“Five Ws: The questions that must be answered when writing journalistic prose: who, what, when, where, and why. Together, the questions act as a formula for getting the basic story on an issue or a topic.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“Impressionism: The 19th-century movement, well developed by the time of the first impressionist exhibition in 1874, that is now regarded as the culmination of realism. The impressionist painters analyzed natural effects with devoted intensity. They devised the spectrum palette and relied on optical mixing to capture the impression of light at a given moment. The most important of them include Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“…evidence of a diseased mind and lacerated heart.”
John Dunlop, The History of Fiction 1814
“A counsel of despair.”
George A. Aitken, Gulliver’s Travels 1896
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, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, readings/research
Acheron * Cocytes * Phlegethon * Lethe * Styx
Which is to say: the river of sorrow, the river of damnation, the river of fire, the river of oblivion, and the river of hate, upon whose waters even the gods swore.
Some classical writers imagined Lethe as a pool of oblivion and added the pool of Mnemosyne (memory) beside it. Others envisaged flat, featureless misty land beside the rivers which they named the fields of Asphodel. The Plain of Tartarus was reserved for more active punishment just as the Fields of Elysium or the Isles of the Blessed were reserved for blameless heroes. But even for such a proud hero-warrior as Achilles, it would be better to be the meanest ploughboy on its green earth than Emperor of all the Dead. That monarch was Hades Plouton—rich in lost souls and mineral wealth and married for all eternity to Persephone, the iron queen.
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.
“Bicameral Parliament with two chambers or houses, such as the US Congress with its Senate and House of Representatives, and the British Parliament with its house of commons and House of Lords.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion, term of art
“Marginalization: A process by which a group or individual is denied access to important positions and symbols of economic, religious, or political power within any society. A marginal group may actually constitute a numerical majority—as in the case of blacks in South Africa—and should perhaps be distinguished from a minority group, which may be small in numbers, but has access to political or economic power.
Marginalization became a major topic of sociological research in the 1960s, largely in response to the realization that while certain developing countries demonstrated rapid economic growth, members of these societies were receiving increasingly unequal shares of the rewards of success. The process by which this occurred became a major source of study, particularly for those influenced by dependency, Marxist, and world-systems theories, who argued that the phenomenon was related to the world capitalist order and not just confined to particular societies.
Anthropologists, in particular, have tended to study marginal groups. This stems in part from the idea that, by looking at what happens on the margins of a society, one can see how that society defines itself and is defined in terms of other societies, and what constitute its key cultural features.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion, term of art
“Hudson River School: Group of American realist landscape painters active between about 1820 to 1880 whose favorite subjects were scenes of the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains. Famous members were Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Frederic Church.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
[If you want this as a learning support in Microsoft Word, it’s under that hyperlink.]
The number of the subject determines the number of the verb.
Words that intervene between subject and verb do not affect the number of the verb. (Addendum: The second sentence is the correct one.)
The bittersweet flavor of youth—its trials, its joys, its adventures, its challenges—are not soon forgotten.
The bittersweet flavor of youth—its trials, its joys, its adventures, its challenges—is not soon forgotten.
A common blunder is the use of a singular verb form in a relative clause following “one of…” or similar expression when the relative is the subject. (Addendum: The second sentence is the correct one.)
One of the ablest scientists who has attacked this problem.
One of the ablest scientists who have attacked this problem.
One of those people who is never ready on time.
One of those people who are never ready on time.
Use a singular verb after each, either, everyone, everybody, neither, nobody, someone.
Everybody thinks he has a unique sense of humor.
Although both clocks strike cheerfully, neither keeps good time.
With none, use the singular verb when the word means “no one” or “not one.”
None of us are perfect (Wrong)
None of us is perfect.
A plural verb is commonly used when none suggests more than one thing or person.
None are so fallible as those who are sure they’re right.
A compound subject formed of two or more nouns joined by and almost always requires a plural verb.
The walrus and the carpenter were walking close at hand.
But certain compounds, often clichés, are so inseparable they are considered a unit and so take a singular verb, as do compound subjects qualified by each or every.
The long and short of it is…
Bread and butter was all she served.
Give and take is essential to a happy household.
Every window, picture and mirror was smashed.
A singular subject remains singular even if other nouns are connected to it by with, as well as, in addition to, except, together with, and no less than.
His speech as well as his manner is objectionable.
A linking verb agrees with the number of its subject.
What is wanted is few more pairs of hands.
The trouble with truth is its many varieties.
Some nouns that appear to be plural are usually construed as singular and given a singular verb.
Politics is an art, not a science.
The Republican Headquarters is on this side of the tracks.
But
The general’s quarters are across the river.
In these cases the writer must simply learn the idioms. The contents of a book is singular. The contents of a jar may be either singular or plural, depending on what’s in the jar—jam or marbles.
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“A Man for All Seasons: A play (1960), later a film (1967), by Robert Bolt (1924-95) about the Tudor statesmen Sir Thomas More and his opposition to Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The title was derived by Bolt from a description of More by his contemporary Robert Whittington (c. 1480 – c. 1530), who wrote:
‘More is a man of angel’s wit and singular learning; I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes; and sometimes of as sad a gravity: as how say: a man for all seasons.’
Vulgaria (1521)
Whittington in turn borrowed the tag from Erasmus, a friend of More’s, who had described More in his preface to In Praise of Folly (1509) with the words omnium horarum hominem (‘a man for all hours’).”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
“blockade: Action to prevent supplies reaching an enemy, either by placing ships outside its ports, troops outside a city or cutting off traffic across a country’s borders. Under international law a neutral merchant vessel attempting to breach a blockade may be confiscated by the blockading country. The tactic was first attempted in the Napoleonic wars when Britain’s navy blockaded France, Portugal, and Spain. A recent naval blockade was imposed on 12 April 1982 by Britain on the Falkland Islands to cut off supplies to Argentine troops occupying them; it was lifted following the retaking of the islands by British forces in May and June 1982.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
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