Twenty Talks to Teachers by Thomas E. Sanders

Вы не поверите, но книга, главу из которой я предлагаю вашему вниманию, была написана более ста лет назад. Ничего не изменилось, о преимуществах и о недостатках нашей профессии говорится как будто сейчас. Почитайте, очень интересно.

Twenty Talks to Teachers is a book written for teachers, young and old, to help further the development of both teachers and students in the classroom.

Shall teaching be my life work? This question stares the sincere young teacher squarely in the face. He must answer it sooner or later. His answer means much to himself as well as to others. Wespeak of the profession of teaching, but in the truer sense we have none at present. Teaching may be "the noblest of professions and the sorriest of trades," but as long as our standards of entrance are so low and the number of exits so many, teaching cannot be in its strictest sense a profession. It is far behind medicine or law, and to a large number of persons it is only a trade or a temporary occupation.

There are professional teachers. There are persons who have spent time and money and mental energy studying the problems of the school and of education. There are persons who seek earnestly to formulate the truths and to reduce teaching to a science. Many of these truths are as clearly worked out, as reliable and as completely accepted as are many of the principles of law and medicine. The work is yet incomplete. Shall I make it a life work and give to it my life and the best that is in me ? This is the question.

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 Twisted English

by Jason Love, a famous American stand-up comedian

For most of us English is a sentence (buh dum bum). In school we learned the basics followed by their 6,534 exceptions. We discovered, for instance, that i goes before e except after c, then immediately took off to SCIENCE.

In sixth grade I entered the Wildwood Elementary Spelling Bee and in the final round misspelled lenient, which does not, for the record, end in -ant. I cried myself raw on the merry-go-round, shouting at the heavens: L-e-n-i-E-n-t, l-e-n-i-E-n-t. My shrink still enjoys the irony. In the wake of that sinister day, I pledged to memorize every word in the dictionary, beginning with the a’s. “Audacity, noun. Unreserved impudence.” Flip flip flip. “Impudent, adjective. Impertinent disrespect.” Flip flip flip flip. “Impertinence, noun…” Example: All people must have been laughing. In high school they make us diagram sentences that seem friendly enough but which are, beneath the surface, crawling with “prepositional phrases” and “subordinate clauses.”

In eighth grade, “all people” is the subject, and “must have been laughing” is the verb. By tenth grade, “all” is an adjectival modifier, “must” is a modal auxiliary verb, and “have been laughing” is a contusion of the lower occipital lobe. Wait, I’m back in s-c-i-e-n-c-e. The problem is that English has so many unnecessary, unneeded, needless words, and let me explicate why: Our founding grammarians had a sick sense of humor and are even now snickering in the distance. How else can you explain the pronunciation of colonel?

But they were the ones waving quills, dammit, and if a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how do you know? So they brainstormed new rules… “Let’s have ‘grammer’ end in -ar. That’ll really make 'em feel stupid.” When they finished with spellings, our twisted forebears gave each word numerous -- sometimes contradictory -- meanings.

Match, verb. 1. To fit together, be in harmony 2. To pit in opposition against. Then they moved on to pronunciation, which would depend, of course, on context (the part of the country you’re from). Example: Don’t project on my project unless you effect my affects, and by that I mean my personal belongings. And it’s just this sort of thing that makes people speak Spanish. To this day, I say “amen” both ways just to make sure the prayer counts. They, the grammar sickos, considered adding another s to “misspell” but were far too subtle-with-a-b. They enjoy it most when nobody knows the word arcane and phonetic begins with “ph.” Sound it out…

So what happens? Kids stop judging books by their covers and start judging them by the movies instead. At Christmas my nephew unwrapped Catcher in the Rye and asked, “Where do you plug it in?” So it goes. Other signs of language decay can be found in this perfectly acceptable use of text grammar: LOL BTW luv 2 chat but CUl8er :P

We’ll diagram tomorrow. Advertisers have their own rules, which include lots of verbing. “Staples is the best place to office.” “How to California in 30 Days.” Note that California is an intransitive verb, so you couldn’t say, “Go California yourself.” You could, however, engage in Californication according to noted grammarians, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I personally feel that it’s immoral to put our children through English when grownups are running around using office as a verb. Think of all the time we slumped over those big blue English books of death. Those years could have been so much funner!

All I’m saying is that we could stand to be a little more l-e-n-i-A-n-t. AY-men and AH-men.

В английском языке появился новый глагол — Kerzhakov

В английском языке изобрели новое слово, которое напоминает о российской действительности. Оно обозначает в футболе удар по мячу с близкого расстояния, который не достиг цели, хотя попасть было проще, чем не попасть. Слово Kerzhakov первыми придумали использовать журналисты английской газеты The Guardian.

Kerzhakov ввели в обиход в текстовой трансляции четвертьфинального матча Евро-2012 Англия - Италия. Причем это глагол, который в прошедшем времени обретает необходимое окончание ed, передает информационное агентство РБК.

Комментатор употребил глагол, чтобы описать промах Даниэле де Росси, не сумевшего забить метров с шести: «Какой промах де Росси! Как вообще итальянцы умудрились не выйти вперед? Харт отбил мяч в поле после подачи углового, но итальянский игрок ударом головой вернул его в штрафную. С этим мячом английская оборона должна была справиться без проблем и суеты, но защитники клевали носом и мяч попал к де Росси, который развернулся и Kerzhakoved мимо ворот с шести метров (who turned and Kerzhakoved a volley wide from six yards out)!»

Форвард сборной России Александр Кержаков установил антирекорд чемпионатов Европы. Футболист в матче против Чехии пробил по воротам соперника семь раз, но даже не попал в створ ворот.

Всего же в трех матчах Кержаков нанес 12 ударов по воротам соперника, при этом в створ попал только один раз. По количеству ударов мимо ворот Кержаков сейчас уступает лишь форварду сборной Португалии Криштиану Роналду, который ударил 15 раз. И надо заметить, что португалец лидирует и по количеству ударов, попавших в цель: он побеспокоил голкиперов соперника 14 раз.