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Showing posts from December, 2012

The Vocabulary of Fear, e.g. Onomatophobia

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Test your knowledge of a variety of - phobias with the words on this list. In order to reverse the problem (to love or like it), it is usually sufficient to switch the suffix to -philia . Somniphobia - fear of sleeping because you may never wake up Onomatophobia - fear of the sound of words Logophobia - fear of the sound of words Omfalophobia - fear of touching the navel  Consecotaleophobia - the fear of chopsticks Ergophobia - fear of work / workplace Metrophobia - fear of poetry Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia - fear of 666.  Wikipedia reports: "A prominent example is Nancy and Ronald Reagan who, in 1979, when moving to their home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles , had its address—666 St. Cloud Road—changed to 668 St. Cloud Road." Ephebiphobia - fear of teenagers / younger generation  Eisoptrophobia - fear of mirrors (seven years of bad luck) Phobophobia - the fear of fear itself. Chromophobia -  fear of colours. Include...

Ugly Urchin Alliteration: a Poetry Appreciation Primer

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As many students are struggling with their forthcoming Unseen Appreciation (poetry) exams, I've collected from the web a quick guide to some of the key elements of sound appreciation in poetry.  It's very easy for students to learn the key critical terms and it is fun to begin to apply them. I'd also recommend using them! Why not ask your children/students to compose short alliterative poems? Even nonsense poems?  Poetry should be fun, after all, and creativity is the high road to brilliant critical insight... Sibilance is a manner of articulation of fricative and affricate consonants, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the sharp edge of the teeth, which are held close together; a consonant that uses sibilance may be called a sibilant. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, chip, and Jeep, and the second consonant in vision. In language, alliteration is the repetition of a particu...