Translating Shakespeare into English
Chris Malcolm
English, so that students who can't understand the ancient archaic
language will be able to understand it.
I recall many years ago in aue, before the historical reach of
Google, having an argument with a US English prof who said that
studying Shakespeare should not be part of any school curriculum, or
even part of any undergraduate university English curriculum, because
Shakespeare's language was simply much too difficult. He thought
Shakespeare ought to be reserved for postgraduate students. He claimed
the problem was archaic vocabulary.
I disagreed with him, and asked for some examples of difficult
Shakespearean English. He produced a few. They seemed to me be
difficult not because of any archaisms, but simply because the
sentence structure was complex. I argued that this was the real
problem with Shakespeare, that modern kids were finding long sentences
more and more difficult to understand, and the archaic vocabulary was
just an obvious excuse, not the real reason.
I failed to convince him.
--
Chris Malcolm c...@dai.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 650 3085
School of Artificial Intelligence, Division of Informatics
Edinburgh University, 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/daidb/people/homes/cam/ ] DoD #205
Franke
Chris Malcolm wrote:
> Some British academic wants Shakespeare to be translated into modern
> English, so that students who can't understand the ancient archaic
> language will be able to understand it.
>
> I recall many years ago in aue, before the historical reach of
> Google, having an argument with a US English prof who said that
> studying Shakespeare should not be part of any school curriculum, or
> even part of any undergraduate university English curriculum, because
> Shakespeare's language was simply much too difficult. He thought
> Shakespeare ought to be reserved for postgraduate students. He claimed
> the problem was archaic vocabulary.
>
> I disagreed with him, and asked for some examples of difficult
> Shakespearean English. He produced a few. They seemed to me be
> difficult not because of any archaisms, but simply because the
> sentence structure was complex. I argued that this was the real
> problem with Shakespeare, that modern kids were finding long sentences
> more and more difficult to understand, and the archaic vocabulary was
> just an obvious excuse, not the real reason.
>
> I failed to convince him.
He must have been young or just tired of trying to interest today's
youngsters in Shakespeare in the original English. When I was in
high school, we had to use glossaries to understand The Bard,
but the archaic language was not a problem. And for those of us
who had the good fortune to be in the drama club and get a role
in one of his plays (I played Demetrius in _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_), learning the language was a real pleasure. Of course, in
those days it was possible to go to New York City to see the
Shakespeare repertory company put on outstanding performances
of all of the plays. I doubt that it's still there.
Frances Kemmish
These days it's possible in the summer to go and see performances of
Shakespeare in parks, at little or no cost, in New York, and in many
towns in Connecticut.
Fran
ntaylor
NT> Maybe 'seeing' Shakespeare as a performance is the
key. Listening to or even reading the bard is confusing,
especially at the first few encounters. Some plays need to be
experienced three or four times, rather like symphony music,
to appreciate all the nuances.
j...@radidelmex.net
> He claimed the problem was archaic vocabulary.
I agree! The Bard should treated as a foreign author who requires a
fresh translation. Every language ages, and Shakespeare is almost as
unreadable as Beowulf.
Leopoldo Perdomo
As a Spanish who have read a lot of English literature without any
problems I could state the Shakespeare it is very difficult. I have been
unable to read more than a few pages in the few books I have bought. Some
time ago I had this same idea about the need of translating the bard into
contemporary English.
leopoldo
--
URL: http://leopoldo.perdomo.com
Evan Kirshenbaum
"Heald şu nu, hruse, nu hæleğ ne mostan,
eorla æhte! Hwæt, hut ær on ğe
gode begeaton. Gu-deağ fornam,
feorh-bealo frecne fyra gehwylcne
leoda minra, şara ğe şis lif ofgeaf,
gesawan sele-dreamas.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of trouble
And by opposing end them.
Yup. Just as impenetrable.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Other computer companies have spent
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |15 years working on fault-tolerant
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |computers. Microsoft has spent
|its time more fruitfully, working
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |on fault-tolerant *users*.
(650)857-7572
David Tomkins
> He must have been young or just tired of trying to interest today's
> youngsters in Shakespeare in the original English. When I was in
> high school, we had to use glossaries to understand The Bard,
> but the archaic language was not a problem. And for those of us
> who had the good fortune to be in the drama club and get a role
> in one of his plays (I played Demetrius in _A Midsummer Night's
> Dream_), learning the language was a real pleasure.
Couldn't agree more. For a young man whose native tongue was (and is)
Strine, it was a welcome delight to learn some real English for a
change. What was so good about studying Shakespeare particularly (but
also some other 'ancient' authors) was its beauty and its pure
entertainment-value. Every modern author seems to have an ideological
axe to grind and is just downright grim. (Lighten up, saith the
preacher!) A modern text is chosen not because of its literary worth but
because it has a politically correct moral. Well I say 'boo to all this
tendentious pc humbug'! I think every student should study the greats of
English Literature and the language of the AV in his/her English
studies.
Yes, as a twelve year old reading Shakespeare for the first time I had
some (*UNDERSTATEMENT*) difficulty. But heck, what do we pay our
teachers for? I am very thankful that I had wonderful techers who could
explain all those funny 'foreign' words to me. We even studied Chaucer
(I was 16 then) and with a good annotated edition and an even better
teacher one could even understand that.
The education system has failed me for not having enough greats on the
syllabus. I am now trying to teach myself what the education system
should have. From my point of view, studing Shakespeare was the
highlight of the English curriculum.
DT.
j...@radidelmex.net
> To be or not to be, that is the question.
> Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
> The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
> Or to take arms against a sea of trouble
> And by opposing end them.
I find when I listen to Shakespeare's plays, that he has moments of
crystalline lucidity (one of which you quoted), followed by a poetical
sing-songness where I'm guessing what the devil is going on.
I'd like for a sly wag to present some famous scenes to a two audiences,
one played as written, the other peppered with nonsense words, and see
if there's any difference in their description of the action. I wager not!
|HAM-1-3| ** For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
|HAM-1-3| ** In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,
|HAM-1-3| ** The inward service of the mind and soul
|HAM-1-3| ** Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
|HAM-1-3| ** And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
|HAM-1-3| ** The virtue of his will:
vs ...
|HAM-1-3| ** For nature, creblar, does not grow alone
|HAM-1-3| ** In thern and balk, but, as this temple wages,
|HAM-1-3| ** The inward service of the mind and soul
|HAM-1-3| ** Grows wide porthal. Perhaps he loves you now,
|HAM-1-3| ** And now no soil nor caudel doth bestwitch
|HAM-1-3| ** The virtue of his will:
Robert Lieblich
>
> Some British academic wants Shakespeare to be translated into modern
> English, so that students who can't understand the ancient archaic
> language will be able to understand it.
>
> I recall many years ago in aue, before the historical reach of
> Google, having an argument with a US English prof who said that
> studying Shakespeare should not be part of any school curriculum, or
> even part of any undergraduate university English curriculum, because
> Shakespeare's language was simply much too difficult. He thought
> Shakespeare ought to be reserved for postgraduate students. He claimed
> the problem was archaic vocabulary.
At the University of California, Berkeley, forty years ago, you
could not satisfy the requirements for the undergraduate major
without taking a course on Chaucer. The general purpose lecture
course of Chaucer, which I took so I could devote the one seminar
course I was allowed to Milton, had about 500 students, and once
each week class began with a short quiz requiring us to translate a
passage from Chaucer into modern English. Our text included copious
footnotes but no separate translation. I survived just fine, and
after that Shakespeare was a lark.
I think it useful to assign a Shakespeare text that footnotes
obsolete vocabulary. Otherwise I see no reason why a student of even
average intelligence and literacy, and interested in Shakespeare,
could not manage quite well.
Murray Arnow
>
>I think it useful to assign a Shakespeare text that footnotes
>obsolete vocabulary. Otherwise I see no reason why a student of even
>average intelligence and literacy, and interested in Shakespeare,
>could not manage quite well.
>
Yes. Tecumseh appreciated Shakespeare, and in particular Hamlet, without
benefit of an education, and he wasn't a native English speaker, but he was a
native American.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>
> > To be or not to be, that is the question.
> > Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
> > The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
> > Or to take arms against a sea of trouble
> > And by opposing end them.
>
> I find when I listen to Shakespeare's plays, that he has moments of
> crystalline lucidity (one of which you quoted), followed by a
> poetical sing-songness where I'm guessing what the devil is going
> on.
If you hear "sing-songness", I'd guess you're listening to someone who
was guilty of what I suspect that Shakespeare, through Hamlet, was
criticiszing when he said
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your
players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.
I was taught that essentially you were supposed to forget that it was
poetry, forget that there were line breaks, and forget there was a
(supposedly) rigid meter: the true meter would come out anyway. I
agree that when you hear
To BE or NOT to BE that IS the QUEStion. [pause]
WheTHER 'tis NObler IN the MIND to SUFfer [pause]
The SLINGS and ARrows OF outRAgeous FORtune [pause]
Or TO take ARMS aGAINST a SEA of TROUble [pause]
And BY opPOsing END them.
It feels like you're being dragged over speedbumps. Head down.
> I'd like for a sly wag to present some famous scenes to a two
> audiences, one played as written, the other peppered with nonsense
> words, and see if there's any difference in their description of the
> action. I wager not!
All of your changes are just archaic vocabulary (with the exception of
"besmirch"). I agree that Shakespeare should be read with a glossary,
but I don't think it warrants a translation. If it's presented well,
it wouldn't matter if such words were substituted.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Never attempt to teach a pig to
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |sing; it wastes your time and
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |annoys the pig.
| Robert Heinlein
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Rob Bannister
My only real difficulty in reading Shakespeare is because the only copy I
have is a complete works with print so small and fine that my poor old eyes
can't cope -:)
-- Rob Bannister
Mike Oliver
> I
> agree that when you hear
>
> To BE or NOT to BE that IS the QUEStion. [pause]
> WheTHER 'tis NObler IN the MIND to SUFfer [pause]
> The SLINGS and ARrows OF outRAgeous FORtune [pause]
> Or TO take ARMS aGAINST a SEA of TROUble [pause]
> And BY opPOsing END them.
>
> It feels like you're being dragged over speedbumps. Head down.
For this particular speech, I think that all Hamlets should sign
a pact to recite
Whether 'tis nobler [slight pause] in the mind to suffer
There seems to be a huge temptation to present "nobler in the mind"
as a single phrase with rising intonation, peaking on "mind". But
that completely misrepresents the meaning of the verse, which is not
about nobleness in the mind, but about suffering slings and arrows
in the mind.
Charles Riggs
Malcolm) wrote:
>I failed to convince him.
The reason you probably failed was because you were wrong. Shakespeare
used many many words that are totally out of use today or have
radically changed in meaning; a number of his phrases are also
archaic. That is the main difficulty when reading the author, not his
sentence structure, which is straightforward and no different from
that of a good writer of today. His punctuation was also modern and
generally spot-on by today's standards.
Charles Riggs
Charles Riggs
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>All of your changes are just archaic vocabulary (with the exception of
>"besmirch"). I agree that Shakespeare should be read with a glossary,
>but I don't think it warrants a translation. If it's presented well,
>it wouldn't matter if such words were substituted.
I agree and if someone "translated" it to modern English, he'd be
bound to make a balls of it just as the fellows who have tried to
translate the King James version of the Bible have. There was only one
Shakespeare (well, some say two, but you get my drift).
Charles Riggs
Charles Riggs
<Robert....@Verizon.net> wrote:
>I think it useful to assign a Shakespeare text that footnotes
>obsolete vocabulary. Otherwise I see no reason why a student of even
>average intelligence and literacy, and interested in Shakespeare,
>could not manage quite well.
My edition of the complete works does this and I find the footnotes
invaluable and, often, very interesting in themselves.
Charles Riggs
Leopoldo Perdomo
> Yes, as a twelve year old reading Shakespeare for the first time I had
> some (*UNDERSTATEMENT*) difficulty. But heck, what do we pay our
> teachers for? I am very thankful that I had wonderful techers who could
> explain all those funny 'foreign' words to me. We even studied Chaucer
> (I was 16 then) and with a good annotated edition and an even better
> teacher one could even understand that.
>
> The education system has failed me for not having enough greats on the
> syllabus. I am now trying to teach myself what the education system
> should have. From my point of view, studing Shakespeare was the
> highlight of the English curriculum.
>
> DT.
Well, education is a word of wide meaning. It has many shades. Why
would have more importance the language used 400 year ago than, by example,
a better knowledge about present language, or even a good knowledge of
maths or other scientific subjects? Most of the people have a poor command
of today language and mostly about sciences. Not only most students have
trouble of writing properly a message y every day language but also the
have troubles to understand a writting of average complexity. I am in
favour that Shakespear and Chaucer must be a good subjects of study for
some post-grade students with special leaning to this topics.
To force average students with this old writings, I think, is a fruitless
work; not only for alumnni but also for teachers. Teachers could easily
get burned with failure in this endeavour.
Leopoldo
--
URL: http://leopoldo.perdomo.com
perchprism
"Leopoldo Perdomo" <leop...@perdomo.com> wrote in message
news:3BFA2EA3...@perdomo.com...
Oh, I don't know. I'd give them some Shakespeare but drop Chaucer. Stuff
older than Shakespeare belongs in some sort of history class, but
Shakespeare's stuff is part of today's language. Students should get enough
to enable them to understand the countless references to his works that
they'll encounter and to make them really think about word order.
Leopoldo, is Cervantes hard to read today in Spain? Do they make you read
him?
--
Perchprism
(southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)
Matti Lamprhey
> [...]
> I think it useful to assign a Shakespeare text that footnotes
My autoparsing function flipped reproducibly at this. I've told it to
treat "footnotes" as a verb, but it still blue-screens at the "assign".
Perhaps one day someone will translate Lieblich into English?
Matti
David Tomkins
> Well, education is a word of wide meaning. It has many shades. Why
> would have more importance the language used 400 year ago than, by example,
> a better knowledge about present language, or even a good knowledge of
> maths or other scientific subjects? Most of the people have a poor command
> of today language and mostly about sciences. Not only most students have
> trouble of writing properly a message y every day language but also the
> have troubles to understand a writting of average complexity. I am in
> favour that Shakespear and Chaucer must be a good subjects of study for
> some post-grade students with special leaning to this topics.
> To force average students with this old writings, I think, is a fruitless
> work; not only for alumnni but also for teachers. Teachers could easily
> get burned with failure in this endeavour.
> Leopoldo
The whole point of compulsory education is that whatever you teach
students, it will be "forced" upon them. 16th Century "Shakespeare" is
forced upon students. So is 20th Century J.D. "Phoney" Sallinger. As a
school student I don't have a choice of what texts I can study. The
Board of Education and my teachers make a decision. My point is this:
Given that whatever texts you will encounter at school will be "forced"
upon you, it is better to have something "good" (rather than something
"bad") forced upon you. Now this leads us to the next question: How do
you determine what's good or bad in literature? That's something I am
able to answer definitively. It's a matter of taste. Personally, I would
rather have something of intrinsic literary worth forced upon me than
some piece of tendentious ideological verbiage. I am not suggesting that
only old authors meet this criterion. There are many modern authors who
write well and whose writings are good but aren't a pamphlet for a
trendy political cause (of whatever colour).
Also, I think it is entirely fruitless for people whose native language
is not English to study Shakespeare etc. (I assume you would agree with
me here.) It may be appropriate for them to study Shakespeare at
university, but while learning English (as a second language) in
Highschool there are far more valuable things to be doing. I couldn't
agree with you more that it is more important for students to learn how
to speak current English, and write good and correct sentences than to
study archaic English that they are unlikely ever to encounter. Studying
Shakespeare and Chaucer in highschool will not help the student of
English as a second language impove his/her English until he/she has a
very good grasp of modern English. My native language is English and I
have studied German, French and Latin as far as foreign languages go. As
a beginner in German I would be wasting my time trying to read an author
like Goethe. Most of his writings are far too complex for a beginner. I
would be better learning how to communicate and make sure I can be
understood ... But a time may come (and has indeed come) when Goethe is
within my grasp and beneficial to me. Exactly the same case can be made
for authors like Shakespeare. This is particularly the case as
Shakespeare is without a doubt the most prominent (and arguably most
influential) English author.
What I am suggesting is that for NATIVE SPEAKERS of English, the study
of Shakespeare etc. is important. In order properly to understand the
present, we need to understand the past. For the native speaker of a
language we are not learning it as a foreigner does. It should be
assumed that by the time a native speaker gets to highschool, what the
foreigner is learning for the first time is already second nature to the
native speaker. The native speaker should be able to go a step further
from learning merely to understand and be understood. Native speakers,
rather, should be challenged to go beyond the conversational and expand
their vocabulary, understand the history of the language and develop an
appreciation for the language they grew up with. I would say exactly the
same thing about native speakers of Spanish as I have about native
speakers of English.
I may have confused you (and some other readers) when I said my native
tongue was "Strine". I am actually a native speaker of ENGLISH. The only
other language I speak (reasonably) well is German (which I learned at
school). I also speak some French and have a basic knowledge of Latin.
There is no such language as "Strine". It is a little joke among native
speakers of English that the Australian dialect (if you call it a
dialect) of English is called "Strine". If you try and say "Australian"
in only one Syllable, it (sort of) sounds like the (fictitious) word
"Strine".
DT
David Tomkins
> Perhaps one day someone will translate Lieblich into English?
Lovely
Donna Richoux
I don't know. I don't want to get in a silly quarrel about what is "no
different" and what is "a little different" and which problems are due
to archaic vocabulary or archaic phrases or archaic grammar. Yet I know
I have a great deal of trouble puzzling out what Shakespeare says as
compared to even writers of the 1700s. Maybe the difference is between
poetry and prose -- it's always harder deciphering the tightly-packed
images and phrases of poetry.
I went to the Shakespeare RhymeZone site and picked a page at random --
a scene from Henry IV. Look at this opening sentence, which I changed
from blank verse to prose style. Would you say that is all it takes to
make it "no different from that of a good writer of today"?
My Lord of York, it better show'd with you when that
your flock, assembled by the bell, encircled you to
hear with reverence your exposition on the holy text
than now to see you here an iron man, cheering a
rout of rebels with your drum, turning the word to
sword and life to death.
I'm sorry, each time I looked at that, I went, "Huh?" The construction
of the sentence, with that key "when that" near the beginning, and what
is apparently an important "than now" in the middle, seems to end
nowhere.
I ask myself, does "better show'd with you" mean something other than I
think? That might make it come out right.
Okay, after several times through, I can guess the overall meaning, the
speaker would rather that "My Lord of York" was preaching quietly than
fighting. That's about it, and I go on to the next.
That man that sits within a monarch's heart, and ripens in the
sunshine of his favour, would he abuse the countenance of the king,
alack, what mischiefs might he set abrooch in shadow of such
greatness!
Again, is this a sentence that might appear in a twentieth-century
novel? I think not. I don't know anyone who puts a "would he..." in the
middle of a sentence like that. Also, you mention punctuation -- in
modern style I would expect a dash by that "alack," where the whole
sentence is broken off and started again.
So I gather the meaning of the sentence again -- York, being close to
the king, was in a position to do mischief -- and I go on.
Not every sentence requires several readings. This declaration, further
down, I understand at first glance:
My lord, our army is dispersed already;
Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses
East, west, north, south; or, like a school broke up,
Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
But they're not all that straightforward. I do think you overstate the
case about sentence structure. Shakespeare did use "that" and "which"
and "would" and other key sentence-building forms differently than we do
today.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Chris Malcolm
Unfortunately our argument is beyond the historical reach of Google,
but my point was that when he gave me example quotations of
Shakespeare which were difficult to understand, with examples of what
kind of misunderstanding and bafflement the archaisms induced, I was
able to point out that the bafflements and misunderstandings in his own
examples were due *not* to archaic words which weren't known, or were
guessed wrongly, but were due to misparsing the grammaticial
structure.
Another poster has provided a nice example of that from Hamlet's "to
be or not to be" speech", where "in the mind" is frequently
misparsed. Nothing to do with archaic word meanings. Everything to do
with unfamiliarity with complex and unusual (but not archaic) grammar.
You are correct in claiming that some of his words and phrases are so
long gone from modern usage that they can't be understood without
expert help. I challenge you to find a page of Shakespeare where the
misunderstandings of the average teenager are more due to the meanings
of words than it is to misparsing the grammatical structure.
Chris Malcolm
>Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> vs ...
Almost all the words you have replaced are sufficiently common
that they're quite likely to be used correctly by intellectual
villains in modern comic books.
Chris Malcolm
>Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie> wrote:
Exactly my point. What puzzles you is the sentence structure.
> That man that sits within a monarch's heart, and ripens in the
> sunshine of his favour, would he abuse the countenance of the king,
> alack, what mischiefs might he set abrooch in shadow of such
> greatness!
>Again, is this a sentence that might appear in a twentieth-century
>novel? I think not. I don't know anyone who puts a "would he..." in the
>middle of a sentence like that. Also, you mention punctuation -- in
>modern style I would expect a dash by that "alack," where the whole
>sentence is broken off and started again.
Exactly my point. What puzzles you is the sentence structure.
>I do think you overstate the
>case about sentence structure.
Really? After you have provided good examples of exactly what I meant?
>Shakespeare did use "that" and "which"
>and "would" and other key sentence-building forms differently than we do
>today.
But not in ways which are not logical by today's standards. As you
showed in your explanations above, after a little thought you were
able to work it out. It was unusual, but it was logical and
grammatical, and shouldn't puzzle an English reader who can be
bothered to look more carefully at it. Exactly my point.
There is a question of attitude involved here. If when reading a
difficult text you pause at each moment of puzzlement to reason it
out, and possibly to consult a dictionary, you will find that your
capacity to understand difficult English grows, and you become able to
disambiguate complex text on the run without pausing. If on the other
hand when reading a difficult text your reaction to puzzlement is
simply to charge on with mounting bafflement and annoyance, you will
never get better at understanding difficult English.
We don't need to stop learning English. The problem is that most
people do.
Today many writers with good literary English skills encompass most of
Shakespeare's archaisms of vocabulary and construction in their
reading comprehension, if not their writing. That is one of the things
which gives modern English its scope and power, that there is an
unbroken accessible tradition of English writing going back to
Shakespeare. It takes effort to reach back to Shakespeare, but he is
such a master it is a very worthwhile effort. There is no way good
language skills can be acquired without effort.
I fear there is a growing idea within our educational systems that
anything that requires an effort to learn is bad and ought to be
scorned by cool modern folk. That's why we can all appreciate the joke
of the beautiful young woman on her knees before her English professor
saying she will do *anything*, absolutely *anything* to pass her
exams.
"Anything", he asks, "Absolutely ANYTHING?"
"Yes!" she confirms, "ANYTHING!"
"You would even go so far as to --"
"YES! YES!" she cries.
"-- study?" he enquires.
Tony Cooper
>
> Oh, I don't know. I'd give them some Shakespeare but drop Chaucer. Stuff
> older than Shakespeare belongs in some sort of history class, but
> Shakespeare's stuff is part of today's language.
I'd leave Chaucer in the original form in the curriculum.
It was a revelation to me at that point that the English
language was not always the same English that I spoke.
Moving from Chaucer to Shakespeare gave me an understanding
of how the language changed with time. To a school child,
the assumption is that everything has always been as it is
now.
--
Tony Cooper aka: tony_co...@yahoo.com
Provider of Jots and Tittles
Donna Richoux
> tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) writes:
> >I do think you overstate the
> >case about sentence structure.
>
> Really? After you have provided good examples of exactly what I meant?
Hang on, Chris. I was following up to a post by Charles, so it was his
overstatement I was referring to. You and I appear to be on the same
team.
Like they say, ya can't tell the players without a scorecard.
a1a5...@sprint.ca
<leop...@perdomo.com> wrote:
> Teachers could easily
>get burned with failure in this endeavour.
> Leopoldo
>
>--
>URL: http://leopoldo.perdomo.com
Perhaps the Canadian teacher is unique in this regard but from what T
have seen the Union makes them just about fireproof. Private schools
are proliferating in response to this.
a1a5...@sprint.ca
The flexibility of the language being what it is you may have to
threaten to assign the tip [as the destination of recalcetrant
autoparsers]. I bet it will understand.
ntaylor
>
>All of your changes are just archaic vocabulary (with the exception of
>"besmirch"). I agree that Shakespeare should be read with a glossary,
>but I don't think it warrants a translation. If it's presented well,
>it wouldn't matter if such words were substituted.
>
NT> We watch a lot of TV from Mexico via satellite. Their Canal 22 recently
showed all the BBC Shakespeare plays with Spanish sub-titles. Even with a
smattering of Spanish some of the Shakespeare became even more
understandable.
Padraig Breathnach
>I'd leave Chaucer in the original form in the curriculum.
>It was a revelation to me at that point that the English
>language was not always the same English that I spoke.
Who needs Chaucer? My first visit to Manchester did that for me.
PB
Leopoldo Perdomo
> Oh, I don't know. I'd give them some Shakespeare but drop Chaucer. Stuff
> older than Shakespeare belongs in some sort of history class, but
> Shakespeare's stuff is part of today's language. Students should get enough
> to enable them to understand the countless references to his works that
> they'll encounter and to make them really think about word order.
>
> Leopoldo, is Cervantes hard to read today in Spain? Do they make you read
> him?
>
> --
> Perchprism
> (southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)
In Spain they do not enforce readings of Cervantes. They are only
obliged to know there are, that is, exist, some classics, their names,
their works and so on. Moreover, El Quijote, everybody knows about its
existence but very few people have ready it. I do not find difficult to
read Cervantes, but I know rather well Spanish. I can say that The Quixote
have influenced my way of writing, at least in part.
I was trying to point that people have a poor knowledge of his own
contemporary language and could be a waste of resources to make them work
on the classics. It would be more useful make them to work in
understanding normal written language and to write well.
Pat Durkin
"David Tomkins" <dtom...@pnc.com.au> wrote in message
news:3BFA4ACF...@pnc.com.au...
> Matti Lamprhey wrote:
>
> > Perhaps one day someone will translate Lieblich into English?
>
> Lovely
That's what I said, a couple of months ago, but I suspect it wasn't original
with me, either.
Leopoldo Perdomo
>
> The whole point of compulsory education is that whatever you teach
> students, it will be "forced" upon them. 16th Century "Shakespeare" is
forced upon students. So is 20th Century J.D. "Phoney" Sallinger. As a
school student I don't have a choice of what texts I can study. The
Board of Education and my teachers make a decision. My point is this:
Given that whatever texts you will encounter at school will be "forced"
upon you, it is better to have something "good" (rather than something
"bad") forced upon you. Now this leads us to the next question: How do
you determine what's good or bad in literature? That's something I am
able to answer definitively. It's a matter of taste. Personally, I would
rather have something of intrinsic literary worth forced upon me than
some piece of tendentious ideological verbiage. I am not suggesting that
only old authors meet this criterion. There are many modern authors who
> write well and whose writings are good but aren't a pamphlet for a
> trendy political cause (of whatever colour).
Well, David. You look to me very optimistic. Most educated people have
a poor mastery of his own contemporary language. Even most journalist
write rather poorly; but as you say, a syllabus full of clasical readings
is enforced on alumni. What is the purpose of this program? To me it is a
mystery. Well, I thought once that the purpose of this endeavour is to
instill in the studends a phobia so strong as they would not waste in the
future their precious time with literary adventures. I think this was
expecially the case in those public schools of the victorian era, from
which were coming out the military and civil officers of the state. A
writer from those times of the Empire, who served in India, stated that he
was amazed that not even one of all these educated gentlemen was found ever
with a book in his hands. And they have much time to be bored in any far
outpost in Pakistan or Kashimir but they could past their time alone
without the help of a book. Amazing results for an elitist school. What do
you think?
> I may have confused you (and some other readers) when I said my native
> tongue was "Strine". I am actually a native speaker of ENGLISH. The only
> other language I speak (reasonably) well is German (which I learned at
> school). I also speak some French and have a basic knowledge of Latin.
> There is no such language as "Strine". It is a little joke among native
> speakers of English that the Australian dialect (if you call it a
> dialect) of English is called "Strine". If you try and say "Australian"
> in only one Syllable, it (sort of) sounds like the (fictitious) word
> "Strine".
>
> DT
Sometimes people says words I can not find in OED or in Collings. So
this Strine language of yours was to me a kind of practical joke.
Leopoldo Perdomo
>
> >|HAM-1-3| ** For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
> >|HAM-1-3| ** In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,
> >|HAM-1-3| ** The inward service of the mind and soul
> >|HAM-1-3| ** Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
> >|HAM-1-3| ** And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
> >|HAM-1-3| ** The virtue of his will:
>
> > vs ...
>
> >|HAM-1-3| ** For nature, creblar, does not grow alone
> >|HAM-1-3| ** In thern and balk, but, as this temple wages,
> >|HAM-1-3| ** The inward service of the mind and soul
> >|HAM-1-3| ** Grows wide porthal. Perhaps he loves you now,
> >|HAM-1-3| ** And now no soil nor caudel doth bestwitch
> >|HAM-1-3| ** The virtue of his will:
>
> Almost all the words you have replaced are sufficiently common
> that they're quite likely to be used correctly by intellectual
> villains in modern comic books.
Almost a fifth of the words, even the news you changed, are unknown to
me. This is no way to translate the thing into modern language.
Leopoldo
> --
> Chris Malcolm c...@dai.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 650 3085
> School of Artificial Intelligence, Division of Informatics
> Edinburgh University, 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
> [http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/daidb/people/homes/cam/ ] DoD #205
--
URL: http://leopoldo.perdomo.com
perchprism
"Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3BFA75D2...@yahoo.com...
> perchprism wrote:
> >
> > Oh, I don't know. I'd give them some Shakespeare but drop Chaucer. Stuff
> > older than Shakespeare belongs in some sort of history class, but
> > Shakespeare's stuff is part of today's language.
>
> I'd leave Chaucer in the original form in the curriculum.
> It was a revelation to me at that point that the English
> language was not always the same English that I spoke.
> Moving from Chaucer to Shakespeare gave me an understanding
> of how the language changed with time. To a school child,
> the assumption is that everything has always been as it is
> now.
Yeah, OK, but where do you stop? I was just saying that Shakespeare, for all
the convolution and dead-as-a-doornail diction, is modern English. Chaucer
is a foreign language and shouldn't have to be read, especially in
translation, in a high-school English class. Same goes for Gilgamesh. A few
examples of the original text and a sound recording of a simulation would
suffice to provide what you so rightly champion.
How much of Chaucer is in our whaddyacallit, cultural consciousness? What
everyday references would we miss if we knew nothing of his works? Reynard?
Chanticleer? Ummm...help me out here.
Jacqui
> Yeah, OK, but where do you stop? I was just saying that Shakespeare,
for all
> the convolution and dead-as-a-doornail diction, is modern English.
Chaucer
> is a foreign language and shouldn't have to be read, especially in
> translation, in a high-school English class. Same goes for Gilgamesh.
A few
> examples of the original text and a sound recording of a simulation
would
> suffice to provide what you so rightly champion.
>
> How much of Chaucer is in our whaddyacallit, cultural consciousness?
What
> everyday references would we miss if we knew nothing of his works?
Reynard?
> Chanticleer? Ummm...help me out here.
Chaucer and Shakespeare both retold tales from Boccaccio's Decameron.
You will be familiar with stories from Chaucer even if you're not aware
of it. The Patient Griselda is quite important in feminist literary
history (but she's a bit of a drip tbh). The Canterbury Tales are bawdy,
funny, much easier to read than most people realise once you have got a
grip on the spellyng and pronunciation querkes, and worth studying. I
think I first "did" The Pardoner's Tale in translation aged 11 and was
fascinated by it. I still remember the drawing of skeletons I did as
part of my homework. Nevill Coghill's translation makes it quite easy
for most 17-21 year old students to cope with (upper year pupils at
school, undergraduate students). We studied Chaucer (in the original) at
university, shortly after Beowulf and the contrast makes him SO easy to
grasp, and Shakespeare is a romp after those two.
I would say Shakespeare is still vital for a good school syllabus - the
stories work at any age (including the ones cribbed from much earlier
authors) and the language can be picked up quite easily if the plot is
understood. Watching Shakespeare on stage (or film) makes the language
much easier to follow than just reading it on the page - reading aloud
(always torture in school classes) is better than nothing.
Jac
M.J.Powell
<chr...@gofree.indigo.ie> writes
Just after the war when I took my School Certificate the set book in Eng
Lit was 'Henry V'. It made little sense to me. But when the film arrived
in town and we were let off homework if we went to see it, it was a
revelation.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
Raymot
[...]
>Now this leads us to the next question: How do
>you determine what's good or bad in literature? That's something I am
>able to answer definitively. It's a matter of taste. Personally, I would
>rather have something of intrinsic literary worth forced upon me than
>some piece of tendentious ideological verbiage. I am not suggesting that
>only old authors meet this criterion. There are many modern authors who
>write well and whose writings are good but aren't a pamphlet for a
>trendy political cause (of whatever colour).
You seem to be contradicting yourself. You define good or bad
literature as a matter of taste, then ask to be taught something
of intrinsic literary worth. If there is such a thing as intrinsic
literary worth (which I believe there is) then it is intrinsic to
the work, and not a function of the taste of the reader.
This implies that a person learned in literature should be able
to determine the relative literary merits of two works, regardless
of whether the works are to their taste or not (which I believe
they can, ideally).
>Also, I think it is entirely fruitless for people whose native language
>is not English to study Shakespeare etc. (I assume you would agree with
>me here.) It may be appropriate for them to study Shakespeare at
>university, but while learning English (as a second language) in
>Highschool there are far more valuable things to be doing.
Yes, this is a potential problem for societies like ours with diverse
ethnic groups of different languages. But Australia, from where you and
I are writing, is an English-speaking country, and if one is doing
English at school, one should expect to learn good and proper literature
and grammar, etc. It would be as much a pity to lower the level of
language taught, for the benefit of immigrants, as it would have been
to lower the level to where the class dunce could understand all the set
texts in my day.
English as a Second Language for those who need it is an excellent idea
for High School, but not for those who don't need it.
[...]
>What I am suggesting is that for NATIVE SPEAKERS of English, the study
>of Shakespeare etc. is important. In order properly to understand the
>present, we need to understand the past. For the native speaker of a
>language we are not learning it as a foreigner does. It should be
>assumed that by the time a native speaker gets to highschool, what the
>foreigner is learning for the first time is already second nature to the
>native speaker. The native speaker should be able to go a step further
>from learning merely to understand and be understood. Native speakers,
>rather, should be challenged to go beyond the conversational and expand
>their vocabulary, understand the history of the language and develop an
>appreciation for the language they grew up with. I would say exactly the
>same thing about native speakers of Spanish as I have about native
>speakers of English.
Yes, I agree. Are you saying that schools are dumbing down their English
classes in order to cater for non-English speakers? This would be tragic.
Raymot
=======
Brisbane, Oz
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
Tony Cooper
Agreed, but it was much later in my life when I went to
Manchester. Liverpuddlians prove the same point.
Tony Cooper
>
> How much of Chaucer is in our whaddyacallit, cultural consciousness? What
> everyday references would we miss if we knew nothing of his works? Reynard?
> Chanticleer? Ummm...help me out here.
I can't spell it the way I learned it, but without looking
it up I can recite: When that Aprille... and the rest of
it. I won't do it here because I'm not going to look it up
and I'm feeling too sensitive for corrections today. There
must be something important about it or it wouldn't stick in
my mind for 50 some years.
Rob Bannister
I wonder whether Bob or someone else could explain to me why so many Jewish surnames contain words like 'love', 'sweet',
'honey', 'rose'. Surnames in most cultures are fairly recent. Jews, of course, lived in many different European countries
and so presumably adopted surnames when those countries did. Clearly there are many 'job' names (as is common in Europe) -
Silversmith, Goldsmith, etc, but where does Sweetman (Süßmann) and Rosenstein or, for that matter, Lieblich come from. I
assume the 'dove' (Taube) part of some Jewish names is in fact a real Hebrew word. So were surnames actually a Jewish
tradition before they became common in Europe, were many Hebrew names used and how were they formed?
-- Rob Bannister
David Tomkins
> You seem to be contradicting yourself. You define good or bad
> literature as a matter of taste, then ask to be taught something
> of intrinsic literary worth. If there is such a thing as intrinsic
> literary worth (which I believe there is) then it is intrinsic to
> the work, and not a function of the taste of the reader.
> This implies that a person learned in literature should be able
> to determine the relative literary merits of two works, regardless
> of whether the works are to their taste or not (which I believe
> they can, ideally).
Yes, even as I was writing this I realised it sounded contradictory.
Yet, I still decided to write it. To save face I will call it a
"quasi-contradiction". :)
I actually do believe some things have intrinsic literary worth. I am an
absolutist in that regard. It also happens to be my taste that I like to
read these kinds of works and not politically correct bullshit. But for
some people who are opposed to Mr Shakespeare & Co, I realise it may not
be in their taste to read these authors and they may not see the
'intrinsic literary worth' of the work. What does one do about this
dilemma?
This is ultimately a _philosophical_ rather than a _literary_ question.
What is 'good' and what is 'bad' is a matter of philosophy (aesthetics)
and not English. Because we live in such a relativistic age where the
Judeo-Christian-Classical worldview (which is essentially my worldview)
is on the decline it cannot be assumed that everyone agrees Shakespeare
is worth studying. "Why should we study a dead, 450 year old white male
from the backwaters of some little insignificant island off the coast of
Europe? What relevance does he have to modern Australia [or insert your
own country here]? Shakespeare was a bigot. He lived at a time when
Europeans actually believed their worldview was correct and no-one
else's was. He didn't live in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic,
pan-sexual, politically correct society like we do in 21st Century
Australia. His writings can't tell us anything about the modern world --
what it means to be a youth struggling with sex, drugs and suicidal
tendencies. The arrogance of people like Shakespeare is responsible for
all the oppression of colonialism etc. Look at the plight of the
Aborigines. How can you even consider studying old Bill? He is a
hindrance to Reconciliation. What are you doing studying 500 years of
English culture? We have 50,000 years of Aboriginal culture to study. We
need to study more Aboriginal authors, more Chinese-Australian authors,
more Vietnamese-Australian authors more Arab-Australian authors etc.
etc. etc. [God forbid that we would actually study an _English_ Author!
Is it just a coincidence that the language is called _English_?] Bla Bla
Bla..."
The problem with prescribing modern English syllabuses is that it has as
much (if not more) to do with philosophy as it does English. The answer
to the question "_Why_ do we teach English?" will shape _what_ you teach
in the name of English education.
So in answer to question about my quasi-contradiction: Yes, I believe in
intrinsic literary worth. For that reason I think everyone whose native
tongue is English should study a range of literature across the ages
(and this may therefore include some Aboriginal etc. authors) including
Mr Shakespeare & Co. But I also realise we live in a politically correct
relativistic age where such an absolutist worldview is anathema to the
pc educational establishment. Given the abhorence to anything absolute,
my alternative argument is then "if you're going to force something on
me, I'd like to be forced something I actually enjoy as a matter of
taste rather than something I loathe."
> Yes, I agree. Are you saying that schools are dumbing down their English
> classes in order to cater for non-English speakers? This would be tragic.
I only finished highschool 5 years ago, so my observations still have
some currency (I think). My experience is that the whole educational
syllabus (not just English) is being "dumbed down". For whose benefit
(whether migrants or dunces) this is being done, I can't be sure. I
think it's both. As a person of reasonable intelligence I was frustrated
in school that I could not study things at a level I wanted. The
syllabus had been dumbed down to my detriment. I have said in another
post that I went to a private school (not my choice!). When I speak with
my friends who went to state highschools, their experience was even
worse. I studied Latin and French and German and in English we did a
Shakespearean drama every year as well as his poetry and many other
authors and poets (ancient and modern). Moreover, we assiduously studied
English grammar. My friends in state schools studied no grammar
whatsoever and hardly any 'classic' authors. Their study of foreign
languages was woeful. Only a few studied Shakespeare.
The people who set the syllabus have no balls. They buy (or are actually
the originators of) all those specious arguments about setting the
syllabus for "eveyone" (read "the dunce"). When my father went to school
(a state school) in Queensland it was compulsory to study a foreign
language in order to matriculate. I think this is a wonderful idea.
Studying foreign languages makes you understand your own language so
much better, as well as experiencing the joy of being able to
communicate with other people in another language. It is also extremely
practical. Yet when I suggested this to teachers of my agegroup
(straight out of the indoctrination institution that is called a modern
university) they said "You couldn't do that. What about all the kids
with learning disabilities? They have enough trouble studying their
native English. They'd really struggle being forced to learn a foreign
language." What a load of old cobblers! In the European Union they are
serious about teaching foreign languages. Why can't we in Australia? If
I had my way, every school student in Australia would have to study at
least one European and one Asian language, from primary school all the
way to Year 12. But my views are not politically correct.
Another thing I have noticed is that even migrant-kids who have grown up
here and hence speak English as a native language have trouble
"connecting" with the texts on a cultural level. Because my ancestors
came from Ireland/ Britain I can associate with 16th Century British
authors. It's part of my _cultural_ as well as linguistic heritage. For
children of Chinese immigrants, what relevance does it have? Yes they
speak English now, but they don't have a spiritual connexion with the
text. I don't really know what you can do here. Any suggestions?
I seemed to have rambled on for long enough now.
DT from Springwood (Blue Mountains, NSW), Straya.
David Tomkins
> Well, David. You look to me very optimistic. Most educated people have
> a poor mastery of his own contemporary language. Even most journalist
> write rather poorly;
You can say that again. I throw my arms up in despair at the quality of
journalism and English expression in Australian newspapers. The Sydney
Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The Courier-Mail etc. are all
appalling. There is no independence of thought (they tend to say what
Rupert and Kerry want) and they are replete with poor English
expression. I have given up reading Australian newspapers.
DT
David Tomkins
> > > Perhaps one day someone will translate Lieblich into English?
> >
> > Lovely
>
> That's what I said, a couple of months ago, but I suspect it wasn't original
> with me, either.
Well original or not, I came up with it independently. I wasn't here a
couple of months ago. But I will give you credit for similar your
witticism. But rest assured I didn't copy it from you or anyone else.
What does 'original' mean, anyway? In Copyright Law (Australian
copyright law, at least) 'original' means that you came up with the idea
etc. independently -- ie that you didn't copy it from someone else. Even
if someone came up with the 'work' before you, but you came up with it
independently, it's still your 'original' work (and you can therefore
assert your copyright in the work).
By the way I have come up with identical witticisms that the Simpsons
have used on the show. Homer is always saying "D'oh". This phrase caught
on in the schoolyard. Whenever something went wrong, my fellow students
would say "D'oh!" It didn't take me long for me to come up with the
reply to someone's "D'oh" of "a dear, a female dear" whereupon I was
shot down for making such an insightful (or 'awful' in their ignorant
view) witticism. A couple of years later the creators of the Simpsons
came up with the same witticism. Everyone who paid me out those years
earlier conveniently forgot that I came up with the witticism before it
made its way into the Simpsons. They denied I ever said it. What short
memories some people have, eh?
PS I hope Herr Lieblich didn't take any offence at the little joke re
his name.
DT
David Tomkins
> Almost a fifth of the words, even the news you changed, are unknown to
> me. This is no way to translate the thing into modern language.
> Leopoldo
If I understood him correctly, jfw was not trying to translate the work
into modern English. He was making the point that the language used by
Shakespeare is not that widely understood, even among native speakers of
English. As a little exercise in roguery he replaced some of the archaic
words with other archaic words, thereby changing the *meaning* of the
text. His point was that even after doing this, most native speakers of
English would not detect this because they don't really understand the
meaning of all these archaic words.
DT
Mike Oliver
> Almost all the words you have replaced are sufficiently common
> that they're quite likely to be used correctly by intellectual
> villains in modern comic books.
I remember that super-heroes and -villians in Marvel comics liked
to use the word "cretin" a lot, and at some point I learned that
this was pronounced / 'krE t@n /.
In the trailer for "Monsters, Inc.", though, one of the characters
calls another a / 'krE t@n /, and the other quickly corrects him,
pronouncing it / 'kri t@n /. m-w seems to agree.
Is this pondal? I think / 'krE t@n / is preferable, if only
on the grounds that it's not a homophone of "Cretan".
Pat Durkin
Gee whiz. I don't think Bob or anyone would take offense at such a cunning
translation. And I am sorry those fellow students didn't credit you with
any wit about the female deer. But, we can't go on through life hiding our
lights under a bushel, so just carry on. A little lightness in here can't
hurt.
I had an uncle who toyed with the idea of suing Reader's Digest for
"stealing" his comment about his ex-wife: "Your slip is showing". I am
glad he didn't follow through on it. I just think that Great Minds, etc.
mplsray
"Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
news:3BFB0AA9...@math.ucla.edu...
The *Cambridge International Dictionary of English* at
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ indicates for this particular word that
/'krEtIn/ is the British variant and /'krit@n/ is the American variant. To
see the pronunciations, you first do a search for a word, then look for the
"Display phonetics" box, click on it, then do the search again (it won't do
to simply reload the page).
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Richard Fontana
I think I've only heard /krit@n/ in the U.S.
R J Valentine
}> Is this pondal? I think / 'krE t@n / is preferable, if only
}> on the grounds that it's not a homophone of "Cretan".
}
} I think I've only heard /krit@n/ in the U.S.
Major Charles Emerson Winchester used the /'krEt@n/ pronunciation on
_M*A*S*H_ (the out years).
ObLaurel: And how about that Jeopardy! College Tournament.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Raymot
>I actually do believe some things have intrinsic literary worth. I am an
>absolutist in that regard. It also happens to be my taste that I like to
>read these kinds of works and not politically correct bullshit. But for
>some people who are opposed to Mr Shakespeare & Co, I realise it may not
>be in their taste to read these authors and they may not see the
>'intrinsic literary worth' of the work. What does one do about this
>dilemma?
This is not a dilemma. We simply accept that some people prefer
to read inferior or lower quality literature. And that's ok.
However, schools have a role in teaching what quality is. Their
function is not to pander to what children like. Out of school,
people can read what they want to. Personally I often read trash
(heck, I read newsgroups), but I don't take it for good literature.
>This is ultimately a _philosophical_ rather than a _literary_ question.
>What is 'good' and what is 'bad' is a matter of philosophy (aesthetics)
>and not English.
It's the aesthetics of the use of language, in this case English.
I can't see any reason why literary aesthetics shouldn't be subsumed
under "English" as well as "Aesthetics" - not at High School level,
but one would hope that English teachers have some idea of literary
aesthetics.
[a bit of satire, and lot of stuff I agree with snipped]
>Another thing I have noticed is that even migrant-kids who have grown up
>here and hence speak English as a native language have trouble
>"connecting" with the texts on a cultural level. Because my ancestors
>came from Ireland/ Britain I can associate with 16th Century British
>authors. It's part of my _cultural_ as well as linguistic heritage. For
>children of Chinese immigrants, what relevance does it have? Yes they
>speak English now, but they don't have a spiritual connexion with the
>text. I don't really know what you can do here. Any suggestions?
My suggestion would be to encourage them to develop a spiritual
connection with the English text, and let them read Chinese
literature in their own time. Same for any other migrant.
You obviously appreciate the usefulness of learning a foreign
language.How much more useful to improve one's appreciation of
the language of the country one chooses to live in?
Raymot
[[[[[[[[[[[[[
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>But they're not all that straightforward. I do think you overstate the
>case about sentence structure.
In trying to make my point that Shakespeare's vocabulary is the
greater stumbling block, I probably did overstate the case about his
sentence structure being modern. . I started to word my statement less
strongly but then, just for grins, I leafed through some plays to find
an odd sentence structure and didn't come up with one. Had I done
enough leafing I would have come across what you quoted and, probably,
other instances of structures we'd agree were not modern.
>Shakespeare did use "that" and "which"
>and "would" and other key sentence-building forms differently than we do
>today.
At times he did, I'll grant you. Perhaps I've gotten enough used to
him that I don't generally notice.
Charles Riggs
Charles Riggs
Malcolm) wrote:
Donna wrote:
>>I do think you overstate the
>>case about sentence structure.
>
>Really? After you have provided good examples of exactly what I meant?
She didn't, however, quote all of Shakespeare.
>Today many writers with good literary English skills encompass most of
>Shakespeare's archaisms of vocabulary and construction in their
>reading comprehension, if not their writing. That is one of the things
>which gives modern English its scope and power, that there is an
>unbroken accessible tradition of English writing going back to
>Shakespeare.
Tradition, yes, but that doesn't mean that English vocabulary has
undergone some radical changes since Shakespeare's day. I wonder how
many good writers of today would recognize, let alone use:
crow, meaning crowbar
fair, meaning courteously
mated, meaning amazed
swart
an ell
ta'en
belike
touches, meaning injures
hoy
what, meaning why
Those are from just a few pages at random and I probably missed half
the oddities; the list would go on and on, if I were to examine 100
pages.
Charles Riggs
Leopoldo Perdomo
>
> I actually do believe some things have intrinsic literary worth. I am an
> absolutist in that regard. It also happens to be my taste that I like to
> read these kinds of works and not politically correct bullshit. But for
> some people who are opposed to Mr Shakespeare & Co, I realise it may not
> be in their taste to read these authors and they may not see the
> 'intrinsic literary worth' of the work. What does one do about this
> dilemma?
ways.
One way is defined by personal taste. In this case it depends much on
the personal history of each reader. Because tastes in literature come out
from a case of behaviour conditioning. That is, it all comes from the
operating conditioning of each reader.
The other way comes from a group with some kind of authority that defines
a literary canon. Then if we accept this assertion, it is going to be as
many canons as there are groups with this or that ideology. I do not
expect the talibans as having any of the works of Shakespeare among the
best ten or twenty works of universal literature. Not even the Chinese or
the Japonese. Not even the French, or the Italians. So the inclusion of
some works in a canon is merely an act of authority, and the importance for
each of us of a literay canon is in direct relation with the acceptance of
this authority.
Summing up:
The canon is an act of authority, not an universal entity but a parochial
one.
Steve Hayes
My (British) dictionary gives E, (as in bed).
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Leopoldo Perdomo
dcw
Steve Hayes <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 20 Nov 2001 18:00:09 -0800, Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
>>I remember that super-heroes and -villians in Marvel comics liked
>>to use the word "cretin" a lot, and at some point I learned that
>>this was pronounced / 'krE t@n /.
>>
>>In the trailer for "Monsters, Inc.", though, one of the characters
>>calls another a / 'krE t@n /, and the other quickly corrects him,
>>pronouncing it / 'kri t@n /. m-w seems to agree.
>>
>>Is this pondal? I think / 'krE t@n / is preferable, if only
>>on the grounds that it's not a homophone of "Cretan".
>
>My (British) dictionary gives E, (as in bed).
I've never heard anything but /'krEtIn/ for "cretin", and /'krit@n/
for "Cretan". Both vowels different.
David
perchprism
"Leopoldo Perdomo" <leop...@perdomo.com> wrote in message
news:3BFB80FC...@perdomo.com...
It is hard to divorce the ideological from the educational, and part of a
school's function is to mold good citizens, but I want my kids to be trained
in English in English class. Ideological considerations must come second to
language instruction.
Of course there are great works in other languages, but art in language
cannot survive translation. The rhythm is lost, consonance, cultural
reference, timbre, wordplay, dialect, voice. If you use foreign works to
teach kids English, you're teaching them the relatively inferior English of
the translator and not the scintillating French or Spanish or Japanese of
the original. Translated works belong in a separate World Literature class,
where the emphasis can be frankly upon the ideas in those works and their
structure.
To teach a child his native language is not parochial unless you think
always in terms of international politics.
John Rickard
: That man that sits within a monarch's heart, and ripens in the
: sunshine of his favour, would he abuse the countenance of the king,
: alack, what mischiefs might he set abrooch in shadow of such
: greatness!
:
: Again, is this a sentence that might appear in a twentieth-century
: novel? I think not. I don't know anyone who puts a "would he..." in the
: middle of a sentence like that.
How about "should he..."?
--
John Rickard <John.R...@virata.com>
Donna Richoux
> I wonder whether Bob or someone else could explain to me why so many
> Jewish surnames contain words like 'love', 'sweet', 'honey', 'rose'.
> Surnames in most cultures are fairly recent. Jews, of course, lived in
> many different European countries and so presumably adopted surnames when
> those countries did. Clearly there are many 'job' names (as is common in
> Europe) - Silversmith, Goldsmith, etc, but where does Sweetman (Süßmann)
> and Rosenstein or, for that matter, Lieblich come from. I assume the
> 'dove' (Taube) part of some Jewish names is in fact a real Hebrew word. So
> were surnames actually a Jewish tradition before they became common in
> Europe, were many Hebrew names used and how were they formed?
The way the Jews took on local surnames did vary from country to
country. There is information on the Web about the naming practices of
the English Jews (before expulsion) and about Napoleon's 1808 decree
that everyone in his empire take a surname. But what you are asking
about in particular is the area of Germany and Eastern Europe. Try the
article at:
http://www.jewishgen.org/romsig/newsletter/vol5/vol5-2.html
Third of a series
The Surnames of the Later Ashkenazi Jews in Romania
by Dr. Marcel Bratu
which says, in part:
The Ashkenazim were forced to take on surnames at the beginning of
the 19th century, to be identifiable for taxes, military service,
and other administrative functions of the various governmental
authorities. This was much later than the Sephardim, who gained
their surnames in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Ashkenazim
(Ashkenaz in Hebrew means Germany) were spread throughout Central
Europe (Austro-Hungary, Prussia, Bohemia) and there were huge
numbers in eastern Europe (Poland and Russia).
However, as usually happens in history, there were some exceptions.
The most impressive exception occurred in Frankfurt am Main in
Germany, during the 17th century, before all the Jews of Prussia
had surnames. At that time, Jews were forced to live in a ghetto
area on a street called "Judengasse." Because houses didn't have
numbers, each tenant would paint or carve a sign on the front wall
of the house, to be identifiable and to avoid opening a neighbor's
door (with or without intention). These signs--flowers, animals,
birds, fish, trees--became very dear to the Jews, because they
loved their house and family. They even carved or painted these
signs on the gravestones in the old Jewish cemetery in Frankfurt.
Thus, these signs naturally became the surnames of the Jews when
the authorities followed a French initiative to introduce house
numeration on the streets.
Let me give you a few examples:
. Trees: Apfelbaum (apple); Birnbaum
(pear); Gruenbaum (green tree)
. Flowers: Rosen, Rosenthal, Rosenfeld; Blum
(flower), Blumenfeld
. Animals: Hirsh (deer); Ocs (ox); Tauber (dove);
Einhorn (unicorn); Hirshorn (deer antler)
. Fish: Fishel (small fish); Laks (salmon); Hecht (pike)
These signs remained on the wall of the house long after the house
numbering. A small house at 148 Judengasse bore a sign that was a
red shield. Thus, the family adopted the surname of Rotshield
(which later became Rothschild), and they grew famous as the
greatest family of Jewish bankers.
I don't know whether this bit about the Jews of Frankfurt taking on the
name of the carved sign is a bit over-romanticized; I'm no expert in the
subject. But basically, these people were ordered to make up family
names in German and so they made up nice ones. The article goes on to
describe the name changes in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Donna Richoux
Yes, that is a bit more possible. Not enough to make it into a modern
sentence, though.
The "should" meaning "if" is somewhat rare, at least in the US. I'll
never forget a little childhood incident. We were in the last year of
primary school (1966) and got a visit from the vice-principal of the
nearby junior high, preparing us for life the next year. At one point,
she said, speaking very slowly, "Should... you.. forget... your...
lunch..." and the boy in front of me, called out "No!" He thought she
was asking a question, you see. Actually, she resumed her sentence,
"then... you must go to the office" or whatever it was.
--
Best --- Donna Richoux
mplsray
In his book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener," Martin Gardner has the
following to say. I am not giving his argument here, just his conclusion,
from pages 83 and 84 of his chapter "BEAUTY: Why I Am Not an Aesthetic
Relativist":
[quote]
The lack of adequate ways to measure the worth of art objects does not mean
there is not something "out there" to measure. The reality out there,
independent of you or me, is an extraordinarily snarled process of
interaction between minds and objects, an interaction that results in the
kinds of satisfactions we call aesthetic. I see no reason why we cannot
apply Alfred Tarski's semantic approach to truth and say: The sentence "_War
and Peace_ is a great novel" is true if, and only if, _War and Peace_ is a
great novel. And the same for all other arts. As in science we must, of
course, carefully distinguish between the meaning of calling an aesthetic
judgment true or false and the fallible criteria by which judgments are
confirmed or disconfirmed by posterity.
Most aesthetic judgments, like those of science, are tentative bets made
with varying estimates of probability about how those judgments will fare in
the future. But at the extreme ends of spectra that run from good to bad in
any art, the betting probabilities are close to certain, and one has every
right to be dogmatic. I submit that it is justifiable to declare, in a
stentorian voice, that Dante and Shakespeare were better poets than Ella
Wheeler Wilcox, that Michelangelo was a greater painter than Jackson
Pollock, and that Beethoven's music is superior to that of John Cage or a
punk rock band. It is in this ancient and unremarkable sense that I prefer
not to call myself an aesthetic relativist.
[end quote]
a1a5...@sprint.ca
wrote:
>
>ObLaurel: And how about that Jeopardy! College Tournament.
>
>--
>R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Yes?
Pat Durkin
"Steve Hayes" <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3bfb580f...@news.saix.net...
> On Tue, 20 Nov 2001 18:00:09 -0800, Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu>
wrote:
>
> >Chris Malcolm wrote:
> >
> >> Almost all the words you have replaced are sufficiently common
> >> that they're quite likely to be used correctly by intellectual
> >> villains in modern comic books.
> >
> >I remember that super-heroes and -villians in Marvel comics liked
> >to use the word "cretin" a lot, and at some point I learned that
> >this was pronounced / 'krE t@n /.
> >
> >In the trailer for "Monsters, Inc.", though, one of the characters
> >calls another a / 'krE t@n /, and the other quickly corrects him,
> >pronouncing it / 'kri t@n /. m-w seems to agree.
> >
> >Is this pondal? I think / 'krE t@n / is preferable, if only
> >on the grounds that it's not a homophone of "Cretan".
>
> My (British) dictionary gives E, (as in bed).
My goodness, Steve. I learned it with the "E as in bed" as well, and now
see that M-W wants that to be the long "E" as in Crete, so that the
nationality and the mental defective would be homophones. (and here for
years I have laughed up my sleeve at "idiots" pronouncing it in this "E as
in bed" manner. I wonder how I can humble myself, or at least change my
nationality so I no longer have the problem arise.)
Leopoldo Perdomo
I have great appreciation for M. Gardner, I have some of his books, but
I will try to state a disagreement on this position.
If the criterion to define an aesthetic work of art were so universal and
human, as some pretend, there would be not any argument.
In such a case, everybody would be in favor of J.S. Bach music, or that
of Handel, or any other music as good as them. Then, we can not observe
such a phenomenon in society life. Must people like to hear trashy music.
Not my case.
The same thing could happen with other arguments. Suppose we all are
equally sensible to aesthetic effects of some works. Then if such were the
case, everybody would have at home a printed picture of the great
masterpieces of Art History. But I mostly have observed that they have
only printed pictures of "painted landscapes" quite ordinary with a
Mountain, a lone house with a smoking chimney, a pathway with some trees
and so on. Sometimes we see pictures of catholic saints, or Hindu saints;
sometimes we could see pictures of seashore landscapes, or boats on a
beach.
What i am here trying to argue it is that Art and Aesthetics are the
result of behavioral conditioning process. If this process of conditioning
have not occurred, there would be not any aesthetic perception whatever. Or
at least, it could only exist an aesthetic perception that could have been
conditioned by an accidental chance. In such a case, there could be
conditioned any sort of artistic work, and not
the elitist perception we use to accept as such.
So I am an aesthetic relativist as such, because there is not such thing,
an universal perception of an art work. That does not contradict the fact
that a set of people, who past through certain cultural experiences, could
agree on some works of art as being the best and the most pleasant
whatever.
This position I take could easily explain the differences in art fashion
in History as well as the changing ways of doing such works of art.
mplsray
"Pat Durkin" <durk...@nothome.com> wrote in message
news:x8SK7.165271$My2.97...@news1.mntp1.il.home.com...
Merriam-Webster doesn't "want" that to be the "long e" as in Crete: That's
the standard pronunciation in American English. Why not just grin and bear
it, as the students of Cretin High School, an all male military high school
established by the Christian Brothers in 1871, did? (By way of a merger,
Cretin High School became in 1987 the co-educational Cretin-Derham Hall,
jointly run by the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of St. Joseph of
Carondelet.)
Cretin, or Crétin, was and is a surname in France, and according to the
following Web page (in French),
http://home.nordnet.fr/~glanquetin/patronyme.htm
people with that name sometimes wished it changed. It seems that it has the
same negative connotations in French that it does in English.
I once knew a man from the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area who had the surname
Cretin. He insisted it be pronounced /'kreIt@n/.
Tony Cooper
>
> On Wed, 21 Nov 01 12:10:54 GMT, D.C....@ukc.ac.uk (dcw) wrote:
>
> >>My (British) dictionary gives E, (as in bed).
> >
> >I've never heard anything but /'krEtIn/ for "cretin", and /'krit@n/
> >for "Cretan". Both vowels different.
>
>
What is the term? Synchronisity? Channel surfing tonight I
came across the "Hotel Inspectors" episode of "Fawlty
Towers" in which Basil referred to his guests as "cretins".
I can't do the stuff above, but the "cre" part sounded like
the "cre" in cretch.
--
Tony Cooper aka: tony_co...@yahoo.com
Provider of Jots and Tittles
David Tomkins
> For a horrible moment, I thought you were talking about the British TV series,
> "The Old Bill" - it must be nearly 450 years old!
Are you referring to "The Bill" that airs on ABC Tuesdays and Saturdays
at 8.30?
DT
Tony Cooper
Steve Hayes wrote:
> I believe the Dutch did just the opposite, and took silly surnames to mock the
> whole bureaucratic idea. So you find Dutch names like Poggenpoel.
When you posted elsewhere about a South African song, I was
thinking of a singing duo from the 50s that - I think were
named Josef and Maria or Josef Marias and ______. He was
SA, and she was Dutch. Great SA folk songs. One of the
songs she sang was about a man named Johnny Hahabee
(completely misspelled; the real name was Dutch and full of
the Dutch glottal sounds) and the problems he had with his
name. He couldn't get a girl because no one could pronounce
his name without laughing. I lost the album many years ago,
and can't remember the names.
On the subject of SA music...Alan Paton's book "Cry the
Beloved Country" was so poetically written that his opening
words were set directly to music in the musical "Lost in the
Stars". Seldom will you see words directly from a literary
piece set unchanged to music. I lost that album, too, but
still have a copy of the book somewhere.
mplsray
> mplsray wrote:
[snip quote by mplsray of Martin Gardner's comments on aesthetic relativism]
To properly represent Mr. Gardner's opinions on aesthetic relativism, I
would have to quote his whole chapter on that subject, which I am not going
to do. Let me just say that Gardner decides that to compare works of art on
an absolute scale (and here he means a human-centered scale--he isn't
dealing with what aliens might think of as good art), we must decide whether
some people are better art critics than others. He decides that they are:
[quote]
Young children are good examples of low-rung critics. A small child responds
easily to the rhythms and harmonies of simple tunes, but cannot appreciate
the complex values of a symphony. An adult who derives enormous pleasure
from symphonic music is quite capable of enjoying a banal tune the way a
child does.
[...]
If you insist that tyros [in the game of chess] get as much pleasure out of
their crude moves as grand masters get out of theirs, I have no objection.
We are involved here in another ancient quibble similar to that of whether a
baby or a pig can be said to be as happy as a happy adult. No one, of
course, doubts that grand masters can easily defeat tyros at chess games.
Alas, there is no comparable way to pit eminent critics against one another.
At this point our chess analogy falls apart.
It would take too long to defend the right to say there are grand masters
and tyros among both artists and critics, so I will give only a summary of
my views. I believe that just as adult humans are superior to babies and
baboons in their ability to create and enjoy art, so there are adults
superior to other adults in the same respects. On the basis of this ranking
we can assert that works of art enjoyed by those on the upper levels are
superior to works of art enjoyed by those on the lower levels. In the two
previous chapters I maintained that flimsy knowledge about the criteria of
beauty does not render futile the task of distinguishing good from bad art.
[end quote]
Gardner goes on to discuss how critics have differed widely on the same work
of art. Then he says:
[quote]
In spite of the many ways tastes can vary, I remain convinced that there are
some universal standards in art even though we can specify them only in
misty ways. Consider again the chair. There may be wide variations in
personal taste about how comfortable it is, but because human bodies have
roughly the same size and shape, we can say dogmatically that it is a poor
chair in any country if it collapses under a weight of twenty pounds, or if
its seat is covered with sharp spikes. It is in this trivial sense that we
can speak of universal standards concerning the chair's value as a seat.
The aesthetic values of a painting are more difficult to evaluate, but the
situation is similar. Those who view the picture do indeed differ more in
their tastes than in the sizes and shapes of their bodies. But if they share
a common human nature, with common needs, and if they can be ranked (albeit
crudely) in their capacity for responding to art, we have a basis for
believing in some universal standards even though we may not agree on
exactly what they are. From this commonsense point of view the greatest
works of art are (as has been said so often) those that give the most
intense pleasure, for the longest period of time, to the most competent
critics. Of course this is only a complicated way to state the obvious.
Classics are those works of art that endure.
This may seem a dull point of view, but it has the merit of allowing us to
be dogmatic about extremes in a way that is difficult for relativists. We
can, for example, say dogmatically that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is
greater, in a sense that transcends individual or group tastes, than an
oil-painting produced in ten minutes by a street-corner lightning artist who
sells it with the paint still wet. At the same time it allows us to agree
with relativists that on those broad, foggy fields where eminent critics
play their games, we should refrain from loud cheering.
M.J.Powell
> What i am here trying to argue it is that Art and Aesthetics are the
>result of behavioral conditioning process. If this process of conditioning
>have not occurred, there would be not any aesthetic perception whatever. Or
>at least, it could only exist an aesthetic perception that could have been
>conditioned by an accidental chance. In such a case, there could be
>conditioned any sort of artistic work, and not
>the elitist perception we use to accept as such.
It would be interesting to consider the earliest known examples of
pictorial art, the cave paintings in France and Australia. To my
untrained eye some are quite beautiful. But were they considered so to
the people who produced them? Those people did not pass through any
cultural conditioning unless there are even older examples as yet
undiscovered, from which they themselves learned.
Then the argument repeats.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
Robert Lieblich
>
> "David Tomkins" <dtom...@pnc.com.au> wrote in message
> news:3BFB0750...@pnc.com.au...
> > Pat Durkin wrote:
> > > > > Perhaps one day someone will translate Lieblich into English?
> > > >
> > > > Lovely
> > >
> > > That's what I said, a couple of months ago, but I suspect it wasn't
> original
> > > with me, either.
[ ... -- hope I got the attributions straight]
> > PS I hope Herr Lieblich didn't take any offence at the little joke re
> > his name.
>
> Gee whiz. I don't think Bob or anyone would take offense at such a cunning
> translation.
None whatever. Strictly speaking, I think "loveable" is a bit more
accurate. More loosely, "charming" or "delightful." Were I the
first to bear that surname, I'd suspect irony at work. But of
course it vanishes into antiquity; no relative of mine has ever
given evidence of remembering any Lieblich before my
great-grandfather. Perhaps the first Lieblich in my family tree,
way back when, was truly charming. Whereas I'm rarely even charming
Truly.
"Lieblich" appears as a common noun in M-W's Third New International
Unabridged. (I suspect most of us could find our surnames in some
reference work or other. Although I have no idea where to look up
51640.)
Rob Bannister
> The arrogance of people like Shakespeare is responsible for
> all the oppression of colonialism etc. Look at the plight of the
> Aborigines. How can you even consider studying old Bill?
For a horrible moment, I thought you were talking about the British TV series,
"The Old Bill" - it must be nearly 450 years old!
-- Rob Bannister
Rob Bannister
Thank you for the url and your own explanation. I think that answers my
question very well.
-- Rob Bannister
Richard Fontana
> "Lieblich" appears as a common noun in M-W's Third New International
> Unabridged. (I suspect most of us could find our surnames in some
> reference work or other. Although I have no idea where to look up
> 51640.)
The United States Postal Service ZIP Code directory. 51640 is the zip
code for Hamburg, Iowa, a hamlet right on the border where Iowa
meets Kansas and Missouri. Population 1248.
Robert Lieblich
Thank you. That explains a lot.
Donna Richoux
> There is a question of attitude involved here. If when reading a
> difficult text you pause at each moment of puzzlement to reason it
> out, and possibly to consult a dictionary, you will find that your
> capacity to understand difficult English grows, and you become able to
> disambiguate complex text on the run without pausing. If on the other
> hand when reading a difficult text your reaction to puzzlement is
> simply to charge on with mounting bafflement and annoyance, you will
> never get better at understanding difficult English.
I find this a hopeful point and it has stuck with me since reading it
yesterday. I did need a reminder of why it can be worth the bother to
take the time to understand something difficult. Thanks for taking the
time to express it.
Steve Hayes
>>My (British) dictionary gives E, (as in bed).
>
>I've never heard anything but /'krEtIn/ for "cretin", and /'krit@n/
>for "Cretan". Both vowels different.
I belive it is derived from the French word for Christian, "cretienne" (sp?)
Steve Hayes
>I don't know whether this bit about the Jews of Frankfurt taking on the
>name of the carved sign is a bit over-romanticized; I'm no expert in the
>subject. But basically, these people were ordered to make up family
>names in German and so they made up nice ones. The article goes on to
>describe the name changes in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.
I believe the Dutch did just the opposite, and took silly surnames to mock the
whole bureaucratic idea. So you find Dutch names like Poggenpoel.
Isabelle Cecchini
Steve Hayes <haye...@yahoo.com> a écrit dans le message :
3bfc0101...@news.saix.net...
> On Wed, 21 Nov 01 12:10:54 GMT, D.C....@ukc.ac.uk (dcw) wrote:
>
>
> >>My (British) dictionary gives E, (as in bed).
> >
> >I've never heard anything but /'krEtIn/ for "cretin", and /'krit@n/
> >for "Cretan". Both vowels different.
>
> I belive it is derived from the French word for Christian, "cretienne"
> (sp?)
>
Yes, that is the etymology given by French dictionaries. The word is from
the French Swiss dialect spoken in the Valais area, « crétin » being the way
they pronounced « chrétien » (feminine form « chrétienne »). The idea is
that these deformed creatures are nevertheless truly Christian, because they
are innocent. « Innocent » is used in French as well to mean a half-wit.
Isabelle Cecchini
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
> On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 14:40:51 +0100, (Donna Richoux) wrote:
> >I don't know whether this bit about the Jews of Frankfurt taking on the
> >name of the carved sign is a bit over-romanticized; I'm no expert in the
> >subject. But basically, these people were ordered to make up family
> >names in German and so they made up nice ones. The article goes on to
> >describe the name changes in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.
This article by Dr. Marcel Bratu contains a number of misspelled names
and other errors.
> I believe the Dutch did just the opposite, and took silly surnames
> to mock the whole bureaucratic idea.
Absolutely wrong: (1) "silly" surnames existed in many cultures
centuries before there was any bureaucracy to mock; (2) no one in his
right mind voluntarily takes a silly surname. All silly, ridiculous,
derogatory, "dirty," or otherwise offensive names were originally
nicknames given by neighbors, and much later, by mean-spirited German
and Austrian bureaucrats, to Jews who refused to adopt first and last
names.
> So you find Dutch names like Poggenpoel.
Which is a geographic name, like Steinbach ("stony brook") or Oxford.
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/
Pat Durkin
"Isabelle Cecchini" <isabelle...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
news:9thr7o$2p042$1...@ID-68874.news.dfncis.de...
Well, re-educate me again. I believe I learned it as derivative from
Cretino, an inland Italian town, in which lack of seafood, (iodine), brought
on severe thyroid deficiency and mental defects.
Now I find this in xrefer (well, I got part right. I wonder if there wasn't
some anti-Italian feeling going on back in WWII):
1 From its first use in English in the late 18c. until about 1900 it seems
to have been regularly pronounced /'kri[long]tIn/, but /'kretIn/ is now the
normal pronunciation.
2 It was originally used to mean 'one of a class of dwarfed and specially
deformed idiots found in certain valleys of the Alps and elsewhere' (Oxford
English Dictionary), or, as The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1990) expresses
it, 'a person who is deformed and mentally retarded as the result of a
thyroid deficiency'. Its dominant meaning in lay use now (first recorded in
the 1930s) is 'a fool, one who behaves stupidly'.
Steve Hayes
>
>"Steve Hayes" <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> My (British) dictionary gives E, (as in bed).
>
>My goodness, Steve. I learned it with the "E as in bed" as well, and now
>see that M-W wants that to be the long "E" as in Crete, so that the
>nationality and the mental defective would be homophones. (and here for
>years I have laughed up my sleeve at "idiots" pronouncing it in this "E as
>in bed" manner. I wonder how I can humble myself, or at least change my
>nationality so I no longer have the problem arise.)
Eh?
Robert Lipton
"Reinhold (Rey) Aman" wrote:
>
> Steve Hayes wrote:
>
> > So you find Dutch names like Poggenpoel.
>
> Which is a geographic name, like Steinbach ("stony brook") or Oxford.
>
It doesn't mean "Pogo Stick"? Rats!
Bob
Pat Durkin
"Robert Lieblich" <Robert....@Verizon.net> wrote in message
news:3BFC4A0E...@Verizon.net...
Charming. I wonder how close it is to Postville.
Pat Durkin
"Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1f38858.lvx94i1bchohsN%tr...@euronet.nl...
> name of the carved sign is a bit over-romanticized; I'm no expert in the
> subject. But basically, these people were ordered to make up family
> names in German and so they made up nice ones. The article goes on to
> describe the name changes in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.
Great info, Donna.
Charles Riggs
<chr...@gofree.indigo.ie> wrote:
>On Tue, 20 Nov 2001 15:24:07 +0000 (UTC), c...@holyrood.ed.ac.uk (Chris
>Malcolm) wrote:
>
>Donna wrote:
>
>>>I do think you overstate the
>>>case about sentence structure.
>>
>>Really? After you have provided good examples of exactly what I meant?
>
>She didn't, however, quote all of Shakespeare.
>
>>Today many writers with good literary English skills encompass most of
>>Shakespeare's archaisms of vocabulary and construction in their
>>reading comprehension, if not their writing. That is one of the things
>>which gives modern English its scope and power, that there is an
>>unbroken accessible tradition of English writing going back to
>>Shakespeare.
>
>Tradition, yes, but that doesn't mean that English vocabulary has
>undergone some radical changes since Shakespeare's day. I wonder how
>many good writers of today would recognize, let alone use:
>
>crow, meaning crowbar
>fair, meaning courteously
>mated, meaning amazed
>swart
>an ell
>ta'en
>belike
>touches, meaning injures
>hoy
>what, meaning why
>
>Those are from just a few pages at random and I probably missed half
>the oddities; the list would go on and on, if I were to examine 100
>pages.
>
>Charles Riggs
No response or acknowledgement from Donna, since her point was not to
discuss Shakespeare but to dispute a few of my words.
Charles Riggs
Richard Fontana
The transformation seems reminiscent of English "silly", which started out
meaning "blessed".
Pat Durkin
> On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 18:12:45 GMT, "Pat Durkin" <durk...@nothome.com>
wrote:
>
> >
> >"Steve Hayes" <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> >> My (British) dictionary gives E, (as in bed).
> >
> >My goodness, Steve. I learned it with the "E as in bed" as well, and
now
> >see that M-W wants that to be the long "E" as in Crete, so that the
> >nationality and the mental defective would be homophones. (and here for
> >years I have laughed up my sleeve at "idiots" pronouncing it in this "E
as
> >in bed" manner. I wonder how I can humble myself, or at least change my
> >nationality so I no longer have the problem arise.)
>
> Eh?
Yep.
Pat
Leopoldo Perdomo
>
> To properly represent Mr. Gardner's opinions on aesthetic relativism, I
> would have to quote his whole chapter on that subject, which I am not going
> to do. Let me just say that Gardner decides that to compare works of art on
> an absolute scale (and here he means a human-centered scale--he isn't
> dealing with what aliens might think of as good art), we must decide whether
> some people are better art critics than others. He decides that they are:
In your answer, you present the adults against the babies, and also the
the humans against that of the chimps. Well, it is clear that each
individual, being either human or animal, has their own knowledge (taste is
a form of knowledge) acquired through personal experience. Not any problem
here.
In the same way that a deaf could not enjoy the pleasures of a symphony,
for obvious reasons, neither a chimpanzee can do it, even if it hears well,
and adult humans could neither enjoy it if they were not subjected to a set
of experiences that I have labeled as "conditioning" and to be more exact i
should have said "operant conditioning". So all this "taste", or "educated
taste", all this "superior sensibility" of the elite classes, or the
"educated people", if you prefer in this way, are nothing more than the
result of that just mentioned "conditioning process". If this process have
not existed, any educated adult could not boast of any superior aesthetic
taste, of perhaps this taste will be similar as that of any other adult
anywhere.
If you take the trouble to understand what I am saying, you could easily
grasp the reasons for the differences of aesthetic taste between persons of
the same milieu. Is better Bach than Haendel? Or is better Stravinsky
than Debuissy? And so on arguing about which work or autor is better than
the other. That is because being almost equal the conditioning process in
this or that case, each person have some other personal experiences that
have his own influence.
I remember I was in desert carrying a portatil disk player, and put a
disk with a classic symphony to some desert dwellers in a tent. They were
hearing without understanding anything but the sound of a basoon or a tuba.
This sound made them laugh because it reminded them of the sound of a
fart. All our knowledge comes from the experience.
Padraig Breathnach
>I can't do the stuff above, but the "cre" part sounded like
>the "cre" in cretch.
But, Tony, I don't know how you would pronounce "cretch"; or why; or
what the hell the word means.
PB
Jacqui
Sounds about right - are you watching a series set in Sun Hill, with
photogenic police officers (except Reg) and lots of conveniently
24-minute-long plots? Or are you getting the longer soap-style "hours"
with run-on stories?
It's "The Bill" here too; Rob was joking (I think).
Jac
Donna Richoux
Charles, when I don't have anything to say, I don't respond. This seems
to bother you. Did you have a question?
I thought of responding to your "She didn't, however, quote all of
Shakespeare" but it seemed like rather a silly exaggeration -- of course
I didn't -- and I thought I had made clear enough that I didn't have to
look long and hard for the examples I gave.
I thought you put it quite well in another post when you said that your
focus on vocabulary may have caused you to dismiss the matter of
sentence structure. I was quite satisfied with that.
--
Happy Thanksgiving --- Donna Richoux
John Holmes
[quoting a web site]
> Thus, these signs naturally became the surnames of the Jews when
> the authorities followed a French initiative to introduce house
> numeration on the streets.
>
> Let me give you a few examples:
>
> . Trees: Apfelbaum (apple); Birnbaum
> (pear); Gruenbaum (green tree)
> . Flowers: Rosen, Rosenthal, Rosenfeld; Blum
> (flower), Blumenfeld
> . Animals: Hirsh (deer); Ocs (ox); Tauber (dove);
> Einhorn (unicorn); Hirshorn (deer antler)
> . Fish: Fishel (small fish); Laks (salmon); Hecht (pike)
So by that theory Bob's ancestor might have had a pin-up, rather than a
carving, on the door?
--
Regards
John
Barbara Briggs
>
> On Mon, 19 Nov 2001 08:31:12 -0500, Frances Kemmish <fkem...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> >Franke wrote:
> >>
> >> Chris Malcolm wrote:
> >>
> >> > Some British academic wants Shakespeare to be translated into modern
> >> > English, so that students who can't understand the ancient archaic
> >> > language will be able to understand it.
> >> >
> >> > I recall many years ago in aue, before the historical reach of
> >> > Google, having an argument with a US English prof who said that
> >> > studying Shakespeare should not be part of any school curriculum, or
> >> > even part of any undergraduate university English curriculum, because
> >> > Shakespeare's language was simply much too difficult. He thought
> >> > Shakespeare ought to be reserved for postgraduate students. He claimed
> >> > the problem was archaic vocabulary.
> >> >
> >> > I disagreed with him, and asked for some examples of difficult
> >> > Shakespearean English. He produced a few. They seemed to me be
> >> > difficult not because of any archaisms, but simply because the
> >> > sentence structure was complex. I argued that this was the real
> >> > problem with Shakespeare, that modern kids were finding long sentences
> >> > more and more difficult to understand, and the archaic vocabulary was
> >> > just an obvious excuse, not the real reason.
> >> >
> >> > I failed to convince him.
> >>
> >> He must have been young or just tired of trying to interest today's
> >> youngsters in Shakespeare in the original English. When I was in
> >> high school, we had to use glossaries to understand The Bard,
> >> but the archaic language was not a problem. And for those of us
> >> who had the good fortune to be in the drama club and get a role
> >> in one of his plays (I played Demetrius in _A Midsummer Night's
> >> Dream_), learning the language was a real pleasure. Of course, in
> >> those days it was possible to go to New York City to see the
> >> Shakespeare repertory company put on outstanding performances
> >> of all of the plays. I doubt that it's still there.
> >
> >These days it's possible in the summer to go and see performances of
> >Shakespeare in parks, at little or no cost, in New York, and in many
> >towns in Connecticut.
> >
> >Fran
>
> NT> Maybe 'seeing' Shakespeare as a performance is the
> key. Listening to or even reading the bard is confusing,
> especially at the first few encounters. Some plays need to be
> experienced three or four times, rather like symphony music,
> to appreciate all the nuances.
I agree. The students at my daughter's school had the
pleasure of attending the Shakespeare Festive in Ashland
Oregon. They all loved it and the experience of seeing the
performance, made the reading of the plays even more
meaningful. They were very lucky.
Barbara
Pat Durkin
"Leopoldo Perdomo" <leop...@perdomo.com> wrote in message
news:3BFCD3E3...@perdomo.com...
Very, very funny, Leo. And so true!
Steve Hayes
Which shows that what some call "political correctness" has been around for a
long time.
See English: simple, silly (=blessed).
Rob Bannister
> Rob Bannister wrote:
> > For a horrible moment, I thought you were talking about the British TV series,
> > "The Old Bill" - it must be nearly 450 years old!
>
> Are you referring to "The Bill" that airs on ABC Tuesdays and Saturdays
> at 8.30?
Whoops! Yes. I don't watch it, but my mother does and then complains, "It's not
like it used to be." (Tues, Sat and Thursday)
-- Rob Bannister