Monthly Archives: July 2021

A Learning Support on Verbs and Number

Last but not least on this perfect summer afternoon in Vermont, here is a learning support on verbs and number. This is about a half page of text that leaves enough open field in the document to contrive a worksheet with it. In fact, since this document is formatted in Microsoft Word, you can do pretty much anything you need or want to with it.

This one, too, comes from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage. This one, too, does a very nice job of explaining its central piece of procedural knowledge, how writers lose track of subjects in complicated sentences and often commit subject/verb agreement lapses because of that.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Stephen Leacock on Statistics

“In ancient times they had not statistics so they had to fall back on lies.”

Stephen Leacock

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Bretton Woods

Here is a reading on Bretton Woods  along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Bretton Woods, you may recall, is shorthand for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in June of 1944, at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.  The hotel is right at the base of Mount Washington, a beautiful spot. This article, from the Intellectual Devotional series, serves as a good general introduction to a highly complicated subject–the post-World War II global economy.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: An autobiographical account by the British soldier, archaeologist, Arabist, classical scholar and writer T(homas) E(dward) Lawrence (1888-1935) of his adventures in Arabia during the First World War. Lawrence too his title from the Bible:

‘Wisdom had builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.’

Proverbs 9:1

It is not clear why seven, although seven is commonly a mystical or sacred number and crops up frequently in the Bible. Lawrence famously mislaid the first draft of his manuscript in 1919 while changing trains at Reading.

The book formed the basis for the Oscar-winning epic film Lawrence of Arabia (1962) directed by David Lean (1908-1991) with a screenplay by Robert Bolt (1924-95), starring Peter O’Toole in the title role.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Cultural Literacy: For Want of a Nail the Kingdom Was Lost

Here is a Cultural Literacy Worksheet on the proverb For Want of a Nail the Kingdom Was Lost. It’s a half-page document with a short reading and three questions.

Because this is a classic proverb that originates in a Middle High German form as early as the 13th century, and has been a constant across the centuries. In its entirety, which is only seven lines, it’s a nice little chain of cause and effect. I think there is a lesson in all this about the consequences of omission and neglect.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Paraphrase

“Paraphrase: 1. The (more or less) free rewording of an expression or text, as an explanation, clarification, or translation: ‘Paraphrase, or translation with latitude, where the author is kept in view…, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense’ (John Dryden, preface to his translation of Ovid, 1680). 2. An act or result or rewording, such as a simplified version of a legal document: a plain-English paraphrase of The contractor shall have a general lien upon all goods in his possession for all monies due to him from the customer is We have a right to hold some or all of the goods until you have paid our charges. 3. To make a paraphrase; to translate or define loosely: the compound word teapot can be paraphrased or explained by the phrase a pot for tea but not by a pot of tea.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Parry (vi/vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb parry. It’s used both intransitively and transitively. For each of those uses, however, there are two meanings, virtually identical across the intransitive and transitive uses of this word.

To wit: transitively, parry means “to ward off (as a blow)” and “to evade especially by an adroit answer”; intransitively, parry means “to ward off a weapon or blow” and “to evade or turn aside something.” The document above provides context clues to define parry in the sense of “to ward off (as a blow) and “to ward of a weapon or blow.”

Recently, I had to good fortune to attend a professional development session on debate-centered instruction. For that reason, you will see here, sooner or later, another context clues worksheet that calls upon students to recognize the second of each of the two definitions above.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Scott Adams on the Dilbert Principle

“The basic concept of the Dilbert principle is that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved where they can do the least damage: management.”

Scott Adams

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Barry Goldwater

Last but not least on this clement Wednesday afternoon, here is a reading on Barry Goldwater along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This is a good general introduction to the late senator and presidential candidate. Senator Goldwater, relatively speaking, was a nuanced thinker and, in the end, no subscriber to the kind of rigid ideology conservatives today profess.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: A historical study (1971) by Dee Brown (1908-2002) of the conquest of the American West and the destruction of the Native American tribes. The title comes from the last verse of a poem ‘American Names’ (1927), by Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943):

‘I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.

I shall not lie easy in Winchelsea.

You may bury my body in Sussex grass.

You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.

I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.

Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.’

Wounded Knee, in South Dakota, was the site of a massacre of Teton-Sioux by US forces on 29 December 1890, in which at least 150 Native Americans and 25 US soldiers were killed. It marked the final suppression of Native American resistance. In the Wounded Knee protest of 1973, two years after the publication of Brown’s book, some 200 armed members of the American Indian Movement occupied the symbolic site. The occupation ended after a 70-day siege, but helped to focus international attention on the US government’s treatment of Native Americans.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.