“Adverb: A word that modifies or otherwise qualifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Gestures gracefully; exceptionally quiet engine.”
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
“Social Fact: A complex notion, with attributes of externality, constraint, and ineluctability. It is to be understood within the context of Emile Durkheim’s conception of collective conscience and collective representations. Social facts are ways of acting which emanate from collectively elaborated and therefore authoritative rules, maxims, and practices, both religious and secular. Norms and institutions are examples of social facts in more or less solidified forms. They constitute practices of the group taken collectively and thus impose themselves and are internalized by the individual. Because they are collectively elaborated they are moral and therefore constrain individual behavior. The interesting problem for sociologists concerns the gap between the ideal representations and the material social organizations and their constituent actions—as, for example, between the socially approved forms and the actual practice.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“Formalism: A central tenet of modernist art criticism that emphasized the importance of line, color, and space (significant form). Representational content was considered irrelevant in the eyes of formalist critics. Since formalism provided ‘objective’ methods for looking at all art whether Western or not, ancient or contemporary, it was thought of as egalitarian. But the advent of Pop Art necessitated a different analysis that went beyond the work itself and examined influences from popular culture. Postmodern approaches to art-making and criticism investigate both form and content, as well as the context of art and its role in society.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“The Manchurian Candidate: A memorable film (1962) directed by John Frankenheimer, based on Richard Condon’s novel of the same name (1959). It tells the story of a Korean War ‘hero’ (played by Laurence Harvey) who returns to the USA as a brainwashed zombie triggered to kill a liberal politician, his ‘control’ being his ambitious mother (played by Angela Lansbury). She goes on to order him to kill the presidential nominee, so that her husband, the vice-presidential candidate, can take over. Manchuria is a region of communist China to the north of North Korea. The expression ‘Manchurian candidate’ has subsequently been used to denote a person who has been brainwashed by some organization or foreign power and programmed to carry out its orders automatically.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
“Theism: A term which refers to the belief in the existence of a divine being, especially in the existence of a single God, who is thought to be personal and who is the Creator of the universe. Theism involves the idea of divine revelation, and consequently is contrasted with deism, the rational belief in divinity independent of faith in a revealed truth.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion, term of art
Here’s an English usage worksheet on using more and most properly in the various grammatical constructions where they are needed.
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.
“Adjective: A word that modifies, quantifies, or otherwise qualifies a noun or pronoun: Drizzly November; midnight dreary; only requirement.”
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
“Subjunctive: Indicating expression of something not actual or real but rather a desire, demand, plan, doubt, requirement, conception, etc., e.g., ‘Were I your sister….’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“The fundamental fact is that LD [learning disabilities] is a topic largely ignored, displaced, or believed invalid by many members of the composition field. Any effort to make research within the field useful to the study of writing problems of students with learning disabilities, and possible solutions to these problems, must necessarily extrapolate from work done with other populations in mind, The questions of how to understand the writing difficulties of students with learning disabilities, and how best to serve them in the writing classroom or tutorial, are fundamentally marginalized.”
Gander, MacLean, and Stuart Strothman. Teaching Writing to Students with Learning Disabilities: A Landmark College Guide. Putney, VT: Landmark College, 2001.
“Sgraffito: (It., scratched; pl. sgraffiti) A technique of decorating stuccoed surfaces, in which a layer of colored plaster is laid over a dry underlayer and then incised with designs while still damp—making use of the contrasting color of the underlayer. Also, a drawing or words hastily scratched or written on a wall.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
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