Edward Oz
Writes everyday because
English never fails to amaze
Just read today's post on Word Daze
Today is the birthday of Edmund Clerihew Bentley whose middle name became a form of light verse.
Bentley made a name for himself with a classic work of detective fiction called Trent's Last Case, but he is best known for the four-line verse form that bears his middle name: the clerihew.
The clerihew is a biographical form that begins with the subject's name (or at least contains the name in the first line). It is made up of two rhyming couplets (thus the rhyme scheme is AABB). The only other requirement of the form is that it should be light hearted or humorous.
Bentley's Biography for Beginners, published in 1905, was his first collection of verse. He followed this up with additional volumes of verse in 1929 and 1939.
Here are a couple of examples of Bentley's clerihews:
Edward the Confessor
Slept under the dresser.
When that began to pall,
He slept in the hall.
The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.
Today's Challenge: Terse Verse
Try writing your own clerihews.
-Write one about a friend, and use in a birthday card.
-Write about someone in the news.
-Write an autobiographical one as your epitaph.
-Write one about your favorite fictional character.
Examples written by Edward Oz:
Samuel Backman
Took on Superman.
It was a long night.
He forgot his Kryptonite.
Prince Hamlet was sad
Because his uncle killed his dad.
He talked to his father's ghost after dark.
Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.
Word of the Day: Terse (Adjective): Brief and to the point; effectively concise.
Quote of the Day: The art of biography is different from geography. Geography is about maps, but biography is about chaps. -Edward Clerihew Bentley
1 - Brandreth, Gyles. The Book of Classic Puzzles and Word Games. London: Chancellor Press, 1985.
2 - Holman, C. Hugh and William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature (Sixth Edition). New York: Macmillian, 1992.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Friday, July 09, 2010
July 9: British Versus American English Day
Today is the anniversary of the first Wimbledon Tennis Tournament in 1877. The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club was established in Wimbledon, a suburb of London, in 1868.
The growth in popularity of lawn tennis led to the decision to hold a gentlemen's singles tournament in the summer of 1877. The rules for this first tournament, written by club member Dr. Henry Jones, established fundamental aspects of the game, such as:
-The size of the court: 78 feet by 27 feet.
-The scoring system for each game: 15, 30, 40, game.
-The number of games required to win a set: 6.
-The number of faults allowed for each service: 1.
This first tournament was won by W. Spencer Gore who was first in a field of 21 (1).
Today the Wimbledon tournament is alive and well as the world's preeminent tennis tournament and the third and final jewel in the Grand Slam of tennis. Although it is open to a host of international competitors from more than 60 nations, it remains uniquely British. For example, above the players’ entrance to Centre Court there is a quote from British poet Rudyard Kipling from his poem "If": If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.
Even American television sports broadcasters refer to it as the Wimbledon fortnight. Fortnight is a British term meaning a period of two weeks.
It was Oscar Wilde who said that Britain and America are "two great countries divided by a common language." Wilde was exaggerating for the sake of humor, but there certainly are distinct differences, beyond just spelling and pronunciation, in British English and American English. Fortnight is just one of 4,000 vocabulary words in common usage that differ depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on . Examples are life and elevator, dustbin and garbage can, and biscuit and cookies (2).
The first American men's champion at Wimbledon was Bill Tilden in 1930. There has not been a British men's champion since 1936.
Today's Challenge: English on Holiday (or Is that Vacation?)
See if you can translate the British words below into American English.
1. candy floss
2. to grizzle
3. inverted commas
4. to nick
5. lorry
6. pram
7. knackered
8. windscreen
9. nappy
10. torch (3)
Quotes of the Day:
-America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there. -- Laurence J. Peter
-If a playwright is funny, the English look for a serious message, and if he's serious, they look for the joke. --Sacha Guitry.
Answers. 1. cotton candy 2. to whine 3. quotation marks 4. to steal 5. truck 6. baby carriage 7. worn out 8. windshield 9. diaper 10. flashlight
1 - This Day in History, July 9, General Interest. The History Channel
2 - Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue. New York: Perennial, 1990.
3 - Reader's Digest Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language. Pleasantville, New York: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.
The growth in popularity of lawn tennis led to the decision to hold a gentlemen's singles tournament in the summer of 1877. The rules for this first tournament, written by club member Dr. Henry Jones, established fundamental aspects of the game, such as:
-The size of the court: 78 feet by 27 feet.
-The scoring system for each game: 15, 30, 40, game.
-The number of games required to win a set: 6.
-The number of faults allowed for each service: 1.
This first tournament was won by W. Spencer Gore who was first in a field of 21 (1).
Today the Wimbledon tournament is alive and well as the world's preeminent tennis tournament and the third and final jewel in the Grand Slam of tennis. Although it is open to a host of international competitors from more than 60 nations, it remains uniquely British. For example, above the players’ entrance to Centre Court there is a quote from British poet Rudyard Kipling from his poem "If": If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.
Even American television sports broadcasters refer to it as the Wimbledon fortnight. Fortnight is a British term meaning a period of two weeks.
It was Oscar Wilde who said that Britain and America are "two great countries divided by a common language." Wilde was exaggerating for the sake of humor, but there certainly are distinct differences, beyond just spelling and pronunciation, in British English and American English. Fortnight is just one of 4,000 vocabulary words in common usage that differ depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on . Examples are life and elevator, dustbin and garbage can, and biscuit and cookies (2).
The first American men's champion at Wimbledon was Bill Tilden in 1930. There has not been a British men's champion since 1936.
Today's Challenge: English on Holiday (or Is that Vacation?)
See if you can translate the British words below into American English.
1. candy floss
2. to grizzle
3. inverted commas
4. to nick
5. lorry
6. pram
7. knackered
8. windscreen
9. nappy
10. torch (3)
Quotes of the Day:
-America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there. -- Laurence J. Peter
-If a playwright is funny, the English look for a serious message, and if he's serious, they look for the joke. --Sacha Guitry.
Answers. 1. cotton candy 2. to whine 3. quotation marks 4. to steal 5. truck 6. baby carriage 7. worn out 8. windshield 9. diaper 10. flashlight
1 - This Day in History, July 9, General Interest. The History Channel
2 - Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue. New York: Perennial, 1990.
3 - Reader's Digest Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language. Pleasantville, New York: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
July 7: Utopia Day
On this date in 1535, Sir Thomas More was executed for treason.
More was caught in the middle of religious and governmental conflict when Henry VIII established the Church of England, defying the Pope and breaking from the Roman Catholic Church. Because More disagreed with the King’s decision, he resigned his office in the English Parliament and refused to take a loyalty oath. As a result, he was imprisoned and eventually beheaded.
The 1966 film A Man for All Seasons portrays the events surrounding More's execution.
More is best known for his 1516 satirical novel Utopia, in which he envisioned a perfect island state with universal education, command land ownership, religious tolerance, and shared labor (1).
Because of the sharp contrast between the less than perfect island of England and More’s Idyllic Island of Utopia, the satirical aspect of the novel was clear to 16th century readers. Today utopia and utopian have become a part of the English lexicon, describing any ideal or perfect condition or place. Of course this is an idea that exists purely in the imagination since establishing any perfect society is impossible. More certainly understood this even in the 16th century since he used Greek roots to generate a name for his island that translates literally as “no place,” [ou, not + topos, place].
Today’s Challenge: Go To Your Happy Place
More is not the first writer to envision an idyllic place in literature. The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions has an entire chapter devoted to these utopias. See if you can match up each of the names of the idyllic places below with its correct description:
Albion
Arcadia
Avalon
Eden
El Dorado
Shangri-la
Valhalla
Xanadu
1. Home of Adam and Eve where the Tree of Knowledge was found.
2. The fabled city of gold sought in the 16th century by Spanish conquistadors.
3. An idealized region in classical poetry found in the mountainous district in the Peloponnese of southern Greece.
4. In poetry and literature this name is sometimes used to refer to Britain as a green paradise.
5. The name of a dreamlike place of beauty and luxury in Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan.”
6. A Tibetan utopia depicted in James Hilton’s novel ‘Lost Horizon.’
7. In Arthurian legend, this was the place to which Arthur was conveyed after his death.
8. A great banqueting hall from Norse mythology where heroes, slain in battle, feasted with Odin eternally.
Quote of the Day: Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious, discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. --Helen Keller
Word of the Day: Idyllic - (Adjective) pleasing or picturesque in natural simplicity
Write: What is the most idyllic place you have ever been? Describe it so that your reader can experience it vicariously.
Answers: 1. Eden 2. El Dorado 3. Arcadia 4. Albion 5. Xanadu 6. Shangri-la 7. Avalon
1 – Raftery, Miriam. 100 Books that Shaped World History. San Mateo, CA: Bluewood Books, 2002.
2 – Delahunty, Andrew, Sheila Dignen, and Penny Stock (Editors). The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
More was caught in the middle of religious and governmental conflict when Henry VIII established the Church of England, defying the Pope and breaking from the Roman Catholic Church. Because More disagreed with the King’s decision, he resigned his office in the English Parliament and refused to take a loyalty oath. As a result, he was imprisoned and eventually beheaded.
The 1966 film A Man for All Seasons portrays the events surrounding More's execution.
More is best known for his 1516 satirical novel Utopia, in which he envisioned a perfect island state with universal education, command land ownership, religious tolerance, and shared labor (1).
Because of the sharp contrast between the less than perfect island of England and More’s Idyllic Island of Utopia, the satirical aspect of the novel was clear to 16th century readers. Today utopia and utopian have become a part of the English lexicon, describing any ideal or perfect condition or place. Of course this is an idea that exists purely in the imagination since establishing any perfect society is impossible. More certainly understood this even in the 16th century since he used Greek roots to generate a name for his island that translates literally as “no place,” [ou, not + topos, place].
Today’s Challenge: Go To Your Happy Place
More is not the first writer to envision an idyllic place in literature. The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions has an entire chapter devoted to these utopias. See if you can match up each of the names of the idyllic places below with its correct description:
Albion
Arcadia
Avalon
Eden
El Dorado
Shangri-la
Valhalla
Xanadu
1. Home of Adam and Eve where the Tree of Knowledge was found.
2. The fabled city of gold sought in the 16th century by Spanish conquistadors.
3. An idealized region in classical poetry found in the mountainous district in the Peloponnese of southern Greece.
4. In poetry and literature this name is sometimes used to refer to Britain as a green paradise.
5. The name of a dreamlike place of beauty and luxury in Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan.”
6. A Tibetan utopia depicted in James Hilton’s novel ‘Lost Horizon.’
7. In Arthurian legend, this was the place to which Arthur was conveyed after his death.
8. A great banqueting hall from Norse mythology where heroes, slain in battle, feasted with Odin eternally.
Quote of the Day: Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious, discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. --Helen Keller
Word of the Day: Idyllic - (Adjective) pleasing or picturesque in natural simplicity
Write: What is the most idyllic place you have ever been? Describe it so that your reader can experience it vicariously.
Answers: 1. Eden 2. El Dorado 3. Arcadia 4. Albion 5. Xanadu 6. Shangri-la 7. Avalon
1 – Raftery, Miriam. 100 Books that Shaped World History. San Mateo, CA: Bluewood Books, 2002.
2 – Delahunty, Andrew, Sheila Dignen, and Penny Stock (Editors). The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
June 6: Parallelism Day
Today is the anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 1944. In the largest invasion in history, known as Operation Overlord, the allied armies assaulted the beaches of Normandy, France with 133,000 soldiers from England, Canada, and the United States. The war in Europe would not end until nearly one year after the Normandy assault, but without a successful invasion on June 6th, the progress of the war and the final outcome certainly would have been different. As a result, if you were to talk about the single most influential day or moment in the 20th century, you would be hard pressed to find any more faithful day than June 6, 1944.
On the morning of June 6, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces General Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered the following "Order of the Day" to the Allied forces as they awaited their appointment with history:
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
As well as planning for victory on D-Day, Eisenhower also had the unpleasant task of preparing for defeat. One day before the D-Day, Eisenhower wrote out the following brief message on a piece of paper:
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone (1).
In his instructions to the sailor, soldiers, and airmen of the Allied forces, Eisenhower employed a specific rhetorical device to give his message punch, and to make it memorable. This rhetorical strategy is called parallelism. Parallelism is a big word for a simple concept. Our brains work naturally to recognize patterns, and our ears appreciate rhythm. Parallelism is not just the repetition of words, it is the repetition of grammatical patterns.
For example when Eisenhower wrote: "Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened" he was using parallelism by repeating the adverb-adjective pattern in: "well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened."
Another example of parallelism in Eisenhower’s message comes in the last sentence of his first paragraph: "In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world." Here Eisenhower uses the parallel nouns, destruction, elimination, and security, and he follows each noun with a prepositional phrase to elaborate on his ideas.
Good writers and good speakers know the power of parallelism to expand their ideas, to add rhythm to their writing, and to make their writing more coherent and memorable.
Today’s Challenge: I Came, I Saw, I Conquered Parallelism
Combine each of the following groups of sentences into a single sentence that features parallelism.
1. Last summer I built a log home. I ran a marathon. I organized my stamp collection.
2. I am the kind of person who likes listening to music. I am the kind of person who enjoys watching TV. I am the kind of person who loves eating out.
3. A good English teacher needs three things. He needs a dependable stapler. He needs an up-to-date dictionary. He needs an iron will.
4. Every child should have a pet. Pets provide companionship. Pets teach compassion. Pets encourage responsibility.
Quote of the Day: In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. --Dwight D. Eisenhower
Answers:
1. Last summer I built a log home, ran a marathon, and organized my stamp collection.
2. I am the kind of person who likes listening to music, enjoys watching TV, and loves eating out.
3. A good English teacher needs three things: a dependable stapler, an up-to-date dictionary, and an iron will.
4. Every child should have a pet, because pets provide companionship, teach compassion, and teach responsibility.
1 - http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/dday/ddaypage.html
On the morning of June 6, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces General Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered the following "Order of the Day" to the Allied forces as they awaited their appointment with history:
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
As well as planning for victory on D-Day, Eisenhower also had the unpleasant task of preparing for defeat. One day before the D-Day, Eisenhower wrote out the following brief message on a piece of paper:
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone (1).
In his instructions to the sailor, soldiers, and airmen of the Allied forces, Eisenhower employed a specific rhetorical device to give his message punch, and to make it memorable. This rhetorical strategy is called parallelism. Parallelism is a big word for a simple concept. Our brains work naturally to recognize patterns, and our ears appreciate rhythm. Parallelism is not just the repetition of words, it is the repetition of grammatical patterns.
For example when Eisenhower wrote: "Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened" he was using parallelism by repeating the adverb-adjective pattern in: "well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened."
Another example of parallelism in Eisenhower’s message comes in the last sentence of his first paragraph: "In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world." Here Eisenhower uses the parallel nouns, destruction, elimination, and security, and he follows each noun with a prepositional phrase to elaborate on his ideas.
Good writers and good speakers know the power of parallelism to expand their ideas, to add rhythm to their writing, and to make their writing more coherent and memorable.
Today’s Challenge: I Came, I Saw, I Conquered Parallelism
Combine each of the following groups of sentences into a single sentence that features parallelism.
1. Last summer I built a log home. I ran a marathon. I organized my stamp collection.
2. I am the kind of person who likes listening to music. I am the kind of person who enjoys watching TV. I am the kind of person who loves eating out.
3. A good English teacher needs three things. He needs a dependable stapler. He needs an up-to-date dictionary. He needs an iron will.
4. Every child should have a pet. Pets provide companionship. Pets teach compassion. Pets encourage responsibility.
Quote of the Day: In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. --Dwight D. Eisenhower
Answers:
1. Last summer I built a log home, ran a marathon, and organized my stamp collection.
2. I am the kind of person who likes listening to music, enjoys watching TV, and loves eating out.
3. A good English teacher needs three things: a dependable stapler, an up-to-date dictionary, and an iron will.
4. Every child should have a pet, because pets provide companionship, teach compassion, and teach responsibility.
1 - http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/dday/ddaypage.html
Friday, May 14, 2010
May 14: Native American Words Day
Today is the anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first English speaking settlement in the New World. Three ships arrived on May 14, 1607 at a wooded island island in the James River. Life was not easy for these English settlers, and they almost succumbed to the same fate as an earlier group of settlers at Roanoke. That group had landed off the coast of North Carolina in 1584 and by 1590 had vanished without a trace. The settlers at Jamestown were more lucky; in 1610 Lord De La Warr (Delaware) arrived in time to resupply the 35 remaining colonists (1, 2).
The natives peoples of what is now the United States spoke hundreds of different languages, and although English has never been declared the official language of the United States, it certainly has supplanted all native languages. There are, however, a few words from the native peoples that were adopted into English; most of these were adopted in the period of early colonization by settlers like those at Jamestown. For the most part these words are from the Algonquian dialects and reflect Indian names for plants and animals or unique artifacts and social practices of Indian life.
The word moose is one example to describe the very large northern deer. Another example is succotash which originates from the Algonquian word meaning 'cooked corn kernels.'
Today's Challenge: New World Words
Below are examples of native words in their original spellings. See if you can detect the modern English equivalents of these words.
1. isquoutersquash
2. ocheck
3. arathkon
4. segakw
5. pakan
6. pawcohiccora
7. aposum
8. mohkussin (3)
Quote of the Day: Power is sweet, it is a drug, the desire for which increases with habit. --Bertrand Russell
Answers: 1. squash 2. woodchuck 3. Raccoon 4. skunk 5. pecan 6. hickory 7. opossum 8. moccasin
1 - McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
2 - Flavell, Linda and Roger. The Chronology of Words and Phrases. London: Kyle Cathie Limited, 1999.
3 - Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language (Reader's Digest). Pleasantville: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.
The natives peoples of what is now the United States spoke hundreds of different languages, and although English has never been declared the official language of the United States, it certainly has supplanted all native languages. There are, however, a few words from the native peoples that were adopted into English; most of these were adopted in the period of early colonization by settlers like those at Jamestown. For the most part these words are from the Algonquian dialects and reflect Indian names for plants and animals or unique artifacts and social practices of Indian life.
The word moose is one example to describe the very large northern deer. Another example is succotash which originates from the Algonquian word meaning 'cooked corn kernels.'
Today's Challenge: New World Words
Below are examples of native words in their original spellings. See if you can detect the modern English equivalents of these words.
1. isquoutersquash
2. ocheck
3. arathkon
4. segakw
5. pakan
6. pawcohiccora
7. aposum
8. mohkussin (3)
Quote of the Day: Power is sweet, it is a drug, the desire for which increases with habit. --Bertrand Russell
Answers: 1. squash 2. woodchuck 3. Raccoon 4. skunk 5. pecan 6. hickory 7. opossum 8. moccasin
1 - McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
2 - Flavell, Linda and Roger. The Chronology of Words and Phrases. London: Kyle Cathie Limited, 1999.
3 - Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language (Reader's Digest). Pleasantville: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
May 12: Limerick Day
The English language is a maze
You can get lost in it for days
Exploring the mother tongue
Can be lots of fun
So, read today's post on Word Daze
Today is the birthday of Edward Lear, born in 1812 in London, England. Before he was a poet, he was a painter, illustrating birds for such noteworthy clients as Charles Darwin.
In 1832, while on an assignment to paint animals in the Earl of Darby's private zoo, Lear began composing humorous verse for the Earl's grandchildren. He put his poems together in his Book of Nonsense, published in 1846.
Lear is remembered for his famous poem "The Owl and the Pussycat," but his most noteworthy contribution to the literary world is the limerick.
Here are some limericks from Book of Nonsense.
1.
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared!--
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!"
10.
There was an Old Man in a tree,
Who was horribly bored by a Bee;
When they said, "Does it buzz?"
He replied, "Yes, it does! "
It's a regular brute of a Bee!"
12.
There was a Young Lady whose chin,
Resembled the point of a pin:
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
The limerick is a universally popular verse form, popular with children as well as adults. Besides the fixed form of five lines, rhyming AABBA, the content of the Limerick is characteristically comical and nonsensical. The adult version frequently feature lewd content. One other common feature is the naming of a character and geographic location in the first line.
For more on Lear and the limerick see poets.org
Today's Challenge: Literary Limerick
On Limerick Day write lots of limericks. Write one as a love note and put it on the refrigerator or write it on your child's lunch sack. Write a limerick advertising a product that you think is worth buying. Write a limerick about your best friend, your pet, or your boss. Finally, select a favorite literary character and write a limerick about him or her.
Quote of the Day: One of the most responsible things you can do as an adult is become more of a child. --Wayne Dyer
Sunday, May 09, 2010
May 9: Turn Off the TV Day
Today is the anniversary of a memorable speech by Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to the National Association of Broadcasters. The year was 1961, and Newton did not have many good things to say about commercial television. His speech, where he called television "a vast wasteland," sparked a national debate about the quality, or lack there of, of television programming.
Since Minow’s speech, television has been called the idiot box and the boob tube. Television viewers have become couch potatoes (1979), and the number of channels has grown to more than 500, but "nothing is on."
Here's an excerpt from Minow's indictment:
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating book to distract you -- and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials -- many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it.
To see the entire speech go to: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm
While Minow’s phrase "a vast wasteland" caught on, his speech certainly did not discourage the growth of television sets in American homes. In an age of reality television, satellite television, and 24-hour sports and cable news stations, television is more popular than ever.
One question that has been asked by educators since the advent of commercial television is: What is the relationship between television viewing and reading? One particularly interesting answer to this question was given by Norman Mailer in the January 23, 2005 edition of Parade Magazine. In the article Mailer says that the one thing that he would do to change America for the better would be to get rid of television commercials. Mailer argues that the constant interruptions of commercials disrupt our children’s ability to read effectively by denying them something that is necessary for reading: concentration.
Here is an excerpt from Mailer’s Parade essay:
Television is seen as the culprit, since the ability to read well is directly related to one’s ability to learn. If it is universally understood that the power to concentrate while reading is the royal road to knowledge, what may not be perceived as clearly is how much concentration itself is a species of psychic strength. It can be developed or it can go soft in much the manner that body muscle can be built up or allowed to go slack. The development of physical ability is in direct relation to use. Reading offers its analogy. When children become interested in an activity, their concentration is firm—until it is interrupted. Sixty years ago, children would read for hours. Their powers of concentration developed as naturally as breathing. Good readers became very good readers, even as men and women who go in for weight-lifting will bulk up. The connection between loving to read and doing well in school was no mystery to most students . . . . On the major networks, the amount of time given to commercials and other promotional messages increased by 36 percent from 1991 to 2003. Each of the four major networks now offers 52 minutes of commercials in the three hours from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. every day. It is equal to saying that every seven, 10 or 12 minutes, our attention to what is happening on the tube is cut into by a commercial. It is as bad for most children’s shows. Soon enough, children develop a fail-safe. Since the child knows that any interesting story will soon be amputated by a kaleidoscope of toys, food, dolls, clowns, new colors and the clutter of six or seven wholly different products all following one another in 10-, 20- and 30-second spots all the way through a three-minute break, the child also comes to recognize that concentration is not one’s friend but is treacherous. For soon enough, attention will be turned inside out. The need to get up and move can become a frantic if routine response for highly keyed children. Other kids, stupefied by the onslaught of a quick series of ads that have nothing to do with each other, suffer a dire spiritual product—stagnation. They sit on the couch in a stupor, they eat and drink, and alarms are sounded through the nation. Our children are becoming obese.
To see the complete text of Mailer's article go to: http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2005/edition_01-23-2005/featured_0
Today’s Challenge: Trivial TV Tidbits
It should be noted that no one on the Word Daze staff has owned a television since 1992. In fact nowhere in the palatial offices of Word Daze Plaza is there anything resembling an idiot box. Try your hand at the questions below, and congratulate yourself if you get none of them correct.
1. What word uttered repeatedly by Homer Simpson was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001?
2. Who was on the cover of the first edition of TV Guide, published on April 3, 1953?
3. What is the most watched TV episode of all time?
4. What TV Theme song hit number one on the Billboard charts in 1976?
5. "I’ll see you all in the cafeteria." Is the final line of what TV series?
6. What country watches the most TV?
7. What was the first image shown on television?
8. What was the first TV series to broadcast a rerun?
9. What television series features a boat named after Newton Minow?
Quote of the Day: Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done. --Fred Allen
Source: Grobman, Paul. Vital Statistics: An Amazing Compendium of Factoids, Minutiae, and Random Bits of Wisdom. New York: Plume Books, 2005.
Answers: 1. "Doh" 2. Desi Arnez, Jr. 3. MASH 4. Welcome Back, Kotter 5. Seinfled 6. Japan (an average of 4 hours, 29 minutes) 7. A statue of Felix the Cat 8. Dick Tracy 9. Gilligan's Island (the S.S. Minow)
Since Minow’s speech, television has been called the idiot box and the boob tube. Television viewers have become couch potatoes (1979), and the number of channels has grown to more than 500, but "nothing is on."
Here's an excerpt from Minow's indictment:
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating book to distract you -- and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials -- many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it.
To see the entire speech go to: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm
While Minow’s phrase "a vast wasteland" caught on, his speech certainly did not discourage the growth of television sets in American homes. In an age of reality television, satellite television, and 24-hour sports and cable news stations, television is more popular than ever.
One question that has been asked by educators since the advent of commercial television is: What is the relationship between television viewing and reading? One particularly interesting answer to this question was given by Norman Mailer in the January 23, 2005 edition of Parade Magazine. In the article Mailer says that the one thing that he would do to change America for the better would be to get rid of television commercials. Mailer argues that the constant interruptions of commercials disrupt our children’s ability to read effectively by denying them something that is necessary for reading: concentration.
Here is an excerpt from Mailer’s Parade essay:
Television is seen as the culprit, since the ability to read well is directly related to one’s ability to learn. If it is universally understood that the power to concentrate while reading is the royal road to knowledge, what may not be perceived as clearly is how much concentration itself is a species of psychic strength. It can be developed or it can go soft in much the manner that body muscle can be built up or allowed to go slack. The development of physical ability is in direct relation to use. Reading offers its analogy. When children become interested in an activity, their concentration is firm—until it is interrupted. Sixty years ago, children would read for hours. Their powers of concentration developed as naturally as breathing. Good readers became very good readers, even as men and women who go in for weight-lifting will bulk up. The connection between loving to read and doing well in school was no mystery to most students . . . . On the major networks, the amount of time given to commercials and other promotional messages increased by 36 percent from 1991 to 2003. Each of the four major networks now offers 52 minutes of commercials in the three hours from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. every day. It is equal to saying that every seven, 10 or 12 minutes, our attention to what is happening on the tube is cut into by a commercial. It is as bad for most children’s shows. Soon enough, children develop a fail-safe. Since the child knows that any interesting story will soon be amputated by a kaleidoscope of toys, food, dolls, clowns, new colors and the clutter of six or seven wholly different products all following one another in 10-, 20- and 30-second spots all the way through a three-minute break, the child also comes to recognize that concentration is not one’s friend but is treacherous. For soon enough, attention will be turned inside out. The need to get up and move can become a frantic if routine response for highly keyed children. Other kids, stupefied by the onslaught of a quick series of ads that have nothing to do with each other, suffer a dire spiritual product—stagnation. They sit on the couch in a stupor, they eat and drink, and alarms are sounded through the nation. Our children are becoming obese.
To see the complete text of Mailer's article go to: http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2005/edition_01-23-2005/featured_0
Today’s Challenge: Trivial TV Tidbits
It should be noted that no one on the Word Daze staff has owned a television since 1992. In fact nowhere in the palatial offices of Word Daze Plaza is there anything resembling an idiot box. Try your hand at the questions below, and congratulate yourself if you get none of them correct.
1. What word uttered repeatedly by Homer Simpson was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001?
2. Who was on the cover of the first edition of TV Guide, published on April 3, 1953?
3. What is the most watched TV episode of all time?
4. What TV Theme song hit number one on the Billboard charts in 1976?
5. "I’ll see you all in the cafeteria." Is the final line of what TV series?
6. What country watches the most TV?
7. What was the first image shown on television?
8. What was the first TV series to broadcast a rerun?
9. What television series features a boat named after Newton Minow?
Quote of the Day: Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done. --Fred Allen
Source: Grobman, Paul. Vital Statistics: An Amazing Compendium of Factoids, Minutiae, and Random Bits of Wisdom. New York: Plume Books, 2005.
Answers: 1. "Doh" 2. Desi Arnez, Jr. 3. MASH 4. Welcome Back, Kotter 5. Seinfled 6. Japan (an average of 4 hours, 29 minutes) 7. A statue of Felix the Cat 8. Dick Tracy 9. Gilligan's Island (the S.S. Minow)
Friday, March 26, 2010
March 26: Metaphors for Life Day
Today is the birthday of American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963). Although he enrolled in college, Frost never earned a degree. He worked as a teacher, a cobbler, and an editor. Of course he is best known for his work as a poet, and, next to Shakespeare, he might just be the most quoted and anthologized poet of all time.
For more on the life of Frost, visit The Academy of American Poets at http://www.poets.org/.
Like all great poets, Frost explores the universal themes of humanity in his poems. For example, in The Road Not Taken he uses the metaphor of the road to explore the theme of choices made over a lifetime:
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, andI--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost
Today's Challenge -- Life is But a Dream:
In celebration of Frost's life, WLA challenges you to write your own metaphor for life. You can write your metaphor as a poem or write it in complete sentences. The key to a successful metaphor is to show a connection between two words that we normally don't associate with each other. For example, you might compare life to a game, a battle, a classroom, a banana, a building, a race, a book, a fire, an alphabet, or even a lunch box.
Here are two simple steps for writing a metaphor from the best book on poetry writing I know: Writing Poetry by Shelley Tucker (Goodyear Books 1992) :
How to Write a Metaphor
Definition: A metaphor is a comparison between to unrelated nouns.
Step 1. Write out your two unrelated nouns: Example: Life is a song.
Step 2: Expand and elaborate on your metaphor by asking yourself Who? What? When? Where? Why? or How?
Examples:
Quote of the Day: The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well. --H.T. Leslie
For more on the life of Frost, visit The Academy of American Poets at http://www.poets.org/.
Like all great poets, Frost explores the universal themes of humanity in his poems. For example, in The Road Not Taken he uses the metaphor of the road to explore the theme of choices made over a lifetime:
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, andI--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost
Today's Challenge -- Life is But a Dream:
In celebration of Frost's life, WLA challenges you to write your own metaphor for life. You can write your metaphor as a poem or write it in complete sentences. The key to a successful metaphor is to show a connection between two words that we normally don't associate with each other. For example, you might compare life to a game, a battle, a classroom, a banana, a building, a race, a book, a fire, an alphabet, or even a lunch box.
Here are two simple steps for writing a metaphor from the best book on poetry writing I know: Writing Poetry by Shelley Tucker (Goodyear Books 1992) :
How to Write a Metaphor
Definition: A metaphor is a comparison between to unrelated nouns.
Step 1. Write out your two unrelated nouns: Example: Life is a song.
Step 2: Expand and elaborate on your metaphor by asking yourself Who? What? When? Where? Why? or How?
Examples:
Life is a song with a consistant melody, but constantly changing lyrics.
Life is a punk rock song -- sung acappella.
Life is a song that you write yourself but that you sing with others.
Quote of the Day: The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well. --H.T. Leslie
Thursday, March 25, 2010
March 25: Celebration of Greek Roots Day
Today is Greek Independence Day. After rebelling against the imperial rule of the Ottoman Empire, the Greeks declaired their independence on March 25, 1821. Whether or not we have Greek ancestors, all of us are indepted to the Greeks for their contributions to civilization; democracy, tragedy, comedy, history, and philosophy are just a sampling Greek inventions that changed the world.
The English language is another area that owes a debt of graititude to the Greeks. While they did not invent the alphabet, the Greeks certainly adapted and perfected it after acquiring it from the Phonecians around 800 B.C. According to David Sacks excellent book, Language Visible: Untraveling the Mystery of the Alphabet from A to Z, the Greeks' key adaptation was the addition of vowels: "The Greeks bequeathed to the West an alphabet that had been adapted to an Indo-European language (Greek) and was therefore accessible to other European tongues. Specifically, the Greeks had introduced vowel letters -- the equivalents of our A, E, I, O, and U -- where earlier, Semitic versions of the alphabet had contained none. Vowel letters brought the alphabet forward to a point where it could be fitted to most other languages." And of course one of those European tongues was English.
In addition to the "alphabet," the Greeks contributed several other key words used to describe language:
Words about Words and Writing
(Definitions from Success With Words: A Guide to The American Language. Published by Reader's Digest, 1983).
Alphabet: From the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta.
Dialect: The regional or social variety of a language.
Etymology: Word history.
Grammar: The structure of language.
Homonym: Words that have the same form but different meaning. Literally "same name."
Idiom: An expression that is traditionally correct but that does not necessarily follow general rules, from idios = private.
Poem: A composition written in meter or rhythm.
Rhetoric: The art of public speaking or the study of effective writing.
Synonym: A word that means the same thing as another.
Syntax: The branch of grammar dealing with the grouping and ordering of words.
Today's Challenge: It's Greek to Me
Grab a dictionary and search out words beginning with the Greek prefixes listed below. Try to find at least three examples for each prefix.
anti (against)
auto (self)
chrono (time)
geo (earth)
hemi (half)
hetero (different)
micro (small)
hydro (water)
philo (love)
phono (sound)
photo (light)
physio (nature)
poly (much, many)
psycho (mind)
tele (distance)
Quote of the Day: Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the root of that word is Greek. --Gus Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
The English language is another area that owes a debt of graititude to the Greeks. While they did not invent the alphabet, the Greeks certainly adapted and perfected it after acquiring it from the Phonecians around 800 B.C. According to David Sacks excellent book, Language Visible: Untraveling the Mystery of the Alphabet from A to Z, the Greeks' key adaptation was the addition of vowels: "The Greeks bequeathed to the West an alphabet that had been adapted to an Indo-European language (Greek) and was therefore accessible to other European tongues. Specifically, the Greeks had introduced vowel letters -- the equivalents of our A, E, I, O, and U -- where earlier, Semitic versions of the alphabet had contained none. Vowel letters brought the alphabet forward to a point where it could be fitted to most other languages." And of course one of those European tongues was English.
In addition to the "alphabet," the Greeks contributed several other key words used to describe language:
Words about Words and Writing
(Definitions from Success With Words: A Guide to The American Language. Published by Reader's Digest, 1983).
Alphabet: From the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta.
Dialect: The regional or social variety of a language.
Etymology: Word history.
Grammar: The structure of language.
Homonym: Words that have the same form but different meaning. Literally "same name."
Idiom: An expression that is traditionally correct but that does not necessarily follow general rules, from idios = private.
Poem: A composition written in meter or rhythm.
Rhetoric: The art of public speaking or the study of effective writing.
Synonym: A word that means the same thing as another.
Syntax: The branch of grammar dealing with the grouping and ordering of words.
Today's Challenge: It's Greek to Me
Grab a dictionary and search out words beginning with the Greek prefixes listed below. Try to find at least three examples for each prefix.
anti (against)
auto (self)
chrono (time)
geo (earth)
hemi (half)
hetero (different)
micro (small)
hydro (water)
philo (love)
phono (sound)
photo (light)
physio (nature)
poly (much, many)
psycho (mind)
tele (distance)
Quote of the Day: Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the root of that word is Greek. --Gus Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
March 24: Mash-up Day
Today we look at a word that you will not find in the dictionary – yet! According to Newsweek, the word "mash-up" was coined in 2001 by DJ Freelance Hellraiser who used Christian Aguilera’s vocals from ‘Genie in a Bottle’ and "recorded [them] over the instrumentals from ‘Hard to Explain.’" Mash-up is not just a musical term, however. A mash-up applies to any combination of two or more forms of media: music, film, television, computer program, etc.
So what does March 24 have to do with this strange new term? Well, on this date in 1973, Pink Floyd released its groundbreaking Dark Side of the Moon album. Later -- no one really knows when – someone came up with the crazy idea of combining, or ‘mashing,’ the Pink Floyd album with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The fans of this mash-up claim over a 100 different moments where Pink Floyd’s music and lyrics oddly coincide with events and actions in the film. For example, when Mrs. Gulch first appears riding her bicycle, the bells and chimes at the beginning of the song "Time" begin to sound.
To learn more, do a Google search of "Dark Side of the Rainbow." "Mash-up" is just one example of a neologism, a new word that is created to describe some kind of phenomenon, concept, or invention. Some of these words have the lifespan of a common housefly, but others, if they are used enough, eventually are catalogued and included in the English lexicon.
Wordsmiths at the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, have the "rule of five" to guide their decision about whether or not to publish a neologism in the dictionary. According to the rule, the word must be published in at least five different sources over a five-year period. As a result, lexicographers are always reading, searching for potential new additions to the dictionary.
If you want to be ahead of the curve on new words, check out the web site Wordspy.com. The site is maintained by Paul McFedries, a technical writer with an obvious love of language. Here is the description of his site in his own words: Wordspy "is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren't 'stunt words' or 'sniglets,' but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources."
Challenge: Mother Tongue Lashing
Here is a lexical mash-up I call Mother Tongue Lashing. It takes advantage of the wealth of compound words and expressions in English. For each pair of words below, name a word that can follow the first word and precede the second one to complete a compound word or a familiar two-word phrase.
Example:
Jelly __________ Bag.
Answer:
Bean - Jelly Bean, Bean Bag
1. Life __________ Travel
2. Punk __________ Candy
3. Green _________ Tack
4. Rest __________ Work
5. Light __________ Book
6. Rock __________ Dust
7. Spelling __________ Sting
8. Night __________ House
Create your own Mother Tongue Lashings. Use a dictionary to make sure that you have two-word expressions or compound words, not just two-word combinations.
Quote of the Day: A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him --Sidney Greenberg
So what does March 24 have to do with this strange new term? Well, on this date in 1973, Pink Floyd released its groundbreaking Dark Side of the Moon album. Later -- no one really knows when – someone came up with the crazy idea of combining, or ‘mashing,’ the Pink Floyd album with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The fans of this mash-up claim over a 100 different moments where Pink Floyd’s music and lyrics oddly coincide with events and actions in the film. For example, when Mrs. Gulch first appears riding her bicycle, the bells and chimes at the beginning of the song "Time" begin to sound.
To learn more, do a Google search of "Dark Side of the Rainbow." "Mash-up" is just one example of a neologism, a new word that is created to describe some kind of phenomenon, concept, or invention. Some of these words have the lifespan of a common housefly, but others, if they are used enough, eventually are catalogued and included in the English lexicon.
Wordsmiths at the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, have the "rule of five" to guide their decision about whether or not to publish a neologism in the dictionary. According to the rule, the word must be published in at least five different sources over a five-year period. As a result, lexicographers are always reading, searching for potential new additions to the dictionary.
If you want to be ahead of the curve on new words, check out the web site Wordspy.com. The site is maintained by Paul McFedries, a technical writer with an obvious love of language. Here is the description of his site in his own words: Wordspy "is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren't 'stunt words' or 'sniglets,' but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources."
Challenge: Mother Tongue Lashing
Here is a lexical mash-up I call Mother Tongue Lashing. It takes advantage of the wealth of compound words and expressions in English. For each pair of words below, name a word that can follow the first word and precede the second one to complete a compound word or a familiar two-word phrase.
Example:
Jelly __________ Bag.
Answer:
Bean - Jelly Bean, Bean Bag
1. Life __________ Travel
2. Punk __________ Candy
3. Green _________ Tack
4. Rest __________ Work
5. Light __________ Book
6. Rock __________ Dust
7. Spelling __________ Sting
8. Night __________ House
Create your own Mother Tongue Lashings. Use a dictionary to make sure that you have two-word expressions or compound words, not just two-word combinations.
Quote of the Day: A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him --Sidney Greenberg
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
March 23: Meteorological Metaphors Day
Today is World Meteorological Day, celebrating the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization founded in 1950. Weather is literally all around us, but it is also figuratively all around us and in us, especially in our everyday language.
Look at the expressions below:
A port in storm
Chase rainbows
Cloud nine
Cloud of suspicion
Fair-weather friend
Head in the clouds
Greased lightning
Shoot the breeze
A snow job
Steal someone’s thunder
Tempest in a teapot
Under the weather
Each expression refers to an aspect of weather; however, the actual meaning of each expression has nothing to do with literal weather. For example, a "snow job" is an attempted deception, not a task you need a snow shovel for.
On Metrological Metaphor Day, listen to the words people speak around you. Are they borrowing weather adjectives to describe the stormy mood of their boss or the sunny disposition of their best friend? What other adjectives might fit this category: inclement, icy, hazy . . . ? Can you think of more expressions or adjectives to add to the above list?
Challenge: "Over the Rainbow"
Weather might just be the most common metaphor for song writers. List song titles that use weather as a metaphor in the title or the lyrics. Here are the lyrics to a great Bruce Springsteen song to get you started:
Waitin' On A Sunny Day
It's rainin' but there ain't a cloud in the sky
Musta been a tear from your eye
Everything'll be okay
Funny thought I felt a sweet summer breeze
Musta been you sighin' so deep
Don't worry we're gonna find a way
I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day
Without you I'm workin' with the rain fallin' down
Half a party in a one dog town
I need you to chase the blues away
Without you I'm a drummer girl that can't keep a beat
And ice cream truck on a deserted street
I hope that you're coming to stay
I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day
Hard times baby, well they come to tell us all
Sure as the tickin' of the clock on the wall
Sure as the turnin' of the night into day
Your smile girl, brings the mornin' light to my eyes
Lifts away the blues when I rise
I hope that you're coming to stay
Quote of the Day: Time is a storm in which we are all lost. --William C. Williams
Look at the expressions below:
A port in storm
Chase rainbows
Cloud nine
Cloud of suspicion
Fair-weather friend
Head in the clouds
Greased lightning
Shoot the breeze
A snow job
Steal someone’s thunder
Tempest in a teapot
Under the weather
Each expression refers to an aspect of weather; however, the actual meaning of each expression has nothing to do with literal weather. For example, a "snow job" is an attempted deception, not a task you need a snow shovel for.
On Metrological Metaphor Day, listen to the words people speak around you. Are they borrowing weather adjectives to describe the stormy mood of their boss or the sunny disposition of their best friend? What other adjectives might fit this category: inclement, icy, hazy . . . ? Can you think of more expressions or adjectives to add to the above list?
Challenge: "Over the Rainbow"
Weather might just be the most common metaphor for song writers. List song titles that use weather as a metaphor in the title or the lyrics. Here are the lyrics to a great Bruce Springsteen song to get you started:
Waitin' On A Sunny Day
It's rainin' but there ain't a cloud in the sky
Musta been a tear from your eye
Everything'll be okay
Funny thought I felt a sweet summer breeze
Musta been you sighin' so deep
Don't worry we're gonna find a way
I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day
Without you I'm workin' with the rain fallin' down
Half a party in a one dog town
I need you to chase the blues away
Without you I'm a drummer girl that can't keep a beat
And ice cream truck on a deserted street
I hope that you're coming to stay
I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day
Hard times baby, well they come to tell us all
Sure as the tickin' of the clock on the wall
Sure as the turnin' of the night into day
Your smile girl, brings the mornin' light to my eyes
Lifts away the blues when I rise
I hope that you're coming to stay
Quote of the Day: Time is a storm in which we are all lost. --William C. Williams
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Word History Mystery 6
What do the Ten Commandments have in common with a unit for measuring sound volume?
Answer to Word History Mystery 5:
What does the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense have in common with the first five books of the Old Testament?
Pentagon
Pentateuch (penta = five + teuchos = book)
Answer to Word History Mystery 5:
What does the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense have in common with the first five books of the Old Testament?
Pentagon
Pentateuch (penta = five + teuchos = book)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sentence Imitation - Periodic Sentence
Below is a classic periodic sentence from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail." In this 300-word plus sentence, King piles up dependent clauses, each giving specific examples that show the reader the kind of injustice he was fighting. When we discuss the sentence in class, I try to get students to see that in this sentence form follows function: As King provides example after example, the reader must "wait" just as blacks had to wait for justice.
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
Using King's sentence as a model, I created my own periodic sentence made up of a pile of dependent clauses. It certainly not as monumental or memorable as King's, but as the father of a teen, it was cathartic. It also features a hyphenated modifier near the end:
If you clean your filthy, festering pit of a bedroom, remembering to fold your clothes, make your bed, vacuum the floor; if you take out the garbage that you’ve neglected for the past week; if you complete your overdue English homework on the stylistic features of the periodic sentence; if you take the dog for a walk and clean out the cat’s litter box; if you are nice to your little brother for once; if you stop giving me those I-can’t-believe-that-anyone-would-dare-ask-me-to-pick-up-my-sweaty-T-shirt-from-the-kitchen-floor looks, maybe you can go to the movies.
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
Using King's sentence as a model, I created my own periodic sentence made up of a pile of dependent clauses. It certainly not as monumental or memorable as King's, but as the father of a teen, it was cathartic. It also features a hyphenated modifier near the end:
If you clean your filthy, festering pit of a bedroom, remembering to fold your clothes, make your bed, vacuum the floor; if you take out the garbage that you’ve neglected for the past week; if you complete your overdue English homework on the stylistic features of the periodic sentence; if you take the dog for a walk and clean out the cat’s litter box; if you are nice to your little brother for once; if you stop giving me those I-can’t-believe-that-anyone-would-dare-ask-me-to-pick-up-my-sweaty-T-shirt-from-the-kitchen-floor looks, maybe you can go to the movies.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Word History Mystery 5
What does the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense have in common with the first five books of the Old Testament?
Answer to Word History Mystery 4:
What does a type of horse racing bet have in common with a musical group made up of three people?
Trifecta (tri = three + perfecta)
Trio
Answer to Word History Mystery 4:
What does a type of horse racing bet have in common with a musical group made up of three people?
Trifecta (tri = three + perfecta)
Trio
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Word History Mystery 4
What does a type of horse racing bet have in common with a musical group made up of three people?
Answer to Word History Mystery 3:
What does having a muscular body build have in common with having a lean body build with little muscle?
Mesomorphic (meso = middle = morph = form)
Ectomorphic (ecto = outside + morph = form)
Answer to Word History Mystery 3:
What does having a muscular body build have in common with having a lean body build with little muscle?
Mesomorphic (meso = middle = morph = form)
Ectomorphic (ecto = outside + morph = form)
Word History Mystery 3
What does having a muscular body build have in common with having a lean body build with little muscle?
Answer to Word History Mystery 2:
What does a loss of one’s good name have in common with a writer’s pseudonym?
Ignominy (ig = without + nomin = name)
Nom de plume (French for pen name)
Answer to Word History Mystery 2:
What does a loss of one’s good name have in common with a writer’s pseudonym?
Ignominy (ig = without + nomin = name)
Nom de plume (French for pen name)
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Word History Mystery 2
What does a loss of one’s good name have in common with a writer’s pseudonym?
Answer to Word History Mystery 1:
What does a wild uproar have in common with a disease that is prevalent over a very large area?
Pandemonium (pan = all + demon)
Pandemic (pan = all + dem = people)
Answer to Word History Mystery 1:
What does a wild uproar have in common with a disease that is prevalent over a very large area?
Pandemonium (pan = all + demon)
Pandemic (pan = all + dem = people)
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Word History Mystery 1
This school year I've been generating some original questions for my students based on etymology and word meanings. I call these "Word History Mysteries." These questions have been challenging for students, but they have also had fun with them. Each question challenges them to do some high-level thinking and to make connections between the words and roots that they know and the clues given in the question. I'll start posting one question each school day.
Here's the first Word History Mystery:
What does a wild uproar have in common with a disease that is prevalent over a very large area?
Answer tomorrow
Here's the first Word History Mystery:
What does a wild uproar have in common with a disease that is prevalent over a very large area?
Answer tomorrow
Monday, February 08, 2010
Sentence Imitation
Lately I've been on the search for sentences that might be used with students for sentence imitation writing exercises. The sentence below is an example of a simple sentence that has been expanded with parallel participial phrases and adjectives.
The bald eagle, seen at the apex of flight, serenely perched on a tree, or boldly diving toward prey, is at once fierce, majestic, powerful, and independent.
--Variation on U.S. Department of the Interior, "Bald Eagles of Wolflodge Bay"
The kernel of the sentence is predicate adjective: The eagle is fierce.
Students don't necessarily need it, but the basic formula of the sentence is something like this:
Adj Noun (Subject) + participial phrase + adv + participial phrase + adv + participial phrase + form of ‘to be’ verb + four adjectives
This sentence demonstrates to students how using parallelism and participial phrases can add a lot of interesting detail and variety, even to a simple sentence.
Here are a couple of possible imitations:
The puzzled freshman, seen in the bustle of the cafeteria, quizzically examining the salad bar, or cluelessly searching for a place to sit, is strange, pathetic, embarrassing and annoying.
The stray dog, limping down the alley, loudly panting and desperately foraging is sad, lonely, lost, and hungry.
The bald eagle, seen at the apex of flight, serenely perched on a tree, or boldly diving toward prey, is at once fierce, majestic, powerful, and independent.
--Variation on U.S. Department of the Interior, "Bald Eagles of Wolflodge Bay"
The kernel of the sentence is predicate adjective: The eagle is fierce.
Students don't necessarily need it, but the basic formula of the sentence is something like this:
Adj Noun (Subject) + participial phrase + adv + participial phrase + adv + participial phrase + form of ‘to be’ verb + four adjectives
This sentence demonstrates to students how using parallelism and participial phrases can add a lot of interesting detail and variety, even to a simple sentence.
Here are a couple of possible imitations:
The puzzled freshman, seen in the bustle of the cafeteria, quizzically examining the salad bar, or cluelessly searching for a place to sit, is strange, pathetic, embarrassing and annoying.
The stray dog, limping down the alley, loudly panting and desperately foraging is sad, lonely, lost, and hungry.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Military Metaphor in Ethan Frome
In the novel Ethan Frome, the winter weather is a major character. The following passage from the opening chapter is a great example of how a writer uses metaphor to create images and to set a tone. In this case the picture is the besieged town of Starkfield, and the tone is one of the inhabitants being captive to the oppressive cold and snow.
As students read the passage, have them highlight the words used by the author to extend the military metaphor:
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter. Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away." But if that were the case, how could any combination of obstacles have hindered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome?
A good follow-up activity is to have students write a description of their own hometown using an extended metaphor.
As students read the passage, have them highlight the words used by the author to extend the military metaphor:
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter. Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away." But if that were the case, how could any combination of obstacles have hindered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome?
A good follow-up activity is to have students write a description of their own hometown using an extended metaphor.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Revision With Anaphora
Today in class I showed students the following two versions of the same passage. Previously they had written on the following prompt: In a crisis, is it best to act quickly and instinctively, or should you slow down and be more careful and deliberate? I asked students to read the passages and identify the anaphora (see Anaphora Day: August 28). I then asked:
Does the anaphora in Version 2 make it better or worse than Version 1?
Version 1
In a crisis, immediate, instinctive action is not always the best alternative because as humans we should capitalize on our evolutionary advantage: our ability to think and deliberate before acting. Certainly time is an issue. If you are Peyton Manning and a 300 pound opponent is about to squash you, there is no time to stop and deliberate; instead, you must act immediately. However, the best players, like Peyton Manning don’t use just instinct. They spend the time they have before a game planning, thinking, deliberating, studying film, and anticipating what they will do when the opponent is blitzing. It’s this kind of planning that gives them the advantage come game time. They have used the time allotted and their brain power to its full advantage. It is this careful planning and thinking that separates us from animals and that separates the great athletes, CEOs, generals, and presidents from the average ones. It was the great Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach who said, “Spectacular achievements are always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” Deliberate planning and thinking is not always as flashy and impressive as decisive, immediate action, but it is, in the long-run, more important.
Version 2
In a crisis, immediate, instinctive action is not always the best alternative because as humans we should capitalize on our evolutionary advantage: our ability to think and to deliberate before acting. Certainly time is an issue. If you are Peyton Manning and a 300 pound opponent is about to squash you, there is no time to stop and deliberate; instead, you must act immediately. However, the best players, like Peyton Manning, don’t use just instinct. They spend the time they have before a game carefully planning and carefully thinking and carefully deliberating and carefully studying film and carefully anticipating what they will do when the opponent is blitzing. It’s this kind of planning that gives them the competitive advantage come game time. They have used the time allotted and their brain power to its full advantage. It is this careful planning and thinking that separates us from animals and that separates the great athletes, great CEOs, great generals, and great presidents from the average ones. Hall of Fame quarterback Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach said, “Spectacular achievements are always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” Deliberate planning and thinking is not always as flashy and impressive as decisive, immediate action, but it is, in the long-run, more important.
Students' comments about the passages helped to illustrate the kinds of questions that writers ask as they revise. Some students felt that the anaphora in Version 2 was a bit over-done. They preferred the second use of it in "great athletes . . . " over the first use of it in "carefully planning . . . ." Some did notice, however, that the "carefully planning" sentence shows how form can follow function. Repeating the word "carefully" as well as the word "and" slows down the sentence, which echoes the writer's point: don't act swiftly -- slow down and take your time. My goal here was to show that rhetorical devices like anaphora aren't just decorations. Instead they are tools that writers use for a purpose -- the right tool helps the writer accomplish his goal, just as the right rhetorical device helps the writer make his point.
Does the anaphora in Version 2 make it better or worse than Version 1?
Version 1
In a crisis, immediate, instinctive action is not always the best alternative because as humans we should capitalize on our evolutionary advantage: our ability to think and deliberate before acting. Certainly time is an issue. If you are Peyton Manning and a 300 pound opponent is about to squash you, there is no time to stop and deliberate; instead, you must act immediately. However, the best players, like Peyton Manning don’t use just instinct. They spend the time they have before a game planning, thinking, deliberating, studying film, and anticipating what they will do when the opponent is blitzing. It’s this kind of planning that gives them the advantage come game time. They have used the time allotted and their brain power to its full advantage. It is this careful planning and thinking that separates us from animals and that separates the great athletes, CEOs, generals, and presidents from the average ones. It was the great Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach who said, “Spectacular achievements are always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” Deliberate planning and thinking is not always as flashy and impressive as decisive, immediate action, but it is, in the long-run, more important.
Version 2
In a crisis, immediate, instinctive action is not always the best alternative because as humans we should capitalize on our evolutionary advantage: our ability to think and to deliberate before acting. Certainly time is an issue. If you are Peyton Manning and a 300 pound opponent is about to squash you, there is no time to stop and deliberate; instead, you must act immediately. However, the best players, like Peyton Manning, don’t use just instinct. They spend the time they have before a game carefully planning and carefully thinking and carefully deliberating and carefully studying film and carefully anticipating what they will do when the opponent is blitzing. It’s this kind of planning that gives them the competitive advantage come game time. They have used the time allotted and their brain power to its full advantage. It is this careful planning and thinking that separates us from animals and that separates the great athletes, great CEOs, great generals, and great presidents from the average ones. Hall of Fame quarterback Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach said, “Spectacular achievements are always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” Deliberate planning and thinking is not always as flashy and impressive as decisive, immediate action, but it is, in the long-run, more important.
Students' comments about the passages helped to illustrate the kinds of questions that writers ask as they revise. Some students felt that the anaphora in Version 2 was a bit over-done. They preferred the second use of it in "great athletes . . . " over the first use of it in "carefully planning . . . ." Some did notice, however, that the "carefully planning" sentence shows how form can follow function. Repeating the word "carefully" as well as the word "and" slows down the sentence, which echoes the writer's point: don't act swiftly -- slow down and take your time. My goal here was to show that rhetorical devices like anaphora aren't just decorations. Instead they are tools that writers use for a purpose -- the right tool helps the writer accomplish his goal, just as the right rhetorical device helps the writer make his point.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
September 13: New Words for People Day
Today is the anniversary of the appearance of a new word in a letter to the editor in The Tampa Tribune on September 13, 1995. The word is gater, meaning a person who lives in a gated community, is an example of one of many neologisms that pop up each year to describe people in new situations in the ever-changing world in which we live.
The website Word Spy, founded by Paul McFedries, searches out all kinds of new words and phrases that have appeared in print but not yet in the dictionary. McFedries site documents hundreds of the neologisms, several of which are defined beginning with: "A person who . . . ." Here are a few examples:
-mucus trooper (MYOO.kus troo.pur) n. An employee with a cold or the flu who insists on showing up for work.
-salad dodger (SAL.ud daw.jur) n. An overweight person; a person who shuns healthy foods.
-thresholder (THRESH.hohl.dur) n. A young person on the threshold of adulthood, especially one who is anxious or depressed about leaving home or taking on adult responsibilities.
-zinester (ZEEN.stur) n. A person who writes, edits, and publishes a zine; a person who reads only zines (1).
Today's Challenge: A Visit to the -er
The words below are all examples of neologisms that refer to different types of people. See if you can match up each word with the definitions below.
fleshwriter
i-dotter
woodpusher
phrasemonger
piggybacker
kipper
typosquatter
fiver
1. A person who donates five percent of their income to charity and/or spends five hours per week doing volunteer work.
2. The person for whom a ghostwriter writes a book.
3. A fastidious, detail-oriented person.
4. An adult son or daughter, particularly one aged 30 or more, who still lives with his or her parents. From kids in parents' pockets eroding retirement savings.
5. A person who uses phrases or quotes that were coined by other people.
6. A person who uses a wireless Internet connection without permission.
7. A chess player of limited skill.
8. A person who registers one or more Internet domain names based on the most common typographical errors that a user might commit when entering a company's registered trademark name (e.g., amazom.com) (1).
Quote of the Day: One company, Amsterdam-based www.trendwatching.com, has a global network of more than 7,000 "springspotters" who troll their own neighborhoods and report back which trends, products and behaviors are brewing. --Shawna Vanness
Answers: 1. fiver 2. fleshwriter 3. i-dotter 4. kipper 5. phrasemoner 6. piggybacker 7. woodpusher 8. typosquatter
1 - http://www.wordspy.com/
The website Word Spy, founded by Paul McFedries, searches out all kinds of new words and phrases that have appeared in print but not yet in the dictionary. McFedries site documents hundreds of the neologisms, several of which are defined beginning with: "A person who . . . ." Here are a few examples:
-mucus trooper (MYOO.kus troo.pur) n. An employee with a cold or the flu who insists on showing up for work.
-salad dodger (SAL.ud daw.jur) n. An overweight person; a person who shuns healthy foods.
-thresholder (THRESH.hohl.dur) n. A young person on the threshold of adulthood, especially one who is anxious or depressed about leaving home or taking on adult responsibilities.
-zinester (ZEEN.stur) n. A person who writes, edits, and publishes a zine; a person who reads only zines (1).
Today's Challenge: A Visit to the -er
The words below are all examples of neologisms that refer to different types of people. See if you can match up each word with the definitions below.
fleshwriter
i-dotter
woodpusher
phrasemonger
piggybacker
kipper
typosquatter
fiver
1. A person who donates five percent of their income to charity and/or spends five hours per week doing volunteer work.
2. The person for whom a ghostwriter writes a book.
3. A fastidious, detail-oriented person.
4. An adult son or daughter, particularly one aged 30 or more, who still lives with his or her parents. From kids in parents' pockets eroding retirement savings.
5. A person who uses phrases or quotes that were coined by other people.
6. A person who uses a wireless Internet connection without permission.
7. A chess player of limited skill.
8. A person who registers one or more Internet domain names based on the most common typographical errors that a user might commit when entering a company's registered trademark name (e.g., amazom.com) (1).
Quote of the Day: One company, Amsterdam-based www.trendwatching.com, has a global network of more than 7,000 "springspotters" who troll their own neighborhoods and report back which trends, products and behaviors are brewing. --Shawna Vanness
Answers: 1. fiver 2. fleshwriter 3. i-dotter 4. kipper 5. phrasemoner 6. piggybacker 7. woodpusher 8. typosquatter
1 - http://www.wordspy.com/
Saturday, September 12, 2009
September 12: Suffix Day
On this day in 1896 the first Olympic marathon was run in Athens, Greece. The origin of the word marathon comes from Greek legend. According to the story, a Greek foot-soldier Pheidippides was sent as a messenger from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over the Persian army. As he approached Athens, having run a distance of nearly 25 miles, Pheidippides collapsed and died. He did not die, however, without completing his mission; with his last gasp he uttered “niki,” the Greek word for victory.
Incidentally, the word niki is derived from the name of the Greek goddess of victory: Nike – a name that would later become the trademark of a running shoe manufacturer in Oregon.
The word marathon evolved over time to mean more than just a long distance race. Beginning in the 1920s, dance marathons became a fad. The term dance marathon then became blended to become dancethon. Later –thon became a popular suffix for describing a variety of activities that people do for long periods. According to Geoffrey Nunberg in The Way We Talk Now, the first telethon was held in 1949. Milton Berle spent 16 hours on air, and one of his guests was a young comedian who would raise the telethon to an art form, Jerry Lewis. Telethons were followed by pledgeathons, callathons, bikeathons, bowlathons, walkathons, and swimathons (1).
Word of the Day: Toponym
Marathon is an example of a toponym: a word that began as a specific place name (a proper noun) and evolved into a common noun. Like the word marathon, many words we use in English have attachments to specific places and events from the past, such as afghan, bikini, bourbon, and angora.
Quote of the Day: The starting line of the New York City marathon is kind of a giant time bomb behind you about to go off. It is the most spectacular start in sport. –Bill Rogers
1 – Nunberg, Geoffrey. The Way We Talk Now. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.
Incidentally, the word niki is derived from the name of the Greek goddess of victory: Nike – a name that would later become the trademark of a running shoe manufacturer in Oregon.
The word marathon evolved over time to mean more than just a long distance race. Beginning in the 1920s, dance marathons became a fad. The term dance marathon then became blended to become dancethon. Later –thon became a popular suffix for describing a variety of activities that people do for long periods. According to Geoffrey Nunberg in The Way We Talk Now, the first telethon was held in 1949. Milton Berle spent 16 hours on air, and one of his guests was a young comedian who would raise the telethon to an art form, Jerry Lewis. Telethons were followed by pledgeathons, callathons, bikeathons, bowlathons, walkathons, and swimathons (1).
Word of the Day: Toponym
Marathon is an example of a toponym: a word that began as a specific place name (a proper noun) and evolved into a common noun. Like the word marathon, many words we use in English have attachments to specific places and events from the past, such as afghan, bikini, bourbon, and angora.
Quote of the Day: The starting line of the New York City marathon is kind of a giant time bomb behind you about to go off. It is the most spectacular start in sport. –Bill Rogers
1 – Nunberg, Geoffrey. The Way We Talk Now. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.
Friday, September 11, 2009
September 11: Words from 9/11 Day
The simple mention of the term 9/11 immediately evokes images of smoke rising from the Twin Towers. On this day we remember the attack of 2001 and the 2,752 lives that were lost.
Just as the date and the images associated with it have changed us, the events of 9/11 and the post-9/11 world have also changed our language.
Not since December 7, 1941 and Pearl Harbor has a term so quickly entered the English lexicon. And 9/11 was not a term that would disappear soon; it was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" by the American Dialect Society in 2001, meaning lexicographers predict that the term will be used long past its origin (1).
In addition other terms have entered the common lexicon since 9/11, such as:
Al-Jazeera
Al-Qaida
Axis of Evil
Guantanamo
IED
Islamo-fascist
Jihad
Pre-emption
Shock and awe
Taliban
WMD (2).
Today's Challenge: New World - New Words
The definitions below are for two-word expressions that have become a part of our everyday vocabulary since 9/11. Some are new -- others were around before 9/11, but have taken on added meaning since the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the events that followed it.
1. The United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.
2. Site of the destroyed World Trade Center.
3. Plainclothes law-enforcement officers on airplanes.
4. Alternative name for French fries promoted when France resisted military force against Iraq.
5. British national Richard Reid tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic airplane in December 2001 with explosives in his shoes.
6. The prison noted for mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. forces.
7. A conventional bomb that disperses radioactive material.
8. Massive collecting of information that is then sifted for specific information.
Word of the Day: asymmetrical warfare
This noun is a neologism, which according to Word Spy means, “Warfare in which the combatants have markedly different military capabilities and the weaker side uses non-standard tactics such as terrorism.”
Quote of the Day: America is not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt -- many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. --Henry M. Jackson
Answers. 1. Patriot Act 2. Ground Zero 3. air marshal 4. freedom fries 5. shoe bomber 6. Abu Ghraib 7. Dirty Bomb 8. Data mining
1 -Paul McFedries. Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.
2 - Latazio, George. "New World Requires New Vocabulary." The Seattle Times. 10 Sept. 2006, A15.
Just as the date and the images associated with it have changed us, the events of 9/11 and the post-9/11 world have also changed our language.
Not since December 7, 1941 and Pearl Harbor has a term so quickly entered the English lexicon. And 9/11 was not a term that would disappear soon; it was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" by the American Dialect Society in 2001, meaning lexicographers predict that the term will be used long past its origin (1).
In addition other terms have entered the common lexicon since 9/11, such as:
Al-Jazeera
Al-Qaida
Axis of Evil
Guantanamo
IED
Islamo-fascist
Jihad
Pre-emption
Shock and awe
Taliban
WMD (2).
Today's Challenge: New World - New Words
The definitions below are for two-word expressions that have become a part of our everyday vocabulary since 9/11. Some are new -- others were around before 9/11, but have taken on added meaning since the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the events that followed it.
1. The United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.
2. Site of the destroyed World Trade Center.
3. Plainclothes law-enforcement officers on airplanes.
4. Alternative name for French fries promoted when France resisted military force against Iraq.
5. British national Richard Reid tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic airplane in December 2001 with explosives in his shoes.
6. The prison noted for mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. forces.
7. A conventional bomb that disperses radioactive material.
8. Massive collecting of information that is then sifted for specific information.
Word of the Day: asymmetrical warfare
This noun is a neologism, which according to Word Spy means, “Warfare in which the combatants have markedly different military capabilities and the weaker side uses non-standard tactics such as terrorism.”
Quote of the Day: America is not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt -- many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. --Henry M. Jackson
Answers. 1. Patriot Act 2. Ground Zero 3. air marshal 4. freedom fries 5. shoe bomber 6. Abu Ghraib 7. Dirty Bomb 8. Data mining
1 -Paul McFedries. Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.
2 - Latazio, George. "New World Requires New Vocabulary." The Seattle Times. 10 Sept. 2006, A15.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
September 10: Sibboleth Day
On this date in the year 2000, the television show The West Wing won nine Emmys, including outstanding drama. In doing so, the show broke the record for most Emmys earned for a show in its first season -- the record was previously held by "ER" and "Hill Street Blues." The West Wing continued its successful run for six more seasons, ending in May 2006. In each of its seven seasons it received an Emmy nomination for outstanding drama, winning a total of four times.
One West Wing episode in particular is of special interest to language lovers. It was called "Shibboleth" and appeared in the show's second season.
In the episode President Bartlett (Martin Sheen) must determine whether a group of Chinese stowaways should be given asylum in the U.S. or be returned to China. One key to his decision is determining whether their claim to be Christians is true or just a ploy to stay in the U.S. When President Bartlett tells his staff that he will find out the truth by employing a shibboleth, everyone in the room is puzzled (1).
A shibboleth is a kind of linguistic password, where a person's pronunciation or language usage indicates his or her background. It originates in a story from the Old Testament in the Book of Judges, Chapter 12. In the story two tribes, the Ephraimite and the Gileadites, are at war. The Gileadites use the word shibboleth (which means "ear of corn") as a password to tell friend from foe. In ancient Hebrew dialects some groups pronounced it with an 'sh' sound while others pronounced it with an 's.' Using the shibboleth, the Gileadites where able to identify and kill the Ephraimites, who did not have an 'sh' sound in their language.
President Barlett's use of a shibboleth is probably more cultural than linguistic. In his interrogation of the Chinese Christian representative, he asks questions about the group's religious practices and knowledge of the Bible. He comes to the realization that the Chinese are true Christians when they turn the tables on him, saying that faith, not knowledge, is the true test of the Christian faith: "Faith is the only Shibboleth."
Shibboleths used in these kind of life or death circumstances are rare today; however, pronunciation and word choice can be an especially telling marker of a person's background. The writers of The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) attempt to document the varieties of American English in the different regions of the U.S. Because "standard" English is most common in written language, the bulk of regional differences are found in oral language.
The following are some of the regional terms recorded by DARE:
-While most people recognize poached eggs, dropped eggs is a regional term used for these eggs in New England.
-The game of hopscotch is sometimes referred to as Sky Blue in Chicago, Illinois.
-In the Gulf States and Texas, a chill or shiver is known as a rigor (3).
Today's Challenge: From Shibboleth to Shining
Shibboleth Visit the website for PBS's series Do You Speak American? and take their quiz on regional terms for food, health, and recreational terms used throughout the U.S. Are there any special regional words or expressions that characterize the people who live in your region of the country?
Word of the Day: opprobrium
This word, which originates from Latin, is a noun that means “disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct; ignominy.” Notice how H.L. Mencken uses it in context in the quote below.
Quote of the Day: In small things as in large [the American] exercises continually an incomparable capacity for projecting hidden and often fantastic relationships into arresting parts of speech. Such a term as rubberneck is almost a complete treatise on American psychology; it reveals the national habit of mind more clearly than any labored inquiry could ever reveal it. It has in it precisely the boldness and contempt for ordered forms that are so characteristically American, and it has too the grotesque humor of the country, and the delight in devastating opprobriums, and the acute feeling for the succinct and savory. —H. L. Mencken
1 - http://www.westwingepguide.com/
2 - http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/shibboleth.html
3 - http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/DARE/wordpower/dare.html
One West Wing episode in particular is of special interest to language lovers. It was called "Shibboleth" and appeared in the show's second season.
In the episode President Bartlett (Martin Sheen) must determine whether a group of Chinese stowaways should be given asylum in the U.S. or be returned to China. One key to his decision is determining whether their claim to be Christians is true or just a ploy to stay in the U.S. When President Bartlett tells his staff that he will find out the truth by employing a shibboleth, everyone in the room is puzzled (1).
A shibboleth is a kind of linguistic password, where a person's pronunciation or language usage indicates his or her background. It originates in a story from the Old Testament in the Book of Judges, Chapter 12. In the story two tribes, the Ephraimite and the Gileadites, are at war. The Gileadites use the word shibboleth (which means "ear of corn") as a password to tell friend from foe. In ancient Hebrew dialects some groups pronounced it with an 'sh' sound while others pronounced it with an 's.' Using the shibboleth, the Gileadites where able to identify and kill the Ephraimites, who did not have an 'sh' sound in their language.
President Barlett's use of a shibboleth is probably more cultural than linguistic. In his interrogation of the Chinese Christian representative, he asks questions about the group's religious practices and knowledge of the Bible. He comes to the realization that the Chinese are true Christians when they turn the tables on him, saying that faith, not knowledge, is the true test of the Christian faith: "Faith is the only Shibboleth."
Shibboleths used in these kind of life or death circumstances are rare today; however, pronunciation and word choice can be an especially telling marker of a person's background. The writers of The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) attempt to document the varieties of American English in the different regions of the U.S. Because "standard" English is most common in written language, the bulk of regional differences are found in oral language.
The following are some of the regional terms recorded by DARE:
-While most people recognize poached eggs, dropped eggs is a regional term used for these eggs in New England.
-The game of hopscotch is sometimes referred to as Sky Blue in Chicago, Illinois.
-In the Gulf States and Texas, a chill or shiver is known as a rigor (3).
Today's Challenge: From Shibboleth to Shining
Shibboleth Visit the website for PBS's series Do You Speak American? and take their quiz on regional terms for food, health, and recreational terms used throughout the U.S. Are there any special regional words or expressions that characterize the people who live in your region of the country?
Word of the Day: opprobrium
This word, which originates from Latin, is a noun that means “disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct; ignominy.” Notice how H.L. Mencken uses it in context in the quote below.
Quote of the Day: In small things as in large [the American] exercises continually an incomparable capacity for projecting hidden and often fantastic relationships into arresting parts of speech. Such a term as rubberneck is almost a complete treatise on American psychology; it reveals the national habit of mind more clearly than any labored inquiry could ever reveal it. It has in it precisely the boldness and contempt for ordered forms that are so characteristically American, and it has too the grotesque humor of the country, and the delight in devastating opprobriums, and the acute feeling for the succinct and savory. —H. L. Mencken
1 - http://www.westwingepguide.com/
2 - http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/shibboleth.html
3 - http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/DARE/wordpower/dare.html
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
September 9: Val Speak Day
Today is the anniversary of California's admission as the 31st state of the Union. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 caused its population to explode, and in 1849 settlers applied for admission to the Union after drafting a state constitution that prohibited slavery. Because making California a state would upset the balance of free and slave states, statehood was delayed until September 9, 1850, when the Compromise of 1850 opened the door for California statehood.
In addition to a state constitution, Californians adopted a state seal in 1849 with the motto "Eureka," (The Greek word for "I Have Found It.") an appropriate interjection for a state whose reputation was made on gold strikes (1).
Today, many things make California distinctive and influential in regard to the culture of both American and the world. Two huge examples of this influence are Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Another influence comes under the category of language. Val Speak, the speech pattern of the California "Valley Girl" has captured the imagination of linguists and lexicographers and has crept into the lingo of people who speak English all over the world.
In 1982, Moon Unit Zappa, daughter of Frank Zappa, recorded the hit "Valley Girl" with lyrics that mock the frenetic patter that was first used by California surfers and gradually moved inland to the California's suburban shopping malls:
So like I go into this like salon place, y'know
And I wanted like to get my toenails done
And the lady like goes, oh my god, your toenails
Are like so grody It was like really embarrassing
She's like oh my god, like bag those toenails I'm like sure...
She goes, uh, I don't know if I can handle this, y'know...
I was like really embarrassed... (2)
Certainly some of the lyrics of Valley Girl are a exaggerated for effect and humor, but there is no denying the fact that Val Speak is having an impact on American English, especially among people below the age of forty.
The website for the recent PBS series Do You Speak American reports that one interesting target for linguists is the speech of young white Californians, particularly their use of the discourse marker "I'm like." Known as a quotative, "like" is used to report quoted speech, such as: He was like, "Where do you wanna go?" Unlike the word "said," "like" allows the speaker to paraphrase what was stated instead of making a literal, exact rendering.
"Like" is the offspring of an earlier quotative "goes" that appeared in the 1940s: He goes, "Do you know the make and model of your phone?" The like quotative was once the exclusive jargon of young Californians, but in the short span of the last twenty-five years it has so rapidly spread throughout American and beyond that sociolinguist William Labov has called it a linguistic "tsunami." But whether or not it is here to stay is uncertain; just as "like" replaced "goes," it appears that the word "all" may replace "like" as the hip quotative, used in sentences like this: Then, after a while, I was all, “See you later, good luck!” (3).
Today's Challenge: Like, Gag Me With Youth Speak
The words below are from the "Track That Word!" section of the Do You Speak American website under the category of Teen/Youth words and expressions. See if you can match up each of the ten words/expressions below with its correct definition.
Buggin'
Chalk
Chop it up
Dubs
Drama
Firme
Hooptie
Jargon
Jake
Kicks
1. Major preoccupation, concern, obsession
2. Worrying.
3. To Steal
4. Talking with friends with great interest, enthusiasm
5. Strong, solid, loyal
6. Twenty, pertaining to twenty dollars
7. Old, wrecked automobile
8. Confusion
9. Shoes
10. Everything is going well (4).
Word of the Day: Slang
Language that is non-standard, informal, and – depending on who you talk to – either novel and vivid, or coarse and vulgar. The word originally referred to the “special vocabulary of tramps and thieves,” and later evolved to include the “jargon of a particular profession” (5).
Quote of the Day: Nothing is wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure. --Ross MacDonald
Answers. 1. Drama 2. Buggin' 3. Chalk 4. Chop it up 5. Firme 6. Dubs 7. Hooptie 8. Jargon 9. Kicks 10. Jake
1 - http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23856
2 - http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/frank+zappa/valley+girl_20056834.html
3 - Singler, John. "Like, Quote Me." Do You Speak American? http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/like/
4. Track That Word - Do You Speak American? http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/trackthatword/
5 – Online Etymology Dictionary
In addition to a state constitution, Californians adopted a state seal in 1849 with the motto "Eureka," (The Greek word for "I Have Found It.") an appropriate interjection for a state whose reputation was made on gold strikes (1).
Today, many things make California distinctive and influential in regard to the culture of both American and the world. Two huge examples of this influence are Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Another influence comes under the category of language. Val Speak, the speech pattern of the California "Valley Girl" has captured the imagination of linguists and lexicographers and has crept into the lingo of people who speak English all over the world.
In 1982, Moon Unit Zappa, daughter of Frank Zappa, recorded the hit "Valley Girl" with lyrics that mock the frenetic patter that was first used by California surfers and gradually moved inland to the California's suburban shopping malls:
So like I go into this like salon place, y'know
And I wanted like to get my toenails done
And the lady like goes, oh my god, your toenails
Are like so grody It was like really embarrassing
She's like oh my god, like bag those toenails I'm like sure...
She goes, uh, I don't know if I can handle this, y'know...
I was like really embarrassed... (2)
Certainly some of the lyrics of Valley Girl are a exaggerated for effect and humor, but there is no denying the fact that Val Speak is having an impact on American English, especially among people below the age of forty.
The website for the recent PBS series Do You Speak American reports that one interesting target for linguists is the speech of young white Californians, particularly their use of the discourse marker "I'm like." Known as a quotative, "like" is used to report quoted speech, such as: He was like, "Where do you wanna go?" Unlike the word "said," "like" allows the speaker to paraphrase what was stated instead of making a literal, exact rendering.
"Like" is the offspring of an earlier quotative "goes" that appeared in the 1940s: He goes, "Do you know the make and model of your phone?" The like quotative was once the exclusive jargon of young Californians, but in the short span of the last twenty-five years it has so rapidly spread throughout American and beyond that sociolinguist William Labov has called it a linguistic "tsunami." But whether or not it is here to stay is uncertain; just as "like" replaced "goes," it appears that the word "all" may replace "like" as the hip quotative, used in sentences like this: Then, after a while, I was all, “See you later, good luck!” (3).
Today's Challenge: Like, Gag Me With Youth Speak
The words below are from the "Track That Word!" section of the Do You Speak American website under the category of Teen/Youth words and expressions. See if you can match up each of the ten words/expressions below with its correct definition.
Buggin'
Chalk
Chop it up
Dubs
Drama
Firme
Hooptie
Jargon
Jake
Kicks
1. Major preoccupation, concern, obsession
2. Worrying.
3. To Steal
4. Talking with friends with great interest, enthusiasm
5. Strong, solid, loyal
6. Twenty, pertaining to twenty dollars
7. Old, wrecked automobile
8. Confusion
9. Shoes
10. Everything is going well (4).
Word of the Day: Slang
Language that is non-standard, informal, and – depending on who you talk to – either novel and vivid, or coarse and vulgar. The word originally referred to the “special vocabulary of tramps and thieves,” and later evolved to include the “jargon of a particular profession” (5).
Quote of the Day: Nothing is wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure. --Ross MacDonald
Answers. 1. Drama 2. Buggin' 3. Chalk 4. Chop it up 5. Firme 6. Dubs 7. Hooptie 8. Jargon 9. Kicks 10. Jake
1 - http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23856
2 - http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/frank+zappa/valley+girl_20056834.html
3 - Singler, John. "Like, Quote Me." Do You Speak American? http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/like/
4. Track That Word - Do You Speak American? http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/trackthatword/
5 – Online Etymology Dictionary
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
September 8: International Literacy Day
Today is International Literacy Day sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). First observed in 1967, International Literacy Day calls attention to the need to promote literacy and education around the world as an antidote to poverty.
According the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, more than 100 million girls and boys never enroll in school. At the minimum 860 million adults worldwide are illiterate.
Education and literacy are central to the stability, prosperity, and well-being of any country. As explained by Koichiro Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General:
Literacy is not merely a cognitive skill of reading, writing and arithmetic, for literacy helps in the acquisition of learning and life skills that, when strengthened by usage and application throughout people’s lives, lead to forms of individual, community and societal development that are sustainable.
According to UNESCO figures, 32 countries have literacy rates smaller than 50%. These include Bangladesh 35.3, Afghanistan 29.4, Somalia 24.1, and Nepal 20.1 (1).
Today's Challenge: Read All About It
The eight quotes below each say something important about literacy. See if you can match up each quote with its speaker.
John F. Kennedy
E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
Carl Sagan
Alvin Tofler
Abraham Lincoln
Isaac Asimov
Thomas Jefferson
Kofi Annan
1. Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.
2. Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
3. Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.
4. We have ignored cultural literacy in thinking about education. We ignore the air we breathe until it is thin or foul. Cultural literacy is the oxygen of social intercourse.
5. One of the greatest gifts adults can give -- to their offspring and to their society -- is to read to children.
6. The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
7. Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.
8. True literacy is becoming an arcane art and the United States is steadily dumbing down.
Word of the Day: Peruse
This word, originally from Middle English, once meant “to use or to wear out.” Today it means “to read carefully.” Some people mistakenly use it to mean “to skim-read” or “to glance over" (3).
Quote of the Day: Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. --Kofi Annan
Answers. 1. Abraham Lincoln 2. John F. Kennedy 3. Thomas Jefferson 4. E. D. Hirsch, Jr. 5. Carl Sagan 6. Alvin Tofler 7. Kofi Annan 8. Isaac Asimov
1 - UNESCO - Education - Literacy Day - http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41537&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
2 - http://www.literacyday.net/
3- Online Etymology Dictionary
According the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, more than 100 million girls and boys never enroll in school. At the minimum 860 million adults worldwide are illiterate.
Education and literacy are central to the stability, prosperity, and well-being of any country. As explained by Koichiro Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General:
Literacy is not merely a cognitive skill of reading, writing and arithmetic, for literacy helps in the acquisition of learning and life skills that, when strengthened by usage and application throughout people’s lives, lead to forms of individual, community and societal development that are sustainable.
According to UNESCO figures, 32 countries have literacy rates smaller than 50%. These include Bangladesh 35.3, Afghanistan 29.4, Somalia 24.1, and Nepal 20.1 (1).
Today's Challenge: Read All About It
The eight quotes below each say something important about literacy. See if you can match up each quote with its speaker.
John F. Kennedy
E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
Carl Sagan
Alvin Tofler
Abraham Lincoln
Isaac Asimov
Thomas Jefferson
Kofi Annan
1. Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.
2. Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
3. Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.
4. We have ignored cultural literacy in thinking about education. We ignore the air we breathe until it is thin or foul. Cultural literacy is the oxygen of social intercourse.
5. One of the greatest gifts adults can give -- to their offspring and to their society -- is to read to children.
6. The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
7. Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.
8. True literacy is becoming an arcane art and the United States is steadily dumbing down.
Word of the Day: Peruse
This word, originally from Middle English, once meant “to use or to wear out.” Today it means “to read carefully.” Some people mistakenly use it to mean “to skim-read” or “to glance over" (3).
Quote of the Day: Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. --Kofi Annan
Answers. 1. Abraham Lincoln 2. John F. Kennedy 3. Thomas Jefferson 4. E. D. Hirsch, Jr. 5. Carl Sagan 6. Alvin Tofler 7. Kofi Annan 8. Isaac Asimov
1 - UNESCO - Education - Literacy Day - http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41537&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
2 - http://www.literacyday.net/
3- Online Etymology Dictionary
Monday, September 07, 2009
September Seventh: Univocalic Day
September Seventh is Univocalic Day. A univocalic is a piece of writing where the writer may use only a single vowel. Because September Seventh has nothing but the vowel 'e,' it's the perfect day to celebrate this rare but interesting writing form.
As Richard Lederer points out in his book The Word Circus, some of the longest common univocalic words use the vowel 'e':
strengthlessness
senselessness
defenselessness
Lederer also cites a univocalic translation of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Paul Hellweg from Word Ways magazine:
Meg kept the wee sheep,
The sheep's fleece resembled sleet;
Then wherever Meg went
The sheep went there next;
He went where she needed her texts,
The precedent he neglected;
The pre-teen felt deep cheer
When the sheep entered there.
But 'e' is not the only vowel for constructing univocalics. Dave Morice in his book Alphabet Avenue quotes a univocalic haiku by Howard Bergerson that uses only the vowel 'i':
The Haiku of Eyes
In twilight this spring
Girls with miniskirts will swim
In string bikinis (2).
Today's Challenge: One Vowel Howl
Pick a vowel and make a list of words that contain only that vowel. Then, put those words together in a sentence or a Haiku in which you only use a single vowel. Here's a famous example concerning the Ten Commandments:
Preserve these perfect tenets, men;
Ever keep these precepts ten.
Word of the Day: effervescent
This univocalic adjective derives from Latin. An effervescent liquid is bubbling. An effervescent person is lively and vivacious.
Quote of the Day: Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry. --Bill Cosby
1 - Lederer, Richard. The Word Circus. Springfield, Massachusetts, Meriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1998.
2 - Morice, Dave. Alphabet Avenue: Wordplay in the Fast Lane. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1997.
As Richard Lederer points out in his book The Word Circus, some of the longest common univocalic words use the vowel 'e':
strengthlessness
senselessness
defenselessness
Lederer also cites a univocalic translation of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Paul Hellweg from Word Ways magazine:
Meg kept the wee sheep,
The sheep's fleece resembled sleet;
Then wherever Meg went
The sheep went there next;
He went where she needed her texts,
The precedent he neglected;
The pre-teen felt deep cheer
When the sheep entered there.
But 'e' is not the only vowel for constructing univocalics. Dave Morice in his book Alphabet Avenue quotes a univocalic haiku by Howard Bergerson that uses only the vowel 'i':
The Haiku of Eyes
In twilight this spring
Girls with miniskirts will swim
In string bikinis (2).
Today's Challenge: One Vowel Howl
Pick a vowel and make a list of words that contain only that vowel. Then, put those words together in a sentence or a Haiku in which you only use a single vowel. Here's a famous example concerning the Ten Commandments:
Preserve these perfect tenets, men;
Ever keep these precepts ten.
Word of the Day: effervescent
This univocalic adjective derives from Latin. An effervescent liquid is bubbling. An effervescent person is lively and vivacious.
Quote of the Day: Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry. --Bill Cosby
1 - Lederer, Richard. The Word Circus. Springfield, Massachusetts, Meriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1998.
2 - Morice, Dave. Alphabet Avenue: Wordplay in the Fast Lane. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1997.
Monday, July 06, 2009
July 6: Lake Wobegon Day
Today is the anniversary of the first broadcast of the radio show the Prairie Home Companion. The show was conceived by Garrison Keillor, who has hosted the variety show modeled after the Grand Ole Opry since its premier in 1974. Today’s Keillor’s show is broadcast over 580 public radio stations and has an audience of over 4 million.
In addition to music and commercials for imaginary products, each week’s show features a monologue by Keillor about his mythical hometown Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Each monologue begins the same: “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon,” but the stories that Keillor tells about the colorful Lake Wobegon residents are always different. Keillor’s colorful descriptions, humor, and realistic insights into the human condition bring his characters to life and bring listeners back each week.
In addition to using the same opening, Keillor also uses a stock concluding line each week for his monologue: “That’s the news for Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above-average.”
It’s the last part of Keillor’s concluding line, “all the children are above-average,” that has captured the imagination of sociologists who have adopted Keillor's fictional town in what they call the Lake Wobegon Effect. The Lake Wobegon Effect is the tendency for groups of people to overestimate their achievements and competence in relation to other groups.
The term entered the lexicon in 1987 when Dr. John Cannel published a study that revealed that every state claimed that their students’ test scores where above the national average. This humorous and absurd finding became publicized as the Lake Wobegon Effect. The fictional town in Minnesota became a metaphor of a state-wide phenomenon.
Often we think of metaphor as the exclusive tool of poets. The fact is, however, every good communicator understands and uses metaphor to connect the known to the unknown. Scientists, business people, psychologists, sociologists, and doctors all turn to metaphor to communicate their ideas, theories, and discoveries.
This is done so frequently that there is an entire book of these metaphors called The Babinski Reflex. The author, Phillip Goldberg, calls them metaffects:
“. . . a recognized effect, law, or principle whose official meaning can be transferred to another context. The Babinski Reflex, for example, is a term describing an automatic response in the foot of an infant, thought to be a vestige of our primate ancestry. As such, it resonates metaphorically with certain forms of adult behavior that might be considered primitive or infantile . . . .” (1).
Today’s Challenge: Metaphors Be With You
See if you can match each Effect below with its correct definition from Phillip Goldberg’s book, The Babinski Reflex.
Cocktail Party Effect
Eureka Effect
Butterfly Effect
The False Consensus Effect
Hawthorne Effect
Boomerang Effect
Bandwagon Effect
Barnum Effect
1. The effect of workers becoming more productive after being signaled out or made to feel that they are special.
2. The phenomenon in which attempts to change attitudes in a particular direction produce shifts in the direction opposite that intended.
3. The tendency of some people to withhold their opinions until they know the majority’s view, at which time they merrily announce that they feel exactly the way almost everyone else does.
4. The idea that small changes can become magnified over the course of a subsequent chain of events and culminate in a major, large-scale happening.
5. The tendency of people to accept as accurate, for them personally, a generalized statement (especially a flattering one) that might in fact characterize just about anyone.
6. The rejection of unwanted messages by the senses in favor of more pertinent or interesting information.
7. The tendency of a solution of a problem to come when not directly involved in trying to solve it.
8. The tendency for people to believe that their own desires, beliefs, and even personal problems are shared by the majority (1).
Quote of the Day: Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. –Garrison Keillor
Answers: 1. Hawthorne Effect 2. Boomerang Effect 3. Bandwagon Effect 4. Butterfly Effect5. Barnum Effect 6. Cocktail Party Effect 7. Eureka Effect 8. False Consensus Effect
1 - Goldberg, Phillip. The Babinski Reflex: and 70 Other Useful and Amusing Metaphors from Science, Psychology, Business, Sports ... and Everyday Life. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1990.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
May 21: Hemingway Day
Today is the birthday of Ernest Hemingway, born in Illinois in 1899.
He began his writing career as a journalist when he was 17, working as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. When America entered World War I, he tried to enlist but was rejected on the basis of a medical condition. He traveled to Europe anyway and became an ambulance driver for the Italian Army. He later wrote one his best known novels A Farewell to Arms (1929) based on his experiences in the war.
After World War I, he returned to the states, but soon was back in Europe as a journalist for the Toronto Star. Living in Paris, he met other expatriate American writers such as Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald who encouraged him to write fiction. He took their advice, writing about his experiences as an American living in Europe in The Sun Also Rises (1926). He traveled to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s; this was the setting of his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). He won the Pulitzer Prize for his short novel The Old Man and the Sea in 1953, and the next year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Hemingway committed suicide on July 2, 1961.
Hemingway's characters reflected his own experiences and personality. War, adventure, drinking, bull-fights, big game hunting and fishing were his favorite topics, and, when he wasn't writing, these were his own favorite activities.
Hemingway's writing style is known for its clarity, simplicity, and terseness. His characters' dialogue is straightforward and honest, except for the occasional understatement. In talking about writing, Hemingway said: "All you have to do is write one true sentence, a true simple declarative sentence" (1, 2)
Today's Challenge: Hemingway On Writing
Reading quotes by Hemingway is like attending a master course on writing. Read the 8 quotes below about writing. Notice not just what Hemingway says, but also how he says it. Is he practicing what he preaches? What do you notice about his word choice and the structure of his sentences? Finally, which quote do you like the best and why?
1. Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.
2. All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.
3. Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable. Because all slang goes sour in a short time. I only use swear words, for example, that have lasted at least a thousand years . . . .
3. The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit-detector.
4. It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg Address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.
5. All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.
6. I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
7. If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.
8. All our words from loose using have lost their edge.
Quote of the Day: All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. --Ernest Hemingway
1 - "Ernest Hemingway." The Nobel Prize in Literature 1954. Nobelprize.org
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html
2 - Adler, Mortimer. "Biographical Note on Ernest Hemingway" from Great Books of the Western World. Edition 60: Imaginative Literature: Selections from the Twentieth Century. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1996.
He began his writing career as a journalist when he was 17, working as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. When America entered World War I, he tried to enlist but was rejected on the basis of a medical condition. He traveled to Europe anyway and became an ambulance driver for the Italian Army. He later wrote one his best known novels A Farewell to Arms (1929) based on his experiences in the war.
After World War I, he returned to the states, but soon was back in Europe as a journalist for the Toronto Star. Living in Paris, he met other expatriate American writers such as Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald who encouraged him to write fiction. He took their advice, writing about his experiences as an American living in Europe in The Sun Also Rises (1926). He traveled to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s; this was the setting of his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). He won the Pulitzer Prize for his short novel The Old Man and the Sea in 1953, and the next year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Hemingway committed suicide on July 2, 1961.
Hemingway's characters reflected his own experiences and personality. War, adventure, drinking, bull-fights, big game hunting and fishing were his favorite topics, and, when he wasn't writing, these were his own favorite activities.
Hemingway's writing style is known for its clarity, simplicity, and terseness. His characters' dialogue is straightforward and honest, except for the occasional understatement. In talking about writing, Hemingway said: "All you have to do is write one true sentence, a true simple declarative sentence" (1, 2)
Today's Challenge: Hemingway On Writing
Reading quotes by Hemingway is like attending a master course on writing. Read the 8 quotes below about writing. Notice not just what Hemingway says, but also how he says it. Is he practicing what he preaches? What do you notice about his word choice and the structure of his sentences? Finally, which quote do you like the best and why?
1. Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.
2. All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.
3. Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable. Because all slang goes sour in a short time. I only use swear words, for example, that have lasted at least a thousand years . . . .
3. The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit-detector.
4. It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg Address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.
5. All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.
6. I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
7. If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.
8. All our words from loose using have lost their edge.
Quote of the Day: All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. --Ernest Hemingway
1 - "Ernest Hemingway." The Nobel Prize in Literature 1954. Nobelprize.org
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html
2 - Adler, Mortimer. "Biographical Note on Ernest Hemingway" from Great Books of the Western World. Edition 60: Imaginative Literature: Selections from the Twentieth Century. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1996.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
May 14: Native American Words Day
Today is the anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first English speaking settlement in the New World. Three ships arrived on May 14, 1607 at a wooded island island in the James River. Life was not easy for these English settlers, and they almost succumbed to the same fate as an earlier group of settlers at Roanoke. That group had landed off the coast of North Carolina in 1584 and by 1590 had vanished without a trace. The settlers at Jamestown were more lucky; in 1610 Lord De La Warr (Delaware) arrived in time to resupply the 35 remaining colonists (1, 2).
The natives peoples of what is now the United States spoke hundreds of different languages, and although English has never been declared the official language of the United States, it certainly has supplanted all native languages. There are, however, a few words from the native peoples that were adopted into English; most of these were adopted in the period of early colonization by settlers like those at Jamestown. For the most part these words are from the Algonquian dialects and reflect Indian names for plants and animals or unique artifacts and social practices of Indian life.
The word moose is one example to describe the very large northern deer. Another example is succotash which originates from the Algonquian word meaning 'cooked corn kernels.'
Today's Challenge: New World Words
Below are examples of native words in their original spellings. See if you can detect the modern English equivalents of these words.
1. isquoutersquash
2. ocheck
3. arathkon
4. segakw
5. pakan
6. pawcohiccora
7. aposum
8. mohkussin (3)
Quote of the Day: Power is sweet, it is a drug, the desire for which increases with habit. --Bertrand Russell
Answers: 1. squash 2. woodchuck 3. Raccoon 4. skunk 5. pecan 6. hickory 7. opossum 8. moccasin
1 - McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
2 - Flavell, Linda and Roger. The Chronology of Words and Phrases. London: Kyle Cathie Limited, 1999.
3 - Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language (Reader's Digest). Pleasantville: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.
The natives peoples of what is now the United States spoke hundreds of different languages, and although English has never been declared the official language of the United States, it certainly has supplanted all native languages. There are, however, a few words from the native peoples that were adopted into English; most of these were adopted in the period of early colonization by settlers like those at Jamestown. For the most part these words are from the Algonquian dialects and reflect Indian names for plants and animals or unique artifacts and social practices of Indian life.
The word moose is one example to describe the very large northern deer. Another example is succotash which originates from the Algonquian word meaning 'cooked corn kernels.'
Today's Challenge: New World Words
Below are examples of native words in their original spellings. See if you can detect the modern English equivalents of these words.
1. isquoutersquash
2. ocheck
3. arathkon
4. segakw
5. pakan
6. pawcohiccora
7. aposum
8. mohkussin (3)
Quote of the Day: Power is sweet, it is a drug, the desire for which increases with habit. --Bertrand Russell
Answers: 1. squash 2. woodchuck 3. Raccoon 4. skunk 5. pecan 6. hickory 7. opossum 8. moccasin
1 - McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
2 - Flavell, Linda and Roger. The Chronology of Words and Phrases. London: Kyle Cathie Limited, 1999.
3 - Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language (Reader's Digest). Pleasantville: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
May 13: "Brand" New Words Day
Today is the anniversary of a registered trade mark that gave the world an alternative to zippers and buttons: Velcro.
One man’s annoyance can be another man’s eureka. When Swiss inventor George de Mestral returned with his dog from a walk, he noticed that he and his dog were covered with cockleburrs. Instead of being annoyed, he studied the burrs under a microscope where he noted their hook-like shape.
Engineering artificial fasteners that replicated the ones he found in nature took a few years, but Mestral was eventually successful in creating his easy to use hook and loop fastener. He registered his invention in 1958. For the name of his product, he blended two French terms: "vel" from velvet and "cro" from crochet (little hook).
Today the Velcro Industries is a successful international company, but like other successful companies, Velcro is challenged by a paradox: they want people to use their trademarked name as much as possible to promote their product; however, because the name is used so often and the product is so successful and so ubiquitous, the name of the product becomes a generic, non-capitalized word. As a result, companies like Velcro are in a constant battle to protect their trademark and in turn their bottom line. The lines are blurred even more when a word, like Google, becomes used so often that it becomes more than just a noun. No doubt the legal department at Google and the neologism department at the American Heritage Dictionary are both busy tracing the growth and development of this word.
The following statement from the Velcro website is an example of the kinds of reminders and warnings that companies put out to protect their brand names:
The goodwill and integrity which are reflective of the Velcro companies are ingrained in the VELCRO® trademark. This makes the trademark a very valuable asset to the company and to our customers who purchase the VELCRO® brand fasteners.
Many terms that we all use frequently in our everyday language were once trademarks …. All of these terms lost their distinction as trademarks because their owners allowed them to be misused by the public. That's why the Velcro companies pay close attention to how the VELCRO® trademark is used.
As stated by the Velcro website, there are several brand names that were once registered trademarks, but today they have lost their capital letter and entered the dictionary and the English lexicon as generic terms, such as cellophane, excalator, and the yo-yo.
Today's Challenge: The Law and the Language
See if you can identify which of the words below are registered trademarks and which are generic trademarks. All of the words below are from Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language, and all are capitalized to make your choice a little harder.
1. Q-Tips
2. Thermos
3. Nylon
4. Vaseline
5. Xerox
6. Zipper
7. Raisin Bran
8. Kool-Aid
9. Formica
10. Chap Stick (1)
Quote of the Day: There is nothing either good nor bad but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare.
Answers: The generic terms are: 2. thermos 3. nylon 6. zipper 7. raisin bran
1 - Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language (Reader's Digest). Pleasantville: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.
One man’s annoyance can be another man’s eureka. When Swiss inventor George de Mestral returned with his dog from a walk, he noticed that he and his dog were covered with cockleburrs. Instead of being annoyed, he studied the burrs under a microscope where he noted their hook-like shape.
Engineering artificial fasteners that replicated the ones he found in nature took a few years, but Mestral was eventually successful in creating his easy to use hook and loop fastener. He registered his invention in 1958. For the name of his product, he blended two French terms: "vel" from velvet and "cro" from crochet (little hook).
Today the Velcro Industries is a successful international company, but like other successful companies, Velcro is challenged by a paradox: they want people to use their trademarked name as much as possible to promote their product; however, because the name is used so often and the product is so successful and so ubiquitous, the name of the product becomes a generic, non-capitalized word. As a result, companies like Velcro are in a constant battle to protect their trademark and in turn their bottom line. The lines are blurred even more when a word, like Google, becomes used so often that it becomes more than just a noun. No doubt the legal department at Google and the neologism department at the American Heritage Dictionary are both busy tracing the growth and development of this word.
The following statement from the Velcro website is an example of the kinds of reminders and warnings that companies put out to protect their brand names:
The goodwill and integrity which are reflective of the Velcro companies are ingrained in the VELCRO® trademark. This makes the trademark a very valuable asset to the company and to our customers who purchase the VELCRO® brand fasteners.
Many terms that we all use frequently in our everyday language were once trademarks …. All of these terms lost their distinction as trademarks because their owners allowed them to be misused by the public. That's why the Velcro companies pay close attention to how the VELCRO® trademark is used.
As stated by the Velcro website, there are several brand names that were once registered trademarks, but today they have lost their capital letter and entered the dictionary and the English lexicon as generic terms, such as cellophane, excalator, and the yo-yo.
Today's Challenge: The Law and the Language
See if you can identify which of the words below are registered trademarks and which are generic trademarks. All of the words below are from Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language, and all are capitalized to make your choice a little harder.
1. Q-Tips
2. Thermos
3. Nylon
4. Vaseline
5. Xerox
6. Zipper
7. Raisin Bran
8. Kool-Aid
9. Formica
10. Chap Stick (1)
Quote of the Day: There is nothing either good nor bad but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare.
Answers: The generic terms are: 2. thermos 3. nylon 6. zipper 7. raisin bran
1 - Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language (Reader's Digest). Pleasantville: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
May 12: Limerick Day
The English language is a maze
You can get lost in it for days
Exploring the mother tongue
Can be lots of fun
So, read today's post on Word Daze
Today is the birthday of Edward Lear, born in 1812 in London, England. Before he was a poet, he was a painter, illustrating birds for such noteworthy clients as Charles Darwin.
In 1832, while on an assignment to paint animals in the Earl of Darby's private zoo, Lear began composing humorous verse for the Earl's grandchildren. He put his poems together in his Book of Nonsense, published in 1846.
Lear is remembered for his famous poem "The Owl and the Pussycat," but his most noteworthy contribution to the literary world is the limerick.
Here are some limericks from Book of Nonsense.
1.
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared!--
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!"
10.
There was an Old Man in a tree,
Who was horribly bored by a Bee;
When they said, "Does it buzz?"
He replied, "Yes, it does! "
It's a regular brute of a Bee!"
12.
There was a Young Lady whose chin,
Resembled the point of a pin:
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
The limerick is a universally popular verse form, popular with children as well as adults. Besides the fixed form of five lines, rhyming AABBA, the content of the Limerick is characteristically comical and nonsensical. The adult version frequently feature lewd content. One other common feature is the naming of a character and geographic location in the first line.
For more on Lear and the limerick see poets.org
Today's Challenge: Literary Limerick
On Limerick Day write lots of limericks. Write one as a love note and put it on the refrigerator or write it on your child's lunch sack. Write a limerick advertising a product that you think is worth buying. Write a limerick about your best friend, your pet, or your boss. Finally, select a favorite literary character and write a limerick about him or her.
Quote of the Day: One of the most responsible things you can do as an adult is become more of a child. --Wayne Dyer
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