Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Biedermeier

“Biedermeier: The German and Austrian form of Empire Style, ca. 1815-1848, especially in furniture and articles of interior decoration. Extended to those paintings of the Romantic period that depict subjects favored by the middle class. The term is not applicable to architecture or sculpture.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Term of Art: Strategy Instruction

“strategy instruction: An important educational approach to working with students with a learning disability. It is based on an assumption that individuals with learning disabilities have significant deficits in the area of strategy development. These deficits may be the result of underlying language disabilities and skills deficits, or of problems in acquiring executive procedures and learning strategies.

In any case, a strategy instruction approach assumes that explicit instruction in learning strategies and executive procedures is a fundamental approach to helping students with learning disabilities achieve their potential.

Strategy instruction typically involves teaching procedures like SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review). Students learn to perform a sequence of specific activities geared toward a specific task and outcome, practice those procedures in a variety of contexts, and apply them independently.

Strategy instruction has proven effective, particularly in college situations where it allows students to meet course requirements independently.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Write It Right: Idea for Thought, Purpose, Expectation, etc

“Idea for Thought, Purpose, Expectation, etc. ‘I had no idea that it was so cold.’ ‘When he went abroad it was with no idea of remaining.'”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

The Algonquin Wits: Heywood Broun on the Fouling of Public Places

“Discussing boorishness in public places, especially where ‘ermined’ or ‘sabled’ ladies make concentration somewhat difficult, Broun remarked, ‘I want some day to see a Broadway opening without benefit of footnotes. I’d rather not be told by the lady just ahead that a line is “delicious” or “so quaint.” I’d rather be surprised.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

Nominalization

“Nominalization: 1. The process or result of forming a noun from a word belonging to another word class: writing/writings and shaving/shavings derived from write and shave and adding -ing; sanity derived from sane by the addition of the noun-forming suffix -ity; nominalization derived from nominalize by adding -ation. 2. The process or result of deriving a noun phrase by a transformation from a finite clause: their rejecting my complaint or their rejection of my complaint from They rejected my complaint.”

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

Slur

“Slur (noun): A disparaging remark or insinuation; insult, aspersion, or sleight; derogation or stigma; a sliding over without due consideration or attention; in utterance, a blurring or omitting or sounds, thereby running syllables or words together. Verb: slur.

‘This slurring of words into a refined cadence until they cease to be words at all is due partly to the Englishman’s disinclination to move his lips. Evidently the lips and teeth are held stationary for the most part, open just wide enough to let in air for breathing )many Englishmen must breathe through their mouths, otherwise they would not breathe at all) with an occasional sharp pursing of the lips on a syllable which does not call for pursing the lips.’

Robert Benchley, ‘The King’s English: Not Murder but Suicide.’”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Minimal Art

“Minimal Art: The most reductive of all the Post-Painterly Abstraction movements. Minimal painting—rejecting space, texture, subject matter, and atmosphere—relies solely on simple form and flat color for effect. Minimal sculpture, usually of monumental size, is equally free of personal overtones, relying on the simplest geometric forms and the power of its presence for effect. Artists identified with minimal art include Barnett Newman, Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, and Larry Bell.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Willa Cather on Human Stories

“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”

Willa Cather, O Pioneers! Pt. 2 ch. 4 (1913)

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

Term of Art: Perceptual-Motor Skills

“perceptual-motor skills: In everything children do, the look, listen, and touch, and then make a perceptual judgment about the things they see, hear, and feel. It is this perceptual judgment that dictates the way they react to their world (what is seen, what is heard, what is felt). When perceptions are well developed, then reactions are more likely to be appropriate for each given situation.

Thre are six perceptual systems that take in information from the environment: visual (light), auditory (sound), tactile (touch), kinesthetic (muscle feeling). Olfactory (smell), and gustatory (taste). Perceptual-motor skills or behavior generally will involve perceptual input through more than one of these systems, and a complex sequence of motor activities.

Motor learning is an important part of childhood development. There is a natural developmental sequence of perceptual motor skill development, beginning very early with skills such as rolling over and sitting up, and proceeding to activities such as crawling, standing, walking, running, and jumping. As development progresses, the requirements for integration of perceptual systems and motor behavior grow more steadily subtle and complex.

Delays in the development of age-appropriate perceptual-motor skills may have significant and sometimes pervasive effects on school and social performance.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Write It Right: Coat for Coating

“Coat for Coating. ‘A coat of paint, or varnish.’ If we coat something we produce a coating, not a coat.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.