“Essential for Necessary. This solecism is common among the best writers in the country and England. ‘It is essential to go early’; ‘Irrigation is essential to the cultivation of arid lands’ and so forth. One thing is essential to another thing only if it is part of the essence of it—an important and indispensable part of it, determining its nature, the soul of it.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Once again, from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage, here is a worksheet on subject-verb agreement when using the noun group. Did you know you know it is used as both a plural and singular, depending on what one needs to say about a group? I did not before preparing this worksheet.
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.
“Nineteen Eighty-Four: A dystopian novel (1949) by George Orwell (1903-50). The book comprises a prophecy of the totalitarian future of mankind, portraying a society in which government propaganda and terrorism destroy human awareness of reality. It is generally thought that Orwell named the novel by reversing the last two figures of the year in which it was written, 1948, but an article by Sally Coniam in the Times Literary Supplement of 31 December 1999 proposed another theory. In 1934 Orwell’s first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, published a poem, ‘End of the Century 1984,’ in The Chronicle, the school magazine of Sunderland Church High School, where she had been a pupil in the 1920s. The poem was written to mark the school’s 50th anniversary, looking back then forward to the future and to the schools centenary in 1984. It seems likely that Orwell could have adopted the year accordingly, although for him it was a random date. Support for this lies in the poem’s mention of ‘telesalesmanship’ and ‘Telepathic Station 9,’ terms strangely modern for their time, which seem to prefigure Orwell’s own ‘Newspeak,’ teleprogrammes,’ and ‘telescreen.’
Following the publication of Orwell’s novel, the year 1984—until it came and went—was long regarded as apocalyptic, and as such was even entered in the Oxford English Dictionary. Appropriately enough, a film version entitled 1984 starring John Hurt and Richard Burton was released in 1984.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
Here is a reading on Lyndon B. Johnson along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet . I was a child when Johnson was president; I remember seeing on live television his announcement that he would not stand for reelection in 1968. The newscast impressed my parents, but at at the age of seven, it meant very little to me.
Over time, and all the published volumes of Robert Caro’s magisterial biography of Johnson, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, I have come to appreciate the fascination with Johnson. He was, it seems to me, the last great president the Democratic Party produced. He accomplished great things, more often than not through dubious and even devious means. In any case, these documents are a solid introduction to Johnson’s accomplishments–both the triumphs and the failures.
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.
“Analogy (noun) A theoretical comparison or point-by-point correspondence between particulars of two different things, rather than a categorical likeness; resemblance in certain parallels; logical inference that if two things are alike in some respects, they will be alike in others. Adj. analogical, analogous; adv. analogously; n. analogousness; v. analogize.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Linguistically, I am at somewhat of a loss in trying to understand the Latin word root fus, which means “pour.” It’s a productive root in English, growing a number of high-frequency words such as confuse, as well as the less frequently used but arguably essential diffuse and transfuse (not to mention profuse). How these words relate or apply to the concept of pouring escapes me. Perhaps, kind reader, you can enlighten me and the other users of this blog.
Whatever the case, here is a worksheet on the Latin word root fus if you can use it.
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.
“Connoisseur, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.
An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured upon his lips to revive him. ‘Pauillac, 1873,’ he murmured and died.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Continental Congress. This is a half-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. For its brevity, this document is a solid general introduction to the term and concept of the Continental Congress of North America. Users can, if so inclined, alter this Microsoft Word document to their classroom’s needs.
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.
“We can get over being poor, but it takes longer to get over ignorance.”
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion
Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun solstice. This noun was almost certainly at some point a Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster, which explains this document’s existence. This isn’t a high-frequency word in English, but might be useful nonetheless at least two days a year–the winter and summer solstices.
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.
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