“The Benedictines follow a rule divided into seventy-three chapters of advice covering every detail of monastic order and the pursuit of a spiritual life. However, there remains an overriding stipulation that the rules exist to help and are not an end in themselves.”
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.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged literary oddities, philosophy/religion
“Kore: (pl., korai) In archaic Greek art, statue of a standing, draped maiden; counterpart to the male Kouros.
Kouros: (pl., kouroi) A type of statue of a standing young man occurring in archaic Greek art. Kouroi are frontally disposed, bilaterally symmetrical, and the left foot is usually advanced.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“adverb: A word of a class traditionally defined as a modifying a verb, e.g. badly in He wrote it badly, seen as a modifier of wrote.
One of the parts of speech established in antiquity. In the grammar of English, the words called adverbs are in practice those whose primary roles is a s modifier of something other than a noun. Thus an adverb such as utterly modifies a verb or verb phrase in They destroyed it utterly, and an adjective in This is utterly crazy. Very modifies an adjective, as in a very big house, or an adverb, as in very badly. Then has its primary role in e.g. I did it then, though it can also modify a noun, e.g. in her then husband. The case for lumping such words together is that many have been formed with the suffix -ly, and their roles often overlap.”
Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
“Readers in this country have a decided and strong preference for works…in which a single and connected story occupies the entire volume.”
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
“Linking Verb: A verb that joins the subject of a sentence to its complement. Professor Chapman is a philosophy teacher. They were ecstatic.”
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
“Dyslexia: An impairment in the ability to read, not resulting from low intelligence. It was first described in 1877 by the German physician Adolf Kussmaul (1822-1902), who coined the term word blindness to refer to it. See also acquired dyslexia, alexia, attentional dyslexia, catalexia, central dyslexias, cognitive neuropsychology, deep dyslexia, developmental dyslexia, neglect dyslexia, phonological dyslexia, spelling dyslexia, surface dyslexia, visual word-form dyslexia. Also called alexia, hypolexia, and word blindness. See also reading disorder, strephosymbolia. Compare hyperlexia. Dyslexic adj.”
Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Last but not least on this stunningly beautiful summer afternoon, here is an English usage worksheet on the noun suspect and the adjective suspicious and differentiating their use in declarative sentences.
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.
“But, because we dared to challenge the Southern tradition of segregation, this school became, instead, a furnace that consumed our youth and forged us into reluctant warriors.”
Melba Patillo Beals, on the Desegregation of Little Rock Schools, Warriors Don’t Cry(1994)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003
“Intransitive Verb: A verb that does not take a direct object. His nerve failed.”
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
“Lusterware: A Middle Eastern luxury item brought to Spain in the late 10th century. Muslim artisans produced iridescent ceramic glazes that appeared as metallic silver, copper, or gold. In the 15th century lusterware tiles and dinnerware were commissioned throughout Europe by princes, cardinals, and popes. Decorative elements included their heraldic emblems along with Moorish signs and symbols.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
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