Category Archives: Reference

These are materials for teachers and parents, and you’ll find, in this category, teachers copies and answer keys for worksheets, quotes related to domain-specific knowledge in English Language Arts and social studies, and quotes on issues of professional concern. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Book of Answers: Ernest Hemingway

“In what Hemingway short story does Nick Adams first appear? Hemingway’s alter ego, the central figure of In Our Time (1924), makes his first appearance in ‘Indian Camp.’”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

A Learning Support on the Stylistic and Typographical Conventions for Using Numbers in Prose

Here is a learning support on the conventions for writing numbers in prose. This document has a big open field, and is in Microsoft Word, so it is at your–and more importantly, your students’–disposal; you can modify or adapt it to your 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.

The Algonquin Wits: Heywood Broun to Ruth Hale

“On his first meeting with Ruth Hale, whom he later married, Broun took the young lady for a stroll in Central Park, where she became intrigued with a squirrel which had come begging for food. After listening to Miss Hale’s repeated regrets that she had no peanuts to give the squirrel, Broun remarked, ‘I can’t help you except to give him a nickel so he can go and buy his own.’”

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

Guaranteed Death—Avoid 14

Fourteen is a number to avoid in any context in China and most of the Far East, for its tones sound like ‘guaranteed death.’ Do do not bother looking for a 14th floor in an apartment block, number 14 in a row of houses, or the use or ‘14’ in a number plate or telephone number. Other Chinese numbers to avoid, to a lesser extent, include 4 (which sounds like ‘death’), 5 (which sounds like ‘not’), and 6 (which sounds like ‘decline’). And, as if to bear this out, in our world lives and teaches the fourteenth Dalai Lama, a spiritual hero fated to witness the slow death of his Tibetan homeland.”

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.

Epictetus on Education

“Only the educated are free.”

Epictetus, Discourses (101 A.D.)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Glasgow School

“Glasgow School: A group of painters who gathered in Glasgow, ca 1850-1918, who rejected academic conventionality and painted in a spirited style of naturalism. The best known of them include David Young Cameron and E.A. Walton.”

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

Term of Art: Diacritic, Diacritical Mark

“Diacritic, Diacritical Mark (noun): A distinguishing mark given to a character or letter to indicated stress or pronunciation, such as a superscribed accent; phonetic sign. Adjective: diacritic, diacritical.

‘The ‘etymons,’ as he called them were the root terms for Pass and Fail, but inflected with prefixes, infixes, suffixes, and diacritical marks to such an extent, and so variously from fragment to fragment, that conflicting interpretations, in his opinion, could be said to figure the intellectual biography of studentdom, as has been amply demonstrated in a wealth of what he called Geistesgeschichten…. John Barth, Giles Goat-Boy.'”

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

The Devil’s Dictionary: Rational

“Rational, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

Terms of Art: Anglophile, Anglophobe, Anglophone

“Anglophile: 1. Admiring or loving England and the English and/or the English language: the anglophile party in Scotland. 2. Someone with such an attitude: unrepentant Anglophiles. The term may or may not include Britain as a whole, and non-English Britons may experience Anglophilia.

Anglophobe: 1. Also Anglophobic. Fearing or hating England and the English and/or the English language: Anglophobe reaction. 2. Someone with such an attitude: an inveterate Anglophobe. The term may or may not include Britain as a whole, and non-English Britons may experience Anglophobia.

Anglophone: [Often used without an initial capital]. 1. A speaker of English: (Africa) locally born anglophone whites; (Quebec) certified anglophones, permitted by law to send their children to English-medium schools. 2. Of speakers of English: an anglophone school. The term occurs mainly where French is also used. It contrasts with francophone (French-speaking), allophone (speaking a language other than French or English), arabophone (speaking Arabic), hispanophone (speaking Spanish), lusophone (speaking Portugese), etc.”

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

Rotten Reviews: The Benefactor

Mrs. Sontag is an intelligent writer who has, on her first flight, jettisoned the historical baggage of the novel. However, she has not replaced it with material or insights that carry equal or superior weight…. Instead she has chosen the fashionable imports of neo-existentialist philosophy and tricky contemporary techniques.”

New York Times Book Review

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.