The English Miscellany

Gielgud as Hamlet People have become very grumpy about the use of -ize . We always spell several common words as follows: advertise, advise, arise, chastise, circumcise, compromise, despise, devise, disenfranchise, enterprise, excise, exercise, franchise, improvise, incise, merchandise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise. It is not true that -ize reveals an American usage, as it has been frequently used in British English for centuries. Those who want to be super-pedantic claim that -ize should be selected in cases where the classical Greek verb deployed the -izo ending. As far back as the thirteenth century we find examples of usages such as baptize . My preference is to use -ize . What's yours?   Dr Ian McCormick is the author of The Art of Connection: the Social Life of Sentences and 11+ English    

Have you heard of corpus linguistics ?  Corpus linguistics proposes that reliable language analysis is more feasible with corpora (samples) collected in the field, in their natural contexts, and with minimal experimental-interference. How did it all start? A landmark in modern corpus linguistics was Henry Kučera and W. Nelson Francis's Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English (1967). This work was based on the analysis of the Brown Corpus, a carefully compiled selection of about a million words, drawn from a wide variety of sources in current  American English How did technology help? The first computerized corpus of one million words of transcribed spoken language was constructed in 1971 by the Montreal French Project. This effort inspired Shana Poplack's much larger corpus of spoken French in the Ottawa-Hull area The analysis of academic writing shows that there are many  frequently used words and phrases : a form of...

Are you familiar with the terror of the blank page in the exam room? Do you experience a sense of writer's block in this situation? Are you just unsure about your technique in starting an essay? In fact, there are many tried and tested openings that will get your writing off to a confident and winning start. Although there are infinite possible ways of leading into an essay, blog, or news article, there are some common opening gambits that writers rely on (as in a game of chess). After a strong opening you will be ready for a winning middle game. Before outlining the Eight Openings , here are some points to think about: Is your aim to engage the reader by being relevant, creative, and original? Are you trying to arouse curiosity or to meet expectations? Are you explaining what’s on offer (like a menu), or offering a taster session? In a promotional sense you want to encourage the reader to come through the door: to enter your mental world. Some reader...

An Examination of the role of CHARACTER in literary texts Superficially ... “A person in a story, someone we can relate to, or identify with ...” But Note: Caricature – 2-dimensinal, simple, represents one value, e.g. the angry man, jealousy = related to allegory and satire = distortion for effect of one quality, or exaggeration of certain features; stereotypes Narrative functions – hero/villain, trickster, false hero, magician, father/son, mother/daughter, outcast, rebel. In real life people that we come to know well are seldom just functions or caricatures. Real living people in the media, or celebrities, often have an assumed character or role that might be quite different from how they are in their personal life. In texts, an assumed role is called a persona , in the media we even talk about ‘personalities’ to express the public projection of a role. Perceptions of role or character can also be manipulated e.g. spin doctors and propagandists ma...

Quintilian, a highly esteemed Latin rhetorician, argues that composition involves learning a skill. He compares composition with the craft of the musician and with the skills of the sportsman. In his larger project, writing is linked with civic participation, with the arts of cultivation, and with the progress from the natural savage to a state of civilization. Writing should aim to flow harmoniously. Quintilian's Institutes of the Orator , Book 9 (trans. charles Rollin, 1774), 143-146. I well know, that there are some, who will not allow of any care in composition, contending that our words as they flow by chance, how uncouth soever they may sound, are not only more natural, but likewise more manly. If what first sprung from nature, indebted for nothing to care and industry, be only what they deem natural, I allow that the art of oratory in this respect has no pretensions to that quality.  For it is certain that the first men did not speak according to the ...

Students create their own maps of connection "The creative journey has more departures than arrivals."   Students often have problems thinking about the flow of their ideas within a paragraph. This is not surprising as different thought-pathways occur at each (full) stop.  For instance, having expressed one idea, the next one might illustrate, supplement, qualify, or reverse the preceding sentence.  As a result, our sentence journeys quickly become very complicated. A complex argument often degenerates into confusion, and the sense of feeling lost. Writers and readers need signposts, and they need a map. In reality, writing involves weaving together a complex and dense thread of connectives and transitions. These words have the special function of signalling the direction of travel. They help to maintain a sense of purpose and direction. By using them effectively the writer is able to stick to a plan. Transitions help writing to flow . By thinking about th...