“visual discrimination: The ability to distinguish between visual objects, usually those with a similar appearance, such as between the letters ‘p’ and ‘q.’ Good visual discrimination skills are essential to early reading.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Anachronism: [Stress: “a-NA-kronizm’] In rhetoric, the appearance of a person or thing in the wrong epoch, such as the clock in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Linguistic anachronisms are generally a matter of awareness, context, and expectation: for example, the archaism wight (person, man) may be appropriate at a seminar on the Elizabethan poet Spenser, but is incongruous and probably unintelligible elsewhere. Similarly, a character in a period novel who says OK long before the phrase was current rings false for anyone who knows (or senses) that its time is out of joint.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Here is a learning support on using commas in a series. This is the second of fifteen posts of learning supports on using commas. (You can find an excursus on this choice of publishing practice here.)
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.
“Academie Francaise: The French academy. Originating in secret meetings of literary men in Paris around the year 1630, the Academy was established by order of the king, at Cardinal Richelieu’s urging, in 1635. Made up of forty members, supposedly the most distinguished living men of French letters, the Academy took as its purpose the protection and perfection of the French language and began compiling an authoritative dictionary in 1639; the task has not yet been completed. The Academy also undertook the composition of definitive treatises on grammar, poetry, and rhetoric. Ordered by Richelieu to censure Corneille’s Le Cid, the Academy early adopted a policy of advocating old rules and traditions at the expense of innovation and change. In the late 18th century, the Philosophes gained a majority in the Academy and briefly influenced it with their views. Inactive during the Revolution, the Academy was reestablished in 1803 by Napoleon as part of the Institut de France and two years later took up headquarters in the Palais Mazarin, which it still occupies. Inevitably, the Academy is a conservative body, reflecting the tastes of its membership—those, by definition, of age and secure reputation, including many of the most significant names in past and present French literature, criticism, and philosophy, the membership nonetheless reveals several surprising omissions, most regrettably that of Moliere. In this century, the Academy may be said to have fairly represented the cultural life of France and, in general, to have exercised a beneficent effect upon the preservation of the language. In 1981 Marguerite Yourcenar became the first woman to be elected to the Academy.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Anagram: A word or phrase made by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase: mad policy from diplomacy. Anagrams are used mainly in games and puzzles, especially crosswords, where a clue like ‘a confused tailor in Venice’ leads to Rialto, an anagram of tailor.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Here is an introductory learning support on using the comma. This is the first of fifteen of these I will post in the next few weeks, which I expect merits an explanation.
Somewhere, either in Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, or Tropic of Capricorn (I read all three in one compulsive gulp about thirty years ago), i.e. Henry Miller’s “Obelisk Trilogy,” the author asserts (I paraphrase, but closely, because in spite of hours of research, I cannot find the direct quote online, and I don’t want to spend the money or time to buy the books and find the sentence) that it’s easier to describe the philosophy of Nietzsche than it is to teach adequately the proper use of the comma. Oscar Wilde famously made his own remarks about the use of the comma, which is a little easier (but much more complex in its origin) to track down, which I was able to do thanks to the excellent website Quote Investigator.
Commas tend to bedevil me as well; indeed, I have had a tendency to overuse them. For years, I have meant of create an extensive reference library on the multitudinous uses of the comma in prose. Using what I think is the best punctuation manual in print, I have at last done so. As I post each of them, should you choose to download them, you will notice they vary considerably in length. After thinking about this for several weeks, I decided to use the same major subdivisions that the author uses in her manual.
However, as you may see, there are numerous minor subdivisions within most of these documents. It may be that these need to be broken up further. Because these are Microsoft Word documents, you are able to manipulate these materials to suit your needs. If I’d broken them up myself, this project would have taken much longer than it did, which was plenty long per se.
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.
“Ellipsis: The omission of an element of language for reasons associated with speech, rhetoric, grammar, and punctuation. The omitted element can usually be recovered by considering the context of what has been said or written, In speech and writing, sounds and letters are often left out of words: in the sentence She said he’d come, he’d is elliptical for either he had or he would. Such contractions are informal and usually arise from speed of delivery, economy of effort, and the rhythm of the language. At times, elliptical speech or writing is so concise that listeners and readers must supply missing elements through guesswork or special knowledge, but it they cannot, they fail to understand. Information can be left out or hinted at for reasons of style or discretion; in such areas as politics, diplomacy, and negotiation, remarks are often elliptical in nature and intent….”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“Confidant, Confidante, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided by him to C.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
“Thirty-two grains of English wheat, taken from the middle of an ear of corn (so as to confound cheats and counterfeiters) was the official weight of an English silver penny according to the reforms of old King Offa of Mercia (757-796), undertaken in parallel with those of the Emperor Charlemagne in mainland Europe. Twenty of these pennies should weigh in at an ounce (to give the equal of the old Latin solidus coin of the Romans and the English shilling) and twelve such ounces produced the royally approved standard of a Tower Pound, worth 240 silver pennies. All of which said, in 1284 King Edward I switched the currency off the wheat standard back to the barley grain.”
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.
“Lean Surface: The matte surface produced by painting with a minimum of oil; essential in underpainting.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
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