“Demean for Debase or Degrade. ‘He demeaned himself by accepting charity.’ The word relates, not to meanness, but to demeanor, conduct, behavior. One may demean oneself with dignity and credit.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage, humor, literary oddities
“A generous, sensitive, intelligent and literate book that despite its generosity, sensitivity, humanity, and literacy, manages to be a deadly bore.”
The New Yorker
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
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
“An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in Quotes, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
“Whom did novelist Henry Fielding summon to court for the murder of the English language? Poet laureate Colley Cibber in 1740. Fielding issued the summons under the pseudonym ‘Captain Hercules Vinegar.’”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities, poetry
“A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, ‘In silence.’”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the linguistic concept of spoonerism. This is half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. I can’t remember now why I prepared this; I suspect it will have relatively low utility in most classrooms, but who knows? I cannot in good faith argue that high school students, my own purview, need to understand what a spoonerism is, let alone know or care about William Archibald Spooner.
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 age of the book is almost gone.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes
Tagged literary oddities, philosophy/religion
“There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
“Intoxication, n. A spiritual condition that goeth before the next morning.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
“We are not hypocrites in our sleep.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
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