“In science ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’”
Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes “Evolution as Fact and Theory” (1983)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
“(Aristarchus of Samothrace, flourished 156 BC) The greatest critic of antiquity and head of the Alexandrian library. Aristarchus’ labors were chiefly directed to the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. He divided them up into twenty-four books each, marking every doubtful line with an obelus and every one he considered especially beautiful with an asterisk. He succeeded his teacher, Aristophanes of Byzantium, at the library in Alexandria.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged readings/research
Last week I thought I’d posted the last of the short word root exercises I had. However, this morning as I ran the heuristic Hoover around my archives, I found this worksheet on the Greek root olig/o. It is the basis of a word I consider very timely, to wit Oligarchy. Anyway, it means few and deficiency.
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.
“Process of developing abstract rules of mental concepts based on sensory experience. Concept formation figures prominently in cognitive development and was a subject of great importance to J. Piaget, who argued that learning entails an understanding of a phenomenon’s characteristics and how they are logically linked. N. Chomsky has argued that certain cognitive structures (such as basic grammatical rules) are innate in human beings. Both men held that, as a concept emerges, it becomes subject to testing: a child’s concept of “bird,” for example, will be tested against specific instances of birds. The human capacity for play contributes importantly to this process by allowing for consideration of a wide range of possibilities.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“To me the sole hope of human salvation lied in teaching.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
“A film (1976) directed by Alan J. Pakula about the uncovering of the Watergate scandal, based on a book (1974) of the same title by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (played respectively by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman). The president of the title is Richard M. Nixon, and the title refers to the attempts of the president and others in the White House to cover up the scandal. The title plays on a line from the nursery rhyme:
‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Al the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.’”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
Satrap is not exactly a word that turns up very often in the English language. Still, a couple of years ago when I was regularly teaching freshman global studies classes here in New York City, it appeared in various primary documents, and even in textbooks.
So, I developed this context clues worksheet on the noun satrap. The hyperlink above takes you to the Wikipedia page for the word; for the sake of brevity, here is the definition of the noun from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition:
1 : the governor of a province in ancient Persia 2 a : RULER b : a subordinate official : HENCHMAN (Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (Kindle Locations 314939-314941). Merriam-Webster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.)
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.
Late spring cleaning continues at Mark’s Text Terminal, and I’ll take a moment here to post the last of my short word root exercises, this exercise on the Greek root xanth/o. It means yellow. It will turn up at the base of many words in the sciences.
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.
“(1915) A volume of verse epitaphs by Edgar Lee Masters. The men and women of Spoon River narrate their own biographies from the cemetery where they like buried. Realistic and sometimes cynical, the free-verse monologues often contradict the pious and optimistic epitaphs written on the gravestones. The poems made their first appearance in Reedy’s Mirror in 1914 and 1915, and William Marion Reedy himself was partly responsible for their inception: he gave Masters a copy of J.W. Mackall’s Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology. And the style of the Greek poems impressed Masters deeply. New Spoon River (1924) was a less successful sequel.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged poetry, readings/research
“We don’t want so much to see a female Einstein become an assistant professor. We want a woman schlemiel to get promoted as quickly as a male schlemiel.”
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, women's history
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