“
I know there's no way I can convince you this is not one of their tricks, but I don't care, I am me. My name is Valerie, I don't think I'll live much longer and I wanted to tell someone about my life. This is the only autobiography ill ever write, and god, I'm writing it on toilet paper. I was born in Nottingham in 1985, I don't remember much of those early years, but I do remember the rain. My grandmother owned a farm in Tuttlebrook, and she use to tell me that god was in the rain. I passed my 11th lesson into girl's grammar; it was at school that I met my first girlfriend, her name was Sara. It was her wrists. They were beautiful. I thought we would love each other forever. I remember our teacher telling us that is was an adolescent phase people outgrew. Sara did, I didn't. In 2002 I fell in love with a girl named Christina. That year I came out to my parents. I couldn't have done it without Chris holding my hand. My father wouldn't look at me, he told me to go and never come back. My mother said nothing. But I had only told them the truth, was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us, but within that inch, we are free. I'd always known what I wanted to do with my life, and in 2015 I starred in my first film, "The Salt Flats". It was the most important role of my life, not because of my career, but because that was how I met Ruth. The first time we kissed, I knew I never wanted to kiss any other lips but hers again. We moved to a small flat in London together. She grew Scarlet Carsons for me in our window box, and our place always smelled of roses. Those were there best years of my life. But America's war grew worse, and worse. And eventually came to London. After that there were no roses anymore. Not for anyone. I remember how the meaning of words began to change. How unfamiliar words like collateral and rendition became frightening. While things like Norse Fire and The Articles of Allegiance became powerful, I remember how different became dangerous. I still don't understand it, why they hate us so much. They took Ruth while she was out buying food. I've never cried so hard in my life. It wasn't long till they came for me.It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years, I had roses, and apologized to no one. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An Inch, it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you. -Valerie
”
”
Alan Moore (V for Vendetta)
“
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is no problem with changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.
The major problem is simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be descibed differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is futher complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.
Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later aditions of the book all pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2))
“
Our great mistake in education is, as it seems to me, the worship of book-learning–the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children in our elementary schools are wearied by the mechanical act of writing, and the interminable intricacies of spelling; they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation to their daily wants and occupations; while in our public schools the same unfortunate results are produced by the weary monotony of Latin and Greek grammar. We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children–to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavor to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts. The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have forgotten almost all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach himself more than the first ever knew.
”
”
John Lubbock (The Pleasures of Life)
“
...why, when people write words do they capitalize “I”? Why not capitalize “You” too? For You are as important as I am. It’s hard for me to understand the human ways.
”
”
Kate McGahan (JACK McAFGHAN: Reflections on Life with my Master)
“
In ways that certain of us are uncomfortable about, SNOOTs’ attitudes about contemporary usage resemble religious/political conservatives’ attitudes about contemporary culture. We combine a missionary zeal and a near-neural faith in our beliefs’ importance with a curmudgeonly hell-in-a-handbasket despair at the way English is routinely manhandled and corrupted by supposedly educated people. The Evil is all around us: boners and clunkers and solecistic howlers and bursts of voguish linguistic methane that make any SNOOT’s cheek twitch and forehead darken. A fellow SNOOT I know likes to say that listening to most people’s English feels like watching somebody use a Stradivarius to pound nails: We are the Few, the Proud, the Appalled at Everyone Else.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Consider the Lobster and Other Essays)
“
In this chthonian world the only thing of importance is orthography and punctuation. It doesn't matter what the nature of the calamity is, only whether it is spelled right.
”
”
Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer (Tropic, #1))
“
You never say good-bye in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. You just say "see you later". It's important to people in the Land-of-Almost-Awake that it should be this way, because they believe that nothing really ever completely dies. It just turns into a story, undergoes a little shift in grammar, changes tense from "now" to "then".
”
”
Fredrik Backman (My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry)
“
It’s important to people in the Land-of-Almost-Awake that it should be this way, because they believe that nothing really ever completely dies. It just turns into a story, undergoes a little shift in grammar, changes tense from ‘now’ to ‘then’. A
”
”
Fredrik Backman (My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises)
“
Most people of my grandparents' generation had an intuitive sense of agricultural basics ... This knowledge has vanished from our culture.
We also have largely convinced ourselves it wasn't too important. Consider how many Americans might respond to a proposal that agriculture was to become a mandatory subject in all schools ... A fair number of parents would get hot under the collar to see their kids' attention being pulled away from the essentials of grammar, the all-important trigonometry, to make room for down-on-the-farm stuff. The baby boom psyche embraces a powerful presumption that education is a key to moving away from manual labor and dirt--two undeniable ingredients of farming. It's good enough for us that somebody, somewhere, knows food production well enough to serve the rest of us with all we need to eat, each day of our lives.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
“
The rules of grammar are just as important as the rules of engagement in war. Without them, we are barbarians,” I argued.
”
”
Shayne Silvers (Obsidian Son (The Temple Chronicles, #1))
“
Punctuation is important, but the rules are changing. Spelling is important today in a way that it wasn't when Shakespeare was a boy. Grammar isn't set in stone.
”
”
Gyles Brandreth (Have You Eaten Grandma?)
“
The basic pleasure in the phonetic elements of a language and in the style of their patterns, and then in a higher dimension, pleasure in the association of these word-forms with meanings, is of fundamental importance. This pleasure is quite distinct from the practical knowledge of a language, and not the same as an analytic understanding of its structure. It is simpler, deeper-rooted, and yet more immediate than the enjoyment of literature. Though it may be allied to some of the elements in the appreciation of verse, it does not need any poets, other than the nameless artists who composed the language. It can be strongly felt in the simple contemplation of a vocabulary, or even in a string of names.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays)
“
Today, I learned, the comma, this is, a, comma (,) a period, with, a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its, importent, because, it makes writing, better, she said, somebody, could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the right, place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont, see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it, But, she says, everybody, uses commas, so Ill, use them, too,,,,
”
”
Daniel Keyes (Flowers for Algernon)
“
Like prepositional phrases, certain structural arrangements in English are much more important than the small bones of grammar in its most technical sense. It really wouldn't matter much if we started dropping the s from our plurals. Lots of words get along without it anyway, and in most cases context would be enough to indicate number. Even the distinction between singular and plural verb forms is just as much a polite convention as an essential element of meaning. But the structures, things like passives and prepositional phrases, constitute, among other things, an implicit system of moral philosophy, a view of the world and its presumed meanings, and their misuse therefore often betrays an attitude or value that the user might like to disavow.
”
”
Richard Mitchell (Less Than Words Can Say)
“
Even though being a good speller has lost its ranking in school, we can hope there is one group of artisans that still finds spelling important…the tattoo artist
”
”
Nanette L. Avery
“
In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing.
”
”
Susan Sontag (On Photography)
“
The reality is that most of us grow up strapped in an educational system that favors obedience over independent thinking. We’re rewarded for trusting authority, and punished for challenging it. We focus on memorizing the stuff other people came up with—formulas in math, grammar rules in English, theories in physics, cell functions in biology—rather than grasping the logic behind our most important breakthroughs and tracing the footsteps of their discovery. We answer test questions with what we think our teacher wants to hear. We chase grades instead of knowledge. And worst of all, we leave the classroom woefully unequipped with the thinking skills that matter most: how to balance open-mindedness with skepticism, how to identify bias, and how to challenge assumptions—including our own—in a way that’s truly objective.
”
”
Denise Minger (Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our Health)
“
And this is the sense of the word "grammar" which our inaccurate student detests, and this is the sense of the word which every sensible tutor will maintain. His maxim is "a little, but well"; that is, really know what you say you know: know what you know and what you do not know; get one thing well before you go on to a second; try to ascertain what your words mean; when you read a sentence, picture it before your mind as a whole, take in the truth or information contained in it, express it in your own words, and, if it be important, commit it to the faithful memory. Again, compare one idea with another; adjust truths and facts; form them into one whole, or notice the obstacles which occur in doing so. This is the way to make progress; this is the way to arrive at results; not to swallow knowledge, but (according to the figure sometimes used) to masticate and digest it.
”
”
John Henry Newman (The Idea of a University)
“
One summer day when I was about ten, I sat on a stoop, chatting with a group of girls my age. We were all in pigtails and shorts and basically just killing time. What were we discussing? It could have been anything—school, our older brothers, an anthill on the ground. At one point, one of the girls, a second, third, or fourth cousin of mine, gave me a sideways look and said, just a touch hotly, “How come you talk like a white girl?” The question was pointed, meant as an insult or at least a challenge, but it also came from an earnest place. It held a kernel of something that was confusing for both of us. We seemed to be related but of two different worlds. “I don’t,” I said, looking scandalized that she’d even suggest it and mortified by the way the other girls were now staring at me. But I knew what she was getting at. There was no denying it, even if I just had. I did speak differently than some of my relatives, and so did Craig. Our parents had drilled into us the importance of using proper diction, of saying “going” instead of “goin’ ” and “isn’t” instead of “ain’t.” We were taught to finish off our words. They bought us a dictionary and a full Encyclopaedia Britannica set, which lived on a shelf in the stairwell to our apartment, its titles etched in gold. Any time we had a question about a word, or a concept, or some piece of history, they directed us toward those books. Dandy, too, was an influence, meticulously correcting our grammar or admonishing us to enunciate our words when we went over for dinner. The idea was we were to transcend, to get ourselves further. They’d planned for it. They encouraged it. We were expected not just to be smart but to own our smartness—to inhabit it with pride—and this filtered down to how we spoke.
”
”
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
“
Without the Oxford comma, you can give people the wrong idea. Famously, the London Times newspaper once ran a brief description of a television documentary featuring Peter Ustinov, promising: Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.
”
”
Gyles Brandreth (Have You Eaten Grandma?: Or, the Life-Saving Importance of Correct Punctuation, Grammar, and Good English)
“
[...] Is it conceivable to western minds that a mere treatise on grammar or geography, or even on commerce, should at the same time possess another meaning that makes it an initiatic work of great importance ? So it is nonetheless, and these are not chance examples; these three cases are from books that very really exist and that we actually have in our hands. [...]
”
”
René Guénon (Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles (Collected Works of Rene Guenon))
“
The singular they has a rich history in English, and as I learned on one blog, it is more important to be respectful than to be right. I was caught up in the rules of grammar instead of the function of language. Thank you for educating me, and I hope that you’ll keep letting me know when I need to catch up to speed. And I’m going to do my best so that you won’t have to.
”
”
Alex Gino (Rick)
“
That we take plant words in through our nose or our skin or our eyes or our tongue instead of our ears does not make their language less subtle, or sophisticated, or less filled with meaning. As the soul of a human being can never be understood from its chemistry or grammar, so cannot plant purpose, intelligence, or soul. Plants are much more than the sum of their parts. And they have been talking to us a long time.
”
”
Stephen Harrod Buhner (The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicine to Life on Earth)
“
Though bad writing has always been with us, the rules of correct usage are the smallest part of the problem. Any competent copy editor can turn a passage that is turgid, opaque, and filled with grammatical errors into a passage that is turgid, opaque, and free of grammatical errors. Rules of usage are well worth mastering, but they pale in importance behind principles of clarity, style, coherence, and consideration for the reader.
”
”
Steven Pinker
“
The fairy tale belongs to the child and ought always to be within his reach, not only because it is his special literary form and his nature craves it, but because it is one of the most vital of the textbooks offered to him in the school of life. In ultimate importance it outranks the arithmetic, the grammar, the geography, the manuals of science; for without the aid of the imagination none of these books is really comprehensible.
”
”
Hamilton Wright Mabie (Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know)
“
If a physics textbook operated on Descriptivist principles, the fact that some Americans believe electricity flows better downhill (based on the observed fact that power lines tend to run high above the homes they serve) would require the Electricity Flows Better Downhill Hypothesis to be included as a “valid” theory in the textbook—just as, for Dr. Fries, if some Americans use infer for imply or aspect for perspective, these usages become ipso facto “valid” parts of the language. The truth is that structural linguists like Gove and Fries are not scientists at all; they’re pollsters who misconstrue the importance of the “facts” they are recording. It isn’t scientific phenomena they’re observing and tabulating, but rather a set of human behaviors, and a lot of human behaviors are—to be blunt—moronic. Try, for instance, to imagine an “authoritative” ethics textbook whose principles were based on what most people actually do. Grammar and usage conventions are, as it happens, a lot more like ethical principles than like scientific theories.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Consider the Lobster and Other Essays)
“
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history – the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end. The major problem is quite simply one of grammar,
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five)
“
I learned to teach grammar. And then I realized that we can't separate these two things. We have to do them together because they're integral. That's when I learned how important grammar is, that part of the understanding process is grammatical. That's how I taught myself to write prose. I keep learning and learning. I'd come into my class and say, "Guess what I found out last night. Tenses are a way of ordering the chaos around time." I learned that grammar was not arbitrary, that it served a purpose, that it helped to form the way we through, that it could be freeing as well as restrictive.
”
”
Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
“
8 Ways to Shine a Positive Light on Others
1. Let the other person appear smart. The person who desperately tries to be the smartest person in the room inevitably comes off as the least.
2. Don’t bring attention to anything which may embarrass another person. Whether your conversation partner has poor grammar, a pimple on his chin, or lacks social grace, a discreet person does not say or do anything which would make another feel ashamed, embarrassed, or humiliated. Allow the other person to maintain his own grace and dignity.
3. Ask their opinions, seek their advice, ask them inquiring questions. By allowing them to reveal their opinions and knowledge, you will demonstrate respect and make them feel important.
4. Practice patience. Sometimes it takes a person a moment to gather her thoughts, process information, or respond appropriately. Your patience is respectful and appreciated.
5. Maintain your calm. Rather than react with anger or defensiveness, regulate your response and shift the energy into a more positive direction.
6. Put your ego aside. Allow another to triumph and enjoy the spotlight.
7. Be aware and concerned for the feelings of others.
8. Purposely seek ways to put others at ease and make them feel comfortable.
”
”
Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is no problem about changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end. The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveler’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1-5))
“
University, organized on the Soviet system, was just like high school: daily classes from 9-2 p.m., daily written assignments; attendance strictly kept, no choice of courses beside the major. We studied Ukrainian, Russian grammar as well as literature. It sounds ridiculous, but we learned spelling in one lesson and had to read Pushkin, in the original text, next period. The same was repeated with Ukrainian spelling, grammar and also the reading of poetry by Taras Shevchenko. That was similar to learning the verbs to be or to have and read also Shakespeare. (Actually, that was how I learned English in 1938.) The subjects that were most important: History of the Party and Dialectic Materialism. That had to be learned the way they explained it and no questions should be asked; no doubts were permitted.
”
”
Pearl Fichman (Before Memories Fade)
“
Our parents had drilled us under the importance of using proper diction, of saying “going” instead of “goin” and “isn’t” instead of “ain’t “. We were taught to finish off words. They bought us a dictionary and a full Encyclopedia Britannica set, which lived on a shelf in the stairwell to our apartment, its titles etched in gold. Any time we had a question about a word, or a concept, or some piece of history, they directed us toward those books. Dandy, too, was an influence, meticulously correcting our grammar and admonishing us to enunciate our words when we went over for dinner. The idea was we were to transcend, to get ourselves further. They’d planned for it. They encouraged it. We were expected not just to be smart but to own our smartness – to inhabit it with pride – and this filtered down to how we spoke.
”
”
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
“
Grammar and usage conventions are, as it happens, a lot more like ethical principles than like scientific theories. The reason the Descriptivists can’t see this is the same reason they choose to regard the English language as the sum of all English utterances: they confuse mere regularities with norms. Norms aren’t quite the same as rules, but they’re close. A norm can be defined here simply as something that people have agreed on as the optimal way to do things for certain purposes. Let’s keep in mind that language didn’t come into being because our hairy ancestors were sitting around the veldt with nothing better to do. Language was invented to serve certain very specific purposes—“That mushroom is poisonous”; “Knock these two rocks together and you can start a fire”; “This shelter is mine!” and so on. Clearly, as linguistic communities evolve over time, they discover that some ways of using language are better than others—not better a priori, but better with respect to the community’s purposes. If we assume that one such purpose might be communicating which kinds of food are safe to eat, then we can see how, for example, a misplaced modifier could violate an important norm: “People who eat that kind of mushroom often get sick” confuses the message’s recipient about whether he’ll get sick only if he eats the mushroom frequently or whether he stands a good chance of getting sick the very first time he eats it. In other words, the fungiphagic community has a vested practical interest in excluding this kind of misplaced modifier from acceptable usage; and, given the purposes the community uses language for, the fact that a certain percentage of tribesmen screw up and use misplaced modifiers to talk about food safety does not eo ipso make m.m.’s a good idea.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Consider The Lobster: Essays and Arguments)
“
The studies reviewed above provide evidence to support the intuitions of teachers and learners that instruction based on the ‘Get it right from the beginning’ proposal has important limitations. Learners receiving audiolingual or grammar-translation instruction are often unable to communicate their messages and intentions effectively in a second language. Experience has also shown that primarily or exclusively structure-based approaches to teaching do not guarantee that learners develop high levels of accuracy and linguistic knowledge. In fact, it is often very difficult to determine what students know about the target language. The classroom emphasis on accuracy often leads learners to feel inhibited and reluctant to take chances in using their knowledge for communication. The results from these studies provide evidence that learners benefit from opportunities for communicative practice in contexts where the emphasis is on understanding and expressing meaning.
”
”
Patsy M. Lightbown (How Languages are Learned)
“
some people since the mid-nineteenth century have argued that William Shakespeare could not have written the plays that bear his name. These persons have put forward some dozen names as more likely authors, among them Queen Elizabeth, Sir Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere (earl of Oxford), and Christopher Marlowe. Such attempts to find what for these people is a more believable author of the plays is a tribute to the regard in which the plays are held. Unfortunately for their claims, the documents that exist that provide evidence for the facts of Shakespeare’s life tie him inextricably to the body of plays and poems that bear his name. Unlikely as it seems to those who want the works to have been written by an aristocrat, a university graduate, or an “important” person, the plays and poems seem clearly to have been produced by a man from Stratford-upon-Avon with a very good “grammar-school” education and a life of experience in London and in the world of the London theater.
(Folger Shakespeare)
”
”
Barbara A. Mowat William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
“
…illuminates the flow of my writing, perhaps too nervous for a future reader to decipher. Perhaps this diary will come to light many, many years after my death, when our language will have undergone who knows what transformations, and some words and expressions I use normally will seem outdated and of ambiguous meaning. In any case, the person who finds this diary will have one certain advantage over me: with a written language it is always possible to reconstruct a dictionary and grammar, isolate sentences and transcribe them or paraphrase them in another language, whereas I am trying to read in the succession of things presented to me every day the world’s intentions toward me, and I grope my way, knowing that there can exist no dictionary that will translate into words the burden of obscure allusions that lurk in these things. I would like this hovering of presentiments and suspicions to reach the person who reads me not as accidental obstacles to understanding what I write, but as its very substance; and if the process of my thoughts seem elusive to him, who setting out from radically changed mental habits, will seek to follow it, the important thing is that I convey to him the effort I am making to read between the lines of things the evasive meaning of what is in store for me.
”
”
Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler)
“
Even male children of affluent white families think that history as taught in high school is “too neat and rosy.” 6 African American, Native American, and Latino students view history with a special dislike. They also learn history especially poorly. Students of color do only slightly worse than white students in mathematics. If you’ll pardon my grammar, nonwhite students do more worse in English and most worse in history.7 Something intriguing is going on here: surely history is not more difficult for minorities than trigonometry or Faulkner. Students don’t even know they are alienated, only that they “don’t like social studies” or “aren’t any good at history.” In college, most students of color give history departments a wide berth. Many history teachers perceive the low morale in their classrooms. If they have a lot of time, light domestic responsibilities, sufficient resources, and a flexible principal, some teachers respond by abandoning the overstuffed textbooks and reinventing their American history courses. All too many teachers grow disheartened and settle for less. At least dimly aware that their students are not requiting their own love of history, these teachers withdraw some of their energy from their courses. Gradually they end up going through the motions, staying ahead of their students in the textbooks, covering only material that will appear on the next test. College teachers in most disciplines are happy when their students have had significant exposure to the subject before college. Not teachers in history. History professors in college routinely put down high school history courses. A colleague of mine calls his survey of American history “Iconoclasm I and II,” because he sees his job as disabusing his charges of what they learned in high school to make room for more accurate information. In no other field does this happen. Mathematics professors, for instance, know that non-Euclidean geometry is rarely taught in high school, but they don’t assume that Euclidean geometry was mistaught. Professors of English literature don’t presume that Romeo and Juliet was misunderstood in high school. Indeed, history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become. Perhaps I do not need to convince you that American history is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us. We need to know our history, and according to sociologist C. Wright Mills, we know we do.8
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
The aim is to get the students actively involved in seeking this evidence: their role is not simply to do tasks as decided by teachers, but to actively manage and understand their learning gains. This includes evaluating their own progress, being more responsible for their learning, and being involved with peers in learning together about gains in learning. If students are to become active evaluators of their own progress, teachers must provide the students with appropriate feedback so that they can engage in this task. Van den Bergh, Ros, and Beijaard (2010: 3) describe the task thus: Fostering active learning seems a very challenging and demanding task for teachers, requiring knowledge of students’ learning processes, skills in providing guidance and feedback and classroom management. The need is to engage students in this same challenging and demanding task. The suggestion in this chapter is to start lessons with helping students to understand the intention of the lesson and showing them what success might look like at the end. Many times, teachers look for the interesting beginning to a lesson – for the hook, and the motivating question. Dan Willingham (2009) has provided an excellent argument for not thinking in this way. He advocates starting with what the student is likely to think about. Interesting hooks, demonstrations, fascinating facts, and likewise may seem to be captivating (and often are), but he suggests that there are likely to be other parts of the lesson that are more suitable for the attention-grabber. The place for the attention-grabber is more likely to be at the end of the lesson, because this will help to consolidate what has been learnt. Most importantly,Willingham asks teachers to think long and hard about how to make the connection between the attention-grabber and the point that it is designed to make; preferably, that point will be the main idea from the lesson. Having too many open-ended activities (discovery learning, searching the Internet, preparing PowerPoint presentations) can make it difficult to direct students’ attention to that which matters – because they often love to explore the details, the irrelevancies, and the unimportant while doing these activities. One of Willingham's principles is that any teaching method is most useful when there is plenty of prompt feedback about whether the student is thinking about a problem in the right way. Similarly, he promotes the notion that assignments should be primarily about what the teacher wants the students to think about (not about demonstrating ‘what they know’). Students are very good at ignoring what you say (‘I value connections, deep ideas, your thoughts’) and seeing what you value (corrections to the grammar, comments on referencing, correctness or absence of facts). Thus teachers must develop a scoring rubric for any assignment before they complete the question or prompts, and show the rubric to the students so that they know what the teacher values. Such formative feedback can reinforce the ‘big ideas’ and the important understandings, and help to make the investment of
”
”
John Hattie (Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning)
“
To begin with, it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting-up of a "standard English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called "good prose style." On the other hand it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about. In prose the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing, you probably hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures or sensations. Afterwards one can choose--not simply accept--the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impression one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally.
”
”
George Orwell (All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays)
“
He was the son of a very wealthy industrialist who was to play a rather important part in the organizing of the next International Exhibition. I was struck by how knowledgeable this young man and the other few male friends of the girls were in things like clothes, ways of wearing them, cigars, English drinks, horses—a form of erudition that in him was highly developed, which he wore with a proud infallibility, reminiscent of the scholar’s modest reticence—an expertise that was quite selfsufficient, without the slightest need for any accompanying intellectual cultivation. He could not be faulted on the appropriate occasions for wearing dinner jacket or pajamas, but he had no idea of how to use certain words, or even of the most elementary rules of good grammar. That disparity between two cultures must have been shared by his father, who, in his capacity as president of the Association of Property Owners of Balbec, had written an open letter to his constituents, now to be seen as a placard on all the walls, in which he said, “I was desirous of talking to the Mayor about this matter, however, he was of a mind to not hear me out on my just demands.” At the Casino, Octave won prizes in all the dancing competitions—the Boston dip, the tango, and so on—a qualification, if he should ever need one, for a good marriage, among seaside society, a milieu in which a young girl quite literally ends up married to her “partner.” He lit a cigar and said to Albertine, “If you don’t mind,” as one excuses oneself for going on with an urgent piece of work in the presence of someone. For he always “had to be doing something,” though in fact he never did anything. Just as a total lack of activity can eventually have the same effects as overwork, whether in the emotional domain or in the domain of the body and its muscles, the constant intellectual vacuum that resided behind the pensive forehead of Octave had had the result, despite his undisturbed air, of giving him ineffectual urges to think, which kept him awake at night, as though he were a metaphysician with too much on his mind.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
“
proper construction of sentences is very important to good writing. The following
”
”
Frederick William Hamilton (Word Study and English Grammar A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses)
“
Writing is not a relationship status, than why to make it complicated. Keep it simple.
It doesn't matter if your grammar is up & down. Important thing is to convey your message to the audience.Write to express not to impress.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla
“
The rules of grammar are just as important as the rules of engagement in war. Without them, we are barbarians,
”
”
Shayne Silvers (Obsidian Son (The Temple Chronicles, #1))
“
Why is it that languages always change? It's easy enough to see why we need to have common agreements on grammar and vocabulary in order to be able to talk to one other. But if that's all that we need language for, one would think that, once a given set of speakers found a grammar and vocabulary that suited their purposes, they'd simply stick with it, perhaps changing the vocabulary around if there was some new thing to talk about--a new trend or invention, an imported vegetable--but otherwise, leaving well enough alone. In fact, this never happens. We don't know of a single recorded example of a language that, over the course of, say, a century, did not change both in sound and structure. This is true even of the languages of the most "traditional" societies; it happens even where elaborate institutional structures have been created--like grammar schools, or the Académie Française--to ensure that it does not. No doubt some of this is the result of sheer rebelliousness (young people trying to set themselves off from elders, for example) but it's hard to escape the conclusion that ultimately, what we are really confronting here is the play principle in its purest form. Human beings, whether they speak Arapesh, Hopi, or Norwegian, just find it boring to say things the same way all the time. They're always going to play around at least a little. And this playing around will always have cumulative effects. (p. 200)
”
”
David Graeber (The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy)
“
Rule #6 – Always tell everyone what they want to hear. That nondesigner dress is absolutely divine. World peace is very important to me. I had no idea that sex tape would be released.
”
”
Jenny Baranick (Kiss My Asterisk: A Feisty Guide to Punctuation and Grammar)
“
First impressions stick. That’s why it’s so important that we do tedious things like remember to wear deodorant, brush our teeth, and insert commas in the correct places. I mean, imagine what you would think of me if these were the first sentences of mine that you met: When I eat my sister always picks off my plate. If you’re ever in the mood to give head over to the local charity.
”
”
Jenny Baranick (Kiss My Asterisk: A Feisty Guide to Punctuation and Grammar)
“
In the course of the vicious Gothic Wars of the mid-sixth century and their still more miserable aftermath, the last commercial workshops of book production folded, and the vestiges of the book market fell apart. Therefore, again almost inadvertently, monastic rules necessitated that monks carefully preserve and copy those books that they already possessed. But all trade with the papyrus makers of Egypt had long vanished, and in the absence of a commercial book market, the commercial industry for converting animal skins to writing surfaces had fallen into abeyance. Therefore, once again almost inadvertently, monastic rules necessitated that monks learn the laborious art of making parchment and salvaging existing parchment. Without wishing to emulate the pagan elites by placing books or writing at the center of society, without affirming the importance of rhetoric or grammar, without prizing either learning or debate, monks nonetheless became the principal readers, librarians, book preservers, and book producers of the Western world.
”
”
Stephen Greenblatt (The Swerve: How the World Became Modern)
“
For the first time in his life, he felt like he was developing his reflexes. He began to sense the rhythms and patterns of her assaults. Strength, he discovered, was not as important as balance, and balance was not as important as anticipation. He began to predict some of her attacks by the slight shifts in her stance or the tightening of her shoulders. He could sometimes anticipate the trajectory of her foot or staff, even if he couldn’t always get out of the way of the blow. Occasionally, he’d enjoy a little success, a dodge or parry, and immediately afterward would begin to analyze his success. He’d ponder how fighting had a grammar all its own, and war had its syntax.
”
”
Josiah Bancroft (Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel #1))
“
When we apply motivated reasoning to assessments about ourselves, we produce that positive picture of a world in which we are all above average. If we’re better at grammar than arithmetic, we give linguistic knowledge more weight in our view of what is important, whereas if we are good at adding but bad at grammar, we think language skills just aren’t that crucial. If we are ambitious, determined, and persistent, we believe that goal-oriented people make the most effective leaders; if we see ourselves as approachable, friendly, and extroverted, we feel that the best leaders are people-oriented. We even recruit our memories to brighten our picture of ourselves.
”
”
Leonard Mlodinow (Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior)
“
A new revolutionary grammar also begins with a cold defense of hopelessness. One of the system’s most effective tricks is the cruel lie of reform. Hope gives life to the system, prolonging its brutal existence. It breeds nostalgia. The system—with a new president, a new prime minister, and so on—will be redeemed. Liberal democracy can get a reboot. It can still deliver on its emancipatory promises. Hopelessness interrupts this postpolitical calculus. Without this sense of hopelessness, we would never demand something qualitatively different. Politics as such would be inexistent. Hopelessness opens onto pessimism, onto a critical and skeptical hermeneutics. Pessimism is a political doing; it embodies an active and vigilant disposition vis-à-vis power. We might recall here Foucault’s insistence that power doesn’t mean “that everything is bad,” but rather “that everything is dangerous” (1983, 231–32). And more importantly, what follows from this apprehension is not despair or apathy (power is all there is; there is no outside-power), but a resolve to confront any configuration of power identified as dangerous by adopting what Foucault suggestively terms “a hyper- and pessimistic activism” (1983, 232). In Lacanese, power is non-all. Žižek repeats this kind of “hyper- and pessimistic activism” when he stresses the lack of transcendence from within. The antidote to the “slow death” (Berlant 2011, 102) of quotidian life is decidedly not reform but revolution. Against the liberal model of incremental change, the experience of change without change, a universal politics affirms the sober vision that there is no light at the end of the tunnel; on the contrary, as Žižek puts it, if there is a light, what we are actually seeing is another train bearing down on us (2017a, xi–xii). In this respect, “the courage of hopelessness” is counterintuitively “the height of optimism” (Agamben 2014).
”
”
Zahi Zalloua (Universal Politics)
“
I would like you to write about your very deepest thoughts and feeling about an extremely important emotional issue that has affected you and your life. In your writing, I’d like you to really let go and explore your very deepest emotions and thoughts. You might tie your topic to your relationships with others, including parents, lovers, friends, or relatives; to your past, your present, or your future; or to who you have been, who you would like to be, or who you are now. You may write about the same general issues or experiences on all days of writing or on different topics each day. All of your writing will be completely confidential. Don’t worry about spelling, sentence structure, or grammar. The only rule is that once you begin writing, continue to do so until your time is up.
”
”
Aditi Nerurkar (The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience)
“
What kinds of Work will You do in Freelancing?
What kind of work will you do in Freelancing? And to understand the type of work in freelancing, You need to have a clear idea of what freelancing is. There is no specific type of freelancing, it can be of many types, such as -
Freelance Photography, Freelance Journalism, Freelance Writer, Freelance Data Entry, Freelance Logo Designer, Freelance Graphics Designer etc. There's no end to the amount of work you can do with freelancing.
The most interesting thing is that you are everything in this process. There is no one to twirl over your head, you are the boss here. Even here there is no obligation to work from 9-5.
Today I discuss some freelancing tasks that are popular in the freelancing sector or are done by many freelancers. For example:
Data Entry: It wouldn't be too much of a mistake to say that data entry is the easiest job. Rather, it can be said without a doubt that data entry is more difficult than any other job. Data entry work basically means typing. This work is usually provided as a PDF file and is described as a 'Word type work'.
Any employee can take a data entry job as a part-time job for extra income at the end of his work.
Graphics Design: One of the most popular jobs in the freelancing world is graphic design. The main reasons for the popularity of this work are its attractiveness and simplicity. Everything we see online is contributed by graphics.
For example, Cover pages, Newspaper, Book cover pages, advertisements and Photographs, Editing or changing the background of a picture or photo, Creating banners for advertising, Creating visiting cards, Business cards or leaflets, Designed for webpages known as (PhD), T-shirt designing, Logo designing, Making cartoons and many more.
Web Design and Development: 'Web design' or 'Site design' are used interchangeably. The most important job of freelancing is web design. From the simplest to the most difficult aspects of this work, almost all types of work are done by freelancers.
There are many other themes like WordPress, Elementor, Joomla, and DV that can be used to create entire sites. Sometimes coding is required to create some sites. If the web designer has coding experience or skills then there is no problem, and if not then the site creation should be done by programmers.
Programming: Programming means writing some signals, codes, or symbols into a specific system. And its job is to give different types of commands or orders to the computer.
If you give some command to the computer in Bengali or English, the computer will not understand it. For that want binary code or number. Just as any book is written in English, Hindi, Japanese Bengali, etc. every program is written in some particular programming language like C++, Java, etc.
The written form of the program is called source code. A person who writes source code is called a programmer, coder, or developer. While writing the program, the programmer has to follow the syntax or grammar of that particular programming language.
Other work: Apart from the above jobs, there are various other types of jobs that are in high demand in the freelancing sector or market. The tasks are:
Writing,
Article or blog post writing
SEO Marketing,
Digital marketing,
Photo, Audio, Video Editing,
Admin jobs,
Software development,
Translation,
Affiliate marketing,
IT and Networking etc.
Please Visit Our Blogging Website to read more Articles related to Freelancing and Outsourcing, Thank You.
”
”
Bhairab IT Zone
“
No one had ever taught the sad prisoners how to write letters, because, in the school, the noun and the verb and grammar were considered more important; which was quite right and correct, since how could a hired man possibly strew dung over a field if he didn’t know what a possessive pronoun was and what sort of bread would a woman bake if she didn’t know on what tree the nominative case grew?
”
”
Ferenc Móra (Ének a búzamezőkről)
“
new visual print culture could take complete hold. The result was that the most important event in English history has never taken place; namely, the English Revolution on the lines of the French Revolution. The American Revolution had no medieval legal institutions to discard or to root out, apart from monarchy. And many have held that the American Presidency has become very much more personal and monarchical than any European monarch ever could be. De Tocqueville’s contrast between England and America is clearly based on the fact of typography and of print culture creating uniformity and continuity. England, he says, has rejected this principle and clung to the dynamic or oral common-law tradition. Hence the discontinuity and unpredictable quality of English culture. The grammar of print cannot help to construe the message of oral and nonwritten culture and institutions.
”
”
Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man)
“
This very insatiability of the photographing eye changes the terms of confinement in the cave, our world. In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing. Finally, the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads-as an anthology of images.
”
”
Susan Sontag
“
I won't lie!
Probably from books you have saw that I'm not good at English, probably because I don't live in such country which this language is important or let's say to be native. But as for now I can't do a lot of for that!
”
”
Deyth Banger
“
Writing is not about the end product, yes that is extremely important. It's not even about the grammar or style you write in; style and grammar are in the eye of the beholder. With each person, someone will find problems so grammar and style are moot. Writing, truly diving in is about the creative process...discovering a newer side of yourself as you are writing; creating. The adventure from page one to being done is what it is about. Do you feel good with the end product? do you feel good half way through? The point to this is simple...feedback is vital to selling your work, paying attention to hurtful feedback can destroy your pursuit of your dreams. so write for you...sell to others but write from your soul. Whether it's fiction/faction/non fiction or somewhere in between if your heart and soul is not in it...you are not going to be happy with it.
”
”
Kyle Williamson
“
learners’ beliefs about the kind of instruction that is best can influence their satisfaction and success. The grammar translation approach is useful for the study of grammar and vocabulary and can be valuable for understanding important cultural texts. The audiolingual approach with its emphasis on speaking and listening was used successfully with highly motivated adult learners in intensive training programmes for government personnel in the United States. However, there is little classroom research to support such approaches for students in ordinary school programmes that must serve the needs of students who bring different levels of motivation and aptitude to the classroom.
”
”
Patsy M. Lightbown (How Languages are Learned)
“
Broadly speaking, it seems that teachers help you know and understand and coaches help you practise and get better. Returning to the notion of how we are useful to our students, which do your students need most from you? The following questionnaire can help you think about this further. Your turn 2 Underlying philosophies Grade each statement from 1 (don’t agree) to 10 (agree completely). Make a note of your answers, if you wish, to discuss with a colleague. a) Learning a language means learning words and rules. b) Learning a language means repeatedly using it. c) People learn best by noticing and working things out. d) They learn best by communicating with other people. e) Mistakes show that students have not understood the grammar properly. f) They show that they have not practised enough. g) Speaking is a conscious, cognitive process. h) Speaking is an automatic habit. Perhaps all of these statements are true for you. Still, you may have found that you favour some more than others. Notice how a), c), e) and g) promote the idea of language as knowledge to learn, a bit like maths or music theory, whereas b), d), f) and h) reflect the side of learning that involves practising a skill, more like tennis or playing the piano. If you think that the skill side of language learning is particularly important, you will probably feel comfortable thinking of yourself as a language coach, someone whose main job is to get students practising and improving. If you see language as knowledge, the question to ask yourself is how your students can best acquire that knowledge, from you teaching it to them or from other sources of reference and input?
”
”
Daniel Barber (From English Teacher to Learner Coach)
“
vocabulary is actually more important than grammar.
”
”
Keith S. Folse (Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching)
“
Learning a second language entails learning numerous aspects of that language, including vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, composition, reading, culture, and even body language. Unfortunately, traditionally vocabulary has received less attention in second language (L2) pedagogy than any of these other aspects, particularly grammar. Arguably, vocabulary is perhaps the most important component in L2 ability. For more than 2,000 years, the study of a foreign language primarily entailed grammatical analysis, which was practiced through translation of written work (Hinkel & Fotos, 2002). As a result, vocabulary has been academically excluded from or at best limited within L2 curricula and classroom teaching. A perusal of ESL textbooks quickly reveals a lack of focus on vocabulary. Unlike books in French, Spanish, or other foreign languages, there are no vocabulary lists in the lessons/units or vocabulary index at the back of the book. Exercises practicing vocabulary may be found in reading books, but such exercises are rarely found in grammar books, speaking books, listening books, or writing books in spite of the importance of vocabulary in these areas.
”
”
Keith S. Folse (Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching)
“
The rule of the vital few says that the minority of things matter a great deal and the majority of things don’t matter a lot. The key is to focus on just a couple of crucial things and disregard the rest. Your task becomes manageable again, and you keep going with much less effort. When you apply this rule during the stage of conscious incompetence, you’ll reduce the risk of giving up. In the case of learning languages, it’s usually the ability to communicate with native speakers – basic sentences and phrases are much more important than proper grammar or getting the intonation right. In the case of building a business, it’s getting your first client, the next one, and the next one. Leave thinking about more complex business tasks for later. In fitness, you don’t have to learn more than a few basic movements (squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, chin-up). All the other exercises aren’t necessary for most trainees. Deconstruct each of your goals in a similar way and don’t let the complexity deter you from making progress.
”
”
Martin Meadows (Grit: How to Keep Going When You Want to Give Up)
“
Optimizing London Park Lane City Apartments Maintenance For Greater Success
Most imperative for any new site is drawing in guests. Ensure that you have designed your website well and that you use search engine advertising to bring in visitors. There're a number of internet marketing tools available to you; make use of them to get the very best results. Here are some great recommendations on how to make a booming website.
The most popular websites are well designed in appearance in addition to content. The experts advise against getting too creative with oddball fonts or crazy color schemes, or including so many graphics that the message gets lost in the confusion. Do not depend on your own eyes to catch blunders in spelling, punctuation, or grammar. Even minor blunders in grammar, spelling, or punctuation make people question your professionalism and credibility.
If your website has been designed to run successfully on all different browsers then your online business will likely be even more fruitful. Maximizing your traffic can be achieved if your online site is accessed on all devices on any browser. You can lose a lot of visitors if your online site is just compatible with a select few internet browsers. Ensure that you address the issue of browser compatibility problems with your website designer, who will probably be your best friend in fixing this issue.
If your pages do not load quickly, you'll have a tough time retaining visitors. Visitors have a relatively short attention span; on average, studies show that you have only five to ten seconds to hook their attention. It's important to do everything you can to effectively ensure quick load times, like compressing images and not using too many of them. Consider using a dedicated server to give your website more speed and precision.
Use multiple domains to get a better ranking in search engine results. Using the proper search phrases is essential to driving visitors to your website through searches. The more search phrases are in your domain name, the more visitors your website will receive. Additionally, put copy on the page that is directly related to the search in order to maximize your numbers.
London park lane city apartmentss require a high rate of speed in order to be used effectively. The operating speed of your webpage can be improved by using a high-quality hosting site. You can increase your website's speed and functionality by using CSS. The most vital thing to ask a potential designer for your website is how much they know about making your website faster.
Choose key phrases that correlate closely with the content on your website. If you emphasize key phrases that do not align with your webpage, you may very well draw visitors you do not want. A poor choice in key phrases could damage your website's reputation. Ask a professional in the internet presence industry to critique your choice of key phrases to ensure you have the very best possible use.
Park Lane City Apartments
92 Middlesex St
London E1 7EZ
44 20 7377 1763
”
”
Park Lane City Apartments
“
Language, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary exist for a purpose, and that purpose is revealed only in the search for truth. As Chesterton saw, it is the search for truth that keeps us sane, because it always brings us back to reality. And why is reality so important? It is what we are made for. Reality is the food of the soul. I
”
”
Stratford Caldecott (Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education)
“
When writing a book what is more important? Grammar and spelling or telling a great story? I know which I would choose.
”
”
Samuel Colbran (Lake Merrin (Journal of an Adventurer #1))
“
attention to the difference in tenses. The verbs believe and receive are in the present, but the verb shall have is in the future. The inspired writer is telling us something of the greatest importance by this seemingly minor difference in the grammar of the sentence.
”
”
Joseph Murphy (The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (DF Self-Help Treasure Book 2))
“
Difficulties of technical translation: features, problems, rules
Technical translation is one of the most important areas of written translation in modern translation practice. Like the interpretation technique, it has its own characteristics and requirements. The need for this type of work is due to economic and scientific and technical progress, as well as the development of international relations. Thanks to technical translation, people share experience, knowledge and developments in various fields. What are the features of this type of translation? What pitfalls can be encountered on the translator's path? You will learn about this and much more from our article.
________________________________________
Technical translation is one of the most difficult types of legal translation. This is due to the large number of requirements for such work. Technical translation includes all scientific and technical texts, documents, instructions, reports, reference books and dictionaries. The texts of this plan contain a lot of specific terminology, which is the main difficulty of technical translation. A term is a word or a combination of words that accurately names a phenomenon, subject or scientific concept, revealing its meaning as much as possible. The most common technical texts in the following areas:
• engineering;
• defense;
• physics and mathematics;
• aircraft construction;
• oil industry;
• shipbuilding, etc.
The main feature of technical translation is the requirement for its high accuracy (equivalence). The task of the translator is to convey information as close as possible to the original. Otherwise, distortions may appear in the text, leading to a misunderstanding of important information. Vocabulary selection is carried out carefully and carefully. The construction of phrases should be logical and meaningful. Other technical translation requirements include adequacy and informativeness. It is equally important to maintain the style of such texts. This includes not only vocabulary, but also the grammatical structure of the text, as well as the way the material is presented. Most often, this is a formal and logical style.
Unlike artistic translation, where the main task is to convey the content, and the translator can use his imagination, include fancy turns and various figures of speech, the presence of emotionality and subjectivity is unacceptable in technical translation.
Let's consider the peculiarities of technical translation in English. According to the well-known linguist and translator Y. Y. Retsker, English technical literature is characterized by the predominant use of complex or complex sentences, which include adjectives, nouns, as well as impersonal forms of verbs (infinitives, gerundial inflections, etc.). Passive constructions are also often found. In this direction, it is permissible to use only generally accepted grammatical structures. Another feature of such texts may be the absence of a predicate or subject and a large number of enumerations. In addition, the finished text should have an appropriate layout equivalent to the original. Let's consider the basic rules of technical translation for a specialist:
• knowledge of the vocabulary, grammar and word structure of the foreign language from which the translation is performed (at the level required for understanding the source text);
• knowledge of the language into which the translation is performed (at a level sufficient for a competent presentation of the material);
• excellent knowledge of the specifics of texts and terminology;
• ability to use linguistic and technical sources of information;
• familiarity with the specifics of the field
”
”
Tim David
“
and I want to apologize for my ignorance last week. The singular they has a rich history in English, and as I learned on one blog, it is more important to be respectful than to be right. I was caught up in the rules of grammar instead of the function of language. Thank you for educating me, and I hope that you’ll keep letting me know when I need to catch up to speed. And I’m going to do my best so that you won’t have to.
”
”
Alex Gino (Rick)
“
With these points in mind, it’s helpful to more closely examine the relations between grammars, theories of physical systems, and generated systems. Grammatical rules determine the meaningful orderings of words within a language, thereby defining the corpus for the language. Similarly, the mechanisms of a physical model (anything from levers to electron spin) determine possible trajectories through physical-state space (such as the trajectory of a probe through the solar system). It is possible to mimic grammatical rules and physical mechanisms in a generated system by specifying appropriate operators for the system. Once the appropriate operators are chosen, we can make precise comparisons between corresponding grammars, physical models, and generated systems. The generated system format offers an additional advantage because it encompasses additional important complex systems, such as computer programming languages. An important advantage of precise comparisons is that activities that are easy to observe in one complex system often suggest ‘where to look’ in other complex systems where the activities are difficult to observe.
”
”
John H. Holland (Complexity: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
“
special acknowledgments
1. my sun & rain, who believed i could write this even when i didn't.
1. my father, who probably didn't know i was a writer but will hopefully be proud of me for writing this.
1. my sister-savior, who wouldn't imagine giving up on me even in the darkest of times.
1. the rest of my family, who always encouraged me to keep moving forward even if it meant pushing me out of my comfort zone.
1. my beta readers (christine, mira, danika, shauna, rob, mason & lauren), who cried while reading this & — most importantly — pointed out my inconsistencies & corrected most of my grammar mistakes.
”
”
Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1))
“
What kinds of Work will You do in Freelancing?
What kind of work will you do in Freelancing? And to understand the type of work in freelancing, You need to have a clear idea of what freelancing is. There is no specific type of freelancing, it can be of many types, such as -
Freelance Photography, Freelance Journalism, Freelance Writer, Freelance Data Entry, Freelance Logo Designer, Freelance Graphics Designer etc. There's no end to the amount of work you can do with freelancing.
The most interesting thing is that you are everything in this process. There is no one to twirl over your head, you are the boss here. Even here there is no obligation to work from 9-5.
Today I discuss some freelancing tasks that are popular in the freelancing sector or are done by many freelancers. For example:
Data Entry: It wouldn't be too much of a mistake to say that data entry is the easiest job. Rather, it can be said without a doubt that data entry is more difficult than any other job. Data entry work basically means typing. This work is usually provided as a PDF file and is described as a 'Word type work'.
Any employee can take a data entry job as a part-time job for extra income at the end of his work.
Graphics Design: One of the most popular jobs in the freelancing world is graphic design. The main reasons for the popularity of this work are its attractiveness and simplicity. Everything we see online is contributed by graphics.
For example, Cover pages, Newspaper, Book cover pages, advertisements and Photographs, Editing or changing the background of a picture or photo, Creating banners for advertising, Creating visiting cards, Business cards or leaflets, Designed for webpages known as (PhD), T-shirt designing, Logo designing, Making cartoons and many more.
Web Design and Development: 'Web design' or 'Site design' are used interchangeably. The most important job of freelancing is web design. From the simplest to the most difficult aspects of this work, almost all types of work are done by freelancers.
There are many other themes like WordPress, Elementor, Joomla, and DV that can be used to create entire sites. Sometimes coding is required to create some sites. If the web designer has coding experience or skills then there is no problem, and if not then the site creation should be done by programmers.
Programming: Programming means writing some signals, codes, or symbols into a specific system. And its job is to give different types of commands or orders to the computer.
If you give some command to the computer in Bengali or English, the computer will not understand it. For that want binary code or number. Just as any book is written in English, Hindi, Japanese Bengali, etc. every program is written in some particular programming language like C++, Java, etc.
The written form of the program is called source code. A person who writes source code is called a programmer, coder, or developer. While writing the program, the programmer has to follow the syntax or grammar of that particular programming language.
Other work: Apart from the above jobs, there are various other types of jobs that are in high demand in the freelancing sector or market. The tasks are:
Writing,
Article or blog post writing
SEO Marketing,
Digital marketing,
Photo, Audio, Video Editing,
Admin jobs,
Software development,
Translation,
Affiliate marketing,
IT and Networking etc.
”
”
Bhairab IT Zone
“
Although independent of grammar, sound changes might well have important consequences for the grammatical system. A good example is the extreme erosion of final consonants in French, which has left singular and plural sounding identical in many cases. Labov (1994: 569) quotes a speech by Charles De Gaulle in Madagascar in which he states: ‘Je m’adresse aux peuples français – au pluriel’ (‘I address the French peoples – in the plural’), clearly feeling the need to add ‘au pluriel’ because singular au peuple and plural aux peuples [opæpl] are homophonous.
”
”
David Hornsby (Linguistics: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself (Ty: Complete Courses Book 1))
“
It is not irrelevant. It’s paramount! The rules of grammar are just as important as the rules of engagement in war. Without them, we are barbarians,” I argued.
”
”
Shayne Silvers (Obsidian Son (The Nate Temple Series, #1))
“
Yet homogenization is so tempting. Generalizations and theoretical simplifications are fundamental to our ability to survive in and understand the world. Never doubt their usefulness. But they are neither more important nor logically prior to the basic work of carefully describing the uniqueness of each language, what holds it together in Sapir’s sense. And what holds all languages together is the connection between each language’s grammar and its culture.
”
”
Daniel L. Everett (Language: The Cultural Tool)
“
Every savage can dance,' declared Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. His antagonist's riposte now seems odd—'I doubt not that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr Darcy.' 'Science' is among the most slippery words in the English language, because although it has been in use for hundreds of years, its meanings constantly shift and are impossible to pin down. That plural (meanings) was deliberate. In the early nineteenth century, when Austen casually mentioned the science of dancing, other writers were still using 'science' for the mediaeval subjects of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Long afterwards, 'science' could still mean any scholarly discipline, because the modern distinction between the Arts and Sciences had not yet solidified. The Victorian art critic John Ruskin listed five subjects he thought worthwhile studying at university—the Sciences of Morals, History, Grammar, Music, and Painting—none of which feature on modern scientific syllabuses. All of them, Ruskin declared, were more intellectually demanding than chemistry, electricity, or geology.
However skilfully Mr Darcy performed his science of dancing, Austen could never have called him a scientist. That word, now so common, was not even invented until twenty years later, in 1833, when the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) was holding its third annual meeting. As the conference delegates joked about needing an umbrella term to cover their diverse interests, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge rejected 'philosopher', and William Whewell—one of Babbage's allies, a Cambridge mathematical astronomer—suggested 'scientist' instead.
The new word was very slow to catch on. Many Victorians insisted on keeping older expressions, such as 'man of science', or 'naturalist', or 'experimental philosopher'. Even men now seen as the nineteenth century's most eminent scientists—Darwin, Faraday, Lord Kelvin—refused to use the new term for describing themselves. Why, they demanded, should anyone bother to invent such an ugly word when perfectly adequate expressions already existed? Mistakenly, critics accused 'scientist' of being an American import, a trans-Atlantic neologism—one eminent geologist declared it was better to die 'than bestialize our tongue by such barbarisms'. The debate was still raging sixty years after Whewell first introduced the idea, and it was only in the early twentieth century that 'scientist' was fully accepted.
”
”
Patricia Fara
“
...he will accompany us on a hike in the hills, leaping and whizzing back and forth, and coming when called as well as a dog. It is just that the organism, the whole pattern of nerve and muscle, is more complex and intelligent than logical systems of arithmetic, geometry and grammar - which are in fact nothing but inferior ritual.
Life itself dances, for what else are trees, ferns, butterflies, and snakes but elaborate forms of dancing? Even wood and bones show, in their structure, the characteristic patterns of flowing water, which (as Lao-tzu pointed out in 400 B.C.) derives its incredible power by following gravity and seeking that "lowest level which all men abhor." When dance I do not think-count my steps, and some women say I have no sense of rhythm, but I have a daughter who (without ever having taken lessons in dancing) can follow me as if she were my shadow or I were hers. The whole secret of life and of creative energy consists in flowing with gravity. Even when he leaps and bounces our cat is going with it. This is the way the whole earth and everything in the universe beehives.*
But man is making a mess of the earth be-
*Harrumph! Excuse the pun, but it is important, because bees live in hexagonal as distinct from quadrilateral structures, and this is the natural way in which all things, such as bubbles and pebbles, congregate, nestling into each other by gravity. It will follow, because 2 x 6 is 12, that - as Buckminster Fuller has pointed out - as number-system to the base 12 (duodecimal) is closer to nature than one to the base of 10 (decimal). For 12 is divisible by both 2 and 3, whereas 10 is not. After all, we use the base 12 for measuring circles and spheres and time, and so can "think circles" around people who use only meters. The world is better duodecimal than decimated.
”
”
Alan W. Watts (Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown)
“
The more decontextualized an expression, the more important grammar becomes, meaning that a single comma — something that could be mistaken for a bit of lint — changes the nature of the world that phrase describes. This is true for human readers, but it’s especially true for language-parsing computers, which rely heavily on standard structural patterns for comprehending text.
”
”
Andrew Hinton (Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture)
“
Charlotte Brontë was a genius, whose work has resonated for centuries as an example of female intellect and expressive power. Her letters to Constantin Heger are some of the stupidest things I’ve ever read, a masterful, two-year-long demonstration of one woman’s inability to absorb the fact that the guy she liked did not like her. Mary Wollstonecraft was over a century ahead of her time on women’s education, and twice as far ahead on women’s sexual freedom. She still thought she’d rather drown than not have a boyfriend. Harriet Jacobs was possibly one of the bravest women who ever lived. She survived unspeakable atrocity, thanks only to her own daring, ingenuity, and resilience, and published one of the most important political documents of her age. And she was afraid that “educated people” would make fun of her grammar. She was scared, but she did it. That’s all being strong is, apparently: being scared, or flawed, or weak, or capable (under the right circumstances) of astonishing acts of stupidity. And then going out and doing it all anyway. Trying, every morning, to be the woman you want to be, regardless of how often you manage to fall short of your own high expectations.
”
”
Jude Ellison S. Doyle (Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why)
“
Demonstrating once again the importance of the lowly comma, this telegram was sent from a wife to her husband: "NOT GETTING ANY, BETTER COME HOME AT ONCE.
”
”
Anonymous
“
A summary is usually going to be expressed in a single paragraph, so you’ll want to keep it confined to a single tense—usually present. If you find yourself switching between tenses in your summary paragraph, walk away from the keyboard, pour a stiff drink, and then return. It’s doubtful the alcohol will help with your grammar but it will make you feel a little better about your failure to follow this important rule.
”
”
Chris Baker (The Elements of F*cking Style: A Helpful Parody)
“
At literary gatherings he made a practice of slipping away from “the gaunt and great, the famed for conversation” (as he called them in a poem) to find the least important person in the room. A letter-writer in the Times of London last year recalled one such incident: Sixty years ago my English teacher brought me to London from my provincial grammar school for a literary conference. Understandably, she abandoned me for her friends when we arrived, and I was left to flounder. I was gauche and inept and had no idea what to do with myself. Auden must have sensed this because he approached me and said, “Everyone here is just as nervous as you are, but they are bluffing, and you must learn to bluff too.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Interviewer: In church on Sunday we sang a two hundred year old hymn with some contemporary words and the words go God you spin the whirling planets, fill the Seas and spread the plain, mould the mountains fashion blossoms call for the sunshine wind and rain. Now the scientist wouldn’t put it that way. The scientist would have said that there is a an explanation for why the planets were, for why the rain falls, for why the seas rise, for why the mountains form, but knowledge isn’t enough for us, it’s not enough to know why these things happen , we need the poetry, don’t we? Are we hardwired to seeks that kind of meaning in life that only poetry religion and writing can give us?
Atwood: Probably so. Because we are a symbol making creature. We seem to need create and exist within structures of symbolism. We seem to have always done that as human beings, we usually date humanness from the point at which we discover some form of art. Art is always symbolic.
…
Interviewer: This God is a God of radical unpredictability and terrifying moral ambivalence. The God of the Old Testament.
….
Interviewer: I heard what you said that human nature hasn’t changed in thousands of years.
Atwood: Yes.
Interviewer: How do we know?
Atwood: Oh…because we’ve read the myths. And the myths show pretty clearly what we want, what we fear, what we would like to have, what we very much would not like to have. Heaven and hell. We always wanted to fly, in the myths Gods fly. We don’t. And now everything that we do, every piece of technology we make is an extension of a fear or desire. And those human fears and desires really have not changed and they are reflected in the myths that have been with us for a long time.
Interviewer: Are they true?
Atwood: What is true?
True means more than one thing. True means prove it, it has to be proven and in a very materialistic society that’s all it means. Another type of truth is it true about human nature? Is it true about who we are? Is it true about how we behave? People have a divided opinion about why myths continue and why they are important, and what they are… some people say they are maps of prehistory, some people say they are maps of the human mind and psyche, and some people say they are language-dependent.
Interviewer: What do you mean by that?
Atwood: It’s one of the characteristics of human beings that they have very elaborate languages. And these languages all have grammars and the grammars all contain past tenses and future tenses. Now dogs have languages too but we don’t think any dog has ever said to any other dog, where do dogs come from, what is the origin of dogs, and what about before that , what about before where any dogs. But because we have the kinds of languages we do, we go back in time as far as we can get, in our imagination, we want a beginning of the story and we go as far ahead in the future as we can. We want an end to the story. And it’s just not gonna be us getting born and us dying we want to place ourselves within a larger story. Here’s where we came form, here’s where we are going. And when you die this is what happens and some of those stories are happier than other but there’s always more, there’s always an and then. And then what happened… and then and then and then. Once we had that language we had to postulate either a God entity or an unknown.
”
”
Margaret Atwood
“
When we revise, we're getting our written house in order to host our readerly guests. As with a house, a strong foundation and good structural integrity are of utmost importance. Just as we wouldn't want to invite people to visit our home during a big remodeling project, we don't want them to spend time with our half-formed and disorganized ideas. Once we have the foundation and structure in place, we can turn our attention to the paragraphs and sentences. Like the décor and furniture in the rooms of our house, we want our argument's parts to work well together and to make our readers feel that they belong. If things are too spartan, we may need to add a familiar example or two, like repainting a wall to make it pop or buying a few new decorative pillows. If we're prone to hoarding, we must get rid of extraneous material - the empty boxes and stacks of magazines that will get in our guests' way as they move about the house. Then we ought to concern ourselves with the preferences of our guests. Have we stocked the fridge with their favorite drinks? Are we planning meals that they like and aren't allergic to? As the hosting draws closer, we should turn our attention to beautifying the entryway and our housekeeping tasks. Does our title have enough "curb appeal"? Did we fix the light bulbs in the introduction? Then it's time to straighten things up and clean. Editing grammar and spelling is a bit like dusting and vacuuming: the reader won't notice when you've done it, but it'll be conspicuous if you don't.
”
”
Richard Hughes Gibson (Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue Through Our Words)
“
Daivi Astra: Daivi = Divine; Astra = Weapon. A term used in ancient Hindu epics to describe weapons of mass destruction Dandakaranya: Aranya = forest. Dandak is the ancient name for modern Maharashtra and parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. So Dandakaranya means the forests of Dandak Deva: God Dharma: Dharma literally translates as religion. But in traditional Hindu belief, it means far more than that. The word encompasses holy, right knowledge, right living, tradition, natural order of the universe and duty. Essentially, dharma refers to everything that can be classified as ‘good’ in the universe. It is the Law of Life Dharmayudh: The holy war Dhobi: Washerman Divyadrishti: Divine sight Dumru: A small, hand-held, hour-glass shaped percussion instrument Egyptian women: Historians believe that ancient Egyptians, just like ancient Indians, treated their women with respect. The anti-women attitude attributed to Swuth and the assassins of Aten is fictional. Having said that, like most societies, ancient Egyptians also had some patriarchal segments in their society, which did, regrettably, have an appalling attitude towards women Fire song: This is a song sung by Guna warriors to agni (fire). They also had songs dedicated to the other elements viz: bhūmi (earth), jal (water), pavan (air or wind), vyom or shunya or akash (ether or void or sky) Fravashi: Is the guardian spirit mentioned in the Avesta, the sacred writings of the Zoroastrian religion. Although, according to most researchers, there is no physical description of Fravashi, the language grammar of Avesta clearly shows it to be feminine. Considering the importance given to fire in ancient Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, I’ve assumed the Fravashi to be represented by fire. This is, of course, a fictional representation Ganesh-Kartik relationship: In northern India, traditional myths hold Lord Kartik as older than Lord Ganesh; in large parts of southern India, Lord Ganesh is considered elder. In my story, Ganesh is older than Kartik. What is the truth? Only Lord Shiva knows Guruji: Teacher; ji is a term of respect, added to a name or title Gurukul: The family of the guru or the family of the teacher. In ancient times, also used to denote a school Har Har Mahadev: This is the rallying cry of Lord Shiva’s devotees. I believe it means ‘All of us are Mahadevs’ Hariyupa: This city is currently known as Harappa. A note on the cities of Meluha (or as we call it in modern times, the Indus Valley Civilisation): historians and researchers have consistently marvelled at the fixation that the Indus Valley Civilisation seemed to have for water and hygiene. In fact historian M Jansen used the term ‘wasserluxus’ (obsession with water) to describe their magnificent obsession with the physical and symbolic aspects of water, a term Gregory Possehl builds upon in his brilliant book, The Indus Civilisation — A Contemporary Perspective. In the book, The Immortals
”
”
Amish Tripathi (The Oath of the Vayuputras (Shiva Trilogy #3))
“
... In this essay, however, I once more try the positive assumption, that the question is a good one, that there is a fairly definite subclass of events which are actions. The costs of the assumption are the usual ones: oversimplification, the setting aside of large classes of exceptions, the neglect of distinctions hinted by grammar and common sense, recourse to disguised linguistic legislation. With luck we learn something from such methods. There may, after all, be important and general truths in this area, and if there are how else will we discover them?
”
”
Donald Davidson (Essays on Actions and Events (The Philosophical Essays of Donald Davidson (5 Volumes)))
“
In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing. Finally, the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads-as an anthology of images.
To collect photographs is to collect the world
”
”
Susan Sontag
“
Bambara and other Mande languages, as well as most West African languages, are tonal. Rhythm as well as tonality not only determine the meaning of individual words but also play an important role in grammar. Functional tonality has been identified in a few creole languages. It is possible that the musicality of Louisiana Creole, which seduced generations of Louisianians and probably affected their own speech in Cajun and English as well as in French, is a nonfunctional survival of tonality in African languages....Patterns of rhythm and tonality in Louisiana Creole might be linked to patterns of musical expression, including syncopation and jazz. It is surprising that linguists have paid relatively little attention to the study of rhythm and intonation in creole languages.
”
”
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (Africans In Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth-Century)
“
This book is not opposed to rules. On the contrary, systems of rules that attract willing participants, such as the rules of grammar or conventions of courtesy, also known as institutions, are among the most important of human discoveries. In fact, a major problem with enforcing arbitrary rules is the damage this does to a child’s engagement with our greatest institutions.
”
”
Aaron Stupple (The Sovereign Child: How a Forgotten Philosophy Can Liberate Kids and Their Parents)
“
Editing, although important, is often a less complex process. It involves identifying and then correcting errors in grammar, punctuation, capitalization, syntax, and spelling.
”
”
Judith C. Hochman (The Writing Revolution 2.0: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades)