“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.
“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
“abstinence education: An educational program premised on the view that family life and sex education courses should teach students that sexual intercourse is inappropriate for young, unmarried people. Advocates say that adults must communicate an unambiguous that sex outside marriage is dangerous because of the risks of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS. Critics of abstinence-only programs say the programs ignore the reality of widespread sexual activity among teenagers and deprive teens of information they need to protect themselves physically and emotionally.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“Who created Babar the Elephant? Jean de Brunhoff, in stories beginning with The Story of Babar (1933). De Brunhoff’s son Laurent continued the series.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, readings/research
“token economy: A behavior therapy procedure in which tokens (such as coins or poker chips) are given for desired behavior. The tokens can then be exchanged for privileges or treats.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Epithet (noun): A characterizing word or phrase, whether a singular descriptive adjective or special appellation for a person or thing; personally disparaging expression or label; slur. Adjective: epithetic, epithetical.
‘The British restrictions go back in part to a 1562 pronouncement of Commons that “no reviling or nipping word must be used.” Today’s guide prescribes rules of “good temper and moderation” for parliamentary debate and is an extension of Sir Thomas Erskine May’s 1844 treatise on parliamentary usage. The following epithets are expressly forbidden: lie, liar, villain, hypocrite, Pharisee, criminal, slanderer, traitor, hooligan, blackguard, murderer, cad, dog, swine, stool pigeon, bastard, jackass, puppy (or its extension, cheeky young pup), ruffian, rat, guttersnipe, member returned by the refuse of a large constituency. Permitted, on the other hand, are Parliamentary leper, purveyor of inexactitude, goose, and halfwit. Mario Pei, The Story of the English Language.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“John Buchan’s 1915 action novel has been filmed at regular intervals, following Alfred Hitchcock’s classic version with Robert Donat as buccaneering hero James Hannay. Buchan was famously inspired to write the novel by his daughter counting the stairs of the nursing home in Broadstairs, where he was convalescing. He turned the phrase into a key mystery of the novel, and Hannay’s eventual discovery of its meaning (it is the number of steps down a cliff path to a waiting yacht) helps keep Britain’s military secrets intact from the Germans.
Hitchcock significantly changed Buchan’s plot for his 1935 movie, writing a climactic music hall scene in which ‘Mr. Memory’ is asked ‘What are the 39 Steps?’ and is about to reveal the answer (‘The 39 Steps is an organization of spies collecting information on behalf of the foreign office of…’) when he is shot dead. An equally evocative twist was introduced in the 1978 film starring Robert Powell, where the thirty-nine steps turn out to be the number of stairs in the clock tower of Big Ben.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Rotten Reviews: Invisible Man
“It has its faults which cannot simply be shrugged off—occasional overwriting, stretches of fuzzy thinking, and a tendency to waver, confusingly, between realism and surrealism.”
Atlantic Monthly
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“construction of meaning: The act of thinking about ideas, events, and texts and ascribing significance to them. Those who use this phrase typically assert that texts are cultural products that do not have a meaning in and of themselves; rather, the reader constructs their meaning, depending on his or her prior experience and knowledge, his or her emotional state at the time of the reading, and the political and social climate in which he or she lives. Or, put another way, the text has no necessary relationship to what its author intended. This popular literary theory encourages readers to avoid seeking the author’s purpose, since the author’s purpose is allegedly irrelevant; it also encourages readers to believe that a text says whatever a reader thinks it does, which is a highly narcissistic, solipsistic notion. Teachers who act on this belief encourage students to believe that what they feel about a text is more important than the text itself.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a plausible manner and a little literary ability. The capacity to steal other people’s words and phrases…is also invaluable.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
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