringe benefit", which more or less refers to the same thing.

I wish I could be working with Workwell & Co, as they offer the best perks/fringe benefits around.

That company recruits only top people and in return offers very attractive perks/fringe benefits.

When something is described as "swank" or "swanky", it is smart, fashionable and expensive.

With the extra bonus I received this year, I'll take you guys to spend our summer holiday in a swanky resort; how's that?

In the above sense, "swank/swanky" is used as an adjective, but as a verb the word provides a different meaning: that is, trying to impress other people by speaking boastfully. Here it has the same meaning as "to show off", used when the speaker disapproves of the behaviour.

You can also use it as a noun, as in the second example below.

He was trying very hard to swank but nobody there gave him much attention.

Don't take him seriously. What he said was nothing more than swanking.

Hospital matters

Dear Dr English,

I do not know how I should say to a foreigner that someone is at a hospital to see a doctor and isn't staying there as an inpatient, and also how I should say that a person is in hospital as an inpatient.

Can you help?

When someone makes a visit to a doctor at a hospital, they go to the hospital, see their doctor, are prescribed their medicine and come home. But if someone is really sick and needs to stay there, Britons will say that the person is "in hospital" while Americans will say that the person is "in the hospital".

"Where is Dan?" - "He has gone to hospital. He has a bad stomach-ache."

I accompany my mother to hospital for her regular follow-up every two months.

Our neighbour got dengue fever and was in hospital/in the hospital for a week last month.

And if something happens in a particular hospital, both Britons and Americans use the same phrase - "at the hospital".

We can find out more information at the hospital.

"Where can I get a flu vaccination for my children?" - "At the hospital."