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.

Term of Art: Theory Theory

“theory theory: The idea that very young children actively construct and test theories about how the world works. According to this concept, a child holds an established theory until he or she encounters and anomaly that forces a paradigm shift and the adoption of a new theory. Theory theory is an application of the ideas first expressed by Thomas Kuhn in 1962 in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. See also paradigm.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

A Learning Support on Using a Comma to Indicate Omitted Words in a Repeated Pattern

Here is a learning support on using a comma to indicate omitted words in a repeated pattern. This is the eighth of fifteen related supports on commas on this blog. (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.

70 Cups of Poison

“The Seventy Cups of Poison are the various sorts of drugs, drinks, devilments and debaucheries available to man. The phrase appears in a description of a seventeenth-century parade in Istanbul: ‘comics, mimic, and mischievous boys of the town, who have exhausted seventy cups of the poison of life and misrule, crowd together day and night…they are divided into twelve companies, the first gypsy, the last Jewish, which included two hundred youths all tumblers, jugglers, fire-eaters, ball players, and cup bearers.’”

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.

Derogatory

“Derogatory: Disparaging and offensive, a term often used in dictionaries (usually abbreviated to derog) to label expressions that intentionally offend or disparage: skinny when used instead of thin; American English ass-hole for someone considered stupid, mean, or nasty.”

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

A Learning Support on Using a Comma to Set off a Quotation

Here is a learning support on using a comma to set off a quotation. This is the seventh of fifteen forthcoming learning supports on quotations. (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.

Mark Twain on Civilization

“Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.”

Mark Twain

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Rotten Reviews: On Robert Frost

“If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes.”

James Dickey

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

A Learning Support on Using a Comma to Indicate Direct Address

Here is a learning support on using a comma to indicate direct address. This is the sixth of a total of fifteen of these documents on 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.

Write It Right: Combine for Combination

“Combine for Combination. The word, in this sense, has something of the meaning of conspiracy, but there is no justification for it as a noun, in any sense.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

Derivative

“Derivative: 1. A word or other item of language that has been created according to a set of rules from a simpler word or item. 2. A complex word: girlhood from girl, legal from leg- (law), legalize from legal. 3. Of an essay, article, thesis, etc., and usually pejorative: depending on an earlier and better piece of work.”

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