English Help Online's Blog

Wow! I can’t believe it!!! Today is my one year anniversary of starting the English Help Online blog! I started writing it on February 10, 2010 and have written exactly 300 blog entries so far! Today will be my 301st entry!

For today’s entry, I would like to write about another natural and useful expression: to have something “in common” with another person. This expression is related to yesterday’s topic, the word “mutual”. It is used when we want to talk about two people who have the same interest or situation in their lives. We can also use it in the negative and say that two people don’t have anything “in common”. This means they don’t have mutual interests or situations in their lives. For example:

My friend Steven and I have a lot in common; we both like comic books, race car driving, hiking and action movies.

I don’t have a very good relationship with my brother because we don’t have much in common.

A: I don’t understand why you’re dating Tyler. You’re so different from each other. What can you possibly have in common?

B: Well, one thing we have in common is that we both hate being told we’re so different from each other.

I find it’s difficult to work with Betty. We have nothing in common, so it’s hard to talk to her.

So, this expression is related to “mutual” because if two people have a mutual interest, we can say they have that thing “in common”. This is a very natural and often-used expression. I think “in common” is a little more casual than “mutual”.

I would sincerely like to thank all my readers for your questions and kind comments about my blog over the last year! I hope I’ve been able to be of some help to you in learning this crazy language we call English. I hope we’ll have another great year together! Thank you!!!