Tag Archives: professional development

Mateo Aleman

Posted on September 19, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Mateo Aleman: (1547-after 1613) Spanish novelist. The son of a prison doctor, Aleman studied in Seville, Salamanca, and Alcala, and spent some twenty years as a government accountant. He was twice imprisoned for debt. In 1608 he went to Mexico in the company of Archbishop Garcia Guerra, whose life he published in 1613.

Aleman is remembered chiefly as the author of Guzman de Alfarache, the second great picaresque novel, after Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). The first part appeared in 1599, and, after Juan Jose Marti, a Valencian lawyer, produced a spurious sequel (1602), Aleman himself wrote a continuation (1604), in which he good-naturedly lampooned Marti. Aleman also wrote a biography of Saint Anthony of Padua (1604) and Ortografia castellana (1609), a treatise on spelling.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Frida Kahlo

Posted on September 19, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Frida (Magdalena Carmen) Kahlo (y Calderon de Rivera): (1907-1954) Mexican painter. The daughter of a German-Jewish photographer, she had polio as a child and at 18 suffered a serious bus accident. She subsequently underwent some 35 operations; during her recovery, she taught herself to paint. Her marriage to Diego Rivera (from 1929) was tumultuous but artistically rewarding. She is noted for her intense, bizarre, brightly colored self-portraits, many reflecting her physical ordeal, which incorporate primitivistic elements but are executed with a fine technique. The Surrealists Andre Breton and Marcel Duchamp helped arrange exhibits of her work in the U.S. and Europe, and though she denied the connection, she is often identified as a Surrealist. She died at 47. Her house in Coyoacan is now the Frida Kahlo Museum.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Dangler

Posted on September 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Dangler (noun): A misplaced modifier or dependent segment of a sentence that often suggests an unintended or jarringly humorous meaning because of its isolation from what it properly refers to, e.g., ‘Sprinting ahead, the cave was soon only yards away’; phrase or clause separated from its antecedent; unattached modifier or participle. Also DANGLING MODIFIER

‘Strictly speaking, as Jesperson notes, strictly speaking is always a loose participle—perhaps if Newman had known anything at all about grammar he would avoided that ‘dangler’ for the title of his first book.’ Jim Quinn, American Tongue and Cheek”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins: Aborigine

Posted on September 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

“aborigine [M19th] This is a shortening of the 16th-century plural aborigines ‘original inhabitants,’ which in classical times referred to the early people of Italy and Greece. The word comes from the Latin phrase ab origine ‘from the beginning.’ Now both Aborigines and Aboriginals are standard plural forms when referring to Australian Aboriginal people, a specialized use that dates from the 1820s.”

Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

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Multiples

Posted on September 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Multiples: Works of art theoretically made in unlimited numbers—in contrast with works made in traditional editions—which are slightly altered in style from their originals. Multiples by Alexander Calder, Claes Oldenburg, and others were introduced in the 1960s, when they were promoted by private art galleries.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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Capital

Posted on September 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Capital: 1. Man-made material resource used or available for use in production, for example machinery. This is also referred to as physical capital. See also HUMAN CAPITAL. 2. Material or financial wealth, accumulated by an individual or a company, that can be used to generate income. See also HUMAN CAPITAL.”

Excerpted from: Black, John, Nigar Hashimzade, and Gareth Miles. Oxford Dictionary of Economics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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Term of Art: Socialization

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

“socialization: A process by which people learn to cooperate with others toward common goals, or at least to act appropriately when placed in contact with others.”

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

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Bauhaus

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Bauhaus: (German, ‘house of architecture’) A school of architecture and design, founded in Weimar Germany, in 1919 by Walter Gropius. The school stressed functionalism in art and tried to unite the creative arts and the technology of modern mass production with 20th-century architecture. In addition to more strictly architectural studies, courses in painting, handicrafts, the theatre, and typography were given by outstanding artists, including Lyonel Feininger, Vassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee. Functionalism, or the international style, in architecture and a number of examples of industrial design, such as the tubular lighting and steel furniture of Marcel Breuer, were first developed at the Bauhaus. In 1925, the school moved to the buildings designed for it by Gropius in Dessau; three years later, Mies van der Rohe became its director.

The Bauhaus was attacked by Hitler’s regime, and in 1933 it was forced to close. However, its great influence on modern architecture and design continued in Europe and the U.S. through its masters and students.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Lazlo Moholy-Nagy

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Lazlo Moholy-Nagy: (1895-1946) Hungarian painter, photographer, and art teacher. After studying law in Budapest, he went to Berlin in 1919, and in 1923 he took charge of the metal workshop of the Bauhaus as well as the Bauhaus-book series of publications. As painter and photographer he worked predominantly with light, His ‘photograms’ were composed directly on film, and his ‘light modulators’ (oil paintings on transparent or polished surfaces) included mobile light effects. As an educator, he developed a widely accepted curriculum to develop students’ natural visual gifts instead of specialized skills. Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1935, he went to London and then to Chicago, where he organized and headed the New Bauhaus.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Crusade

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Crusade (noun): A journalistic focus on a cause or an abuse, such as a needed political corruption of governmental measure; purposive, editorialized, civic-minded reporting. Noun: crusader; verb: crusade.

‘The truth is that this crusading business is one of the worst curses of journalism, and perhaps the main enemy of that fairness and accuracy and intelligent purpose which should mark the self-respecting newspaper. It trades upon one of the sorriest weaknesses of man—the desire to see the other fellow jump. It is at the heart of that Puritanical frenzy, that obscene psychic sadism, which is our national vice. No newspaper, carrying on a crusade against a man, ever does it fairly and decently; not many of them even make the pretense.’ H.L. Mencken, A Gang of Pecksniffs”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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