Category English Language

A marketing salesman was on a mission to find out if his product would sell in European countries – both east and west. As he travelled, he met with one major problem. Every country spoke a different language – German, French, Armenia, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and a whole lot more. He solved it through a simple method. He would go into a restaurant call out, “Does anyone speak English here?” someone would, and he would get the information he needed. This went on for weeks, till he came to an eatery in a new place. He asked his question. The answer was, “Why sir, yes! This is England!” The poor salesman could have had an easier time – if only all these countries spoke the same language! And there is such a language called Esperanto. It is a world language, created to make communication among people from different countries easy. It was created some hundred years ago. According to language scholar Axel Belinfante, the fact that Esperanto has been around for so many years shows that it is a living language, capable of expressing all human thought.

A look at its history

Esperanto was created in 1887 by Dr. LL Zamenhof. He wanted it to be taught as second language so that people speaking different native languages could communicate. This arrangement would ensure that people did not forget their language or lose their cultural identity.

Zamenhof grew up in Bialystok, Poland, where different groups of people spoke different languages and followed different cultural practices. And they all lived inside Poland! Travelling and understanding one another within the same country was problematic! To solve this strange situation, he created his common language. He made it logical with a regular design so anyone could learn it.

The full name for Esperanto is Doktoro Esperanto. “Esperanto” translates to “one who hopes” [from the verb “esperi” (to hope)] and is drawn from the pseudonym LL Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, used when he published his first book on the language called Unua Libro in 1887. Most Esperanto root words are taken from Italian, French, German and English. A select few words come from Latin, Greek, Lithuanian Russian and Polish, as well. This connection is what makes Esperanto so useful in studying any of these European languages.

How will learning Esperanto help us?

It makes sense

Esperanto has 16 regular rules of grammar and a regular phonetic spelling. There are no exceptions to these rules. You can apply these rules constantly without hurdles. In English “do” and “go” are pronounced differently, though both have an “o” after a consonant. Esperanto is learned quickly and easily, compared to a lot of languages.

You can be a Polyglot

A polyglot is a person who speaks four or more languages. Studies have shown that students who learn Esperanto as a secondary language find it easy to learn a third language. The logic is Esperanto opens the logic (or otherwise) in all languages.

You’ll make new friends

If you know Esperanto, you get to know more people from across the world. You learn Esperanto because you want to have international friends. Esperanto magazines which columns that have many members practising the language.

You will travel widely

If you know Esperanto well, you will want to use it, right? And you can use it anywhere in the world! You can join the educated crowd in any part of the educated globe – from Alaska to Australia. Imagine staying with Esperantists overseas and getting to go round their country with them. Knowing the common world language gives you the advantage of staying anywhere, a small village in Italy to a large city in Kenya. You can connect with Esperantists of the world in a number of ways. For example, Pasporta Servo, an international network of Esperanto speakers run by the World Esperantist Youth Organization.

 

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Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday in the United States. There are many accounts about how it all began. Here is a popular version from history.com.

In September 1620, a small ship called Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers. They consisted of religious separatists looking for a new home where they could practice their faith freely and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After 66 days of enormous difficulties, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod in the northern part of the USA. One month later, Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.

Throughout their first winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship. They suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disaeses. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew survived. In March, the remaining settlers went ashore. They were astonished when an Abenaki Indian came and greeted them in English. He brought another native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe. This man had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery. He escaped to London and returned to his homeland on an expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanog, a local tribe.

In November 1621, the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest turned successful. Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of natives, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. This event is now remembered as America’s “first Thanksginving”. The festival lasted three days. Edward Winslow, who traced the voyage of the Pilgrims wrote that the menu of the feast included fowl, deer and fruit. There was no dessert because native Americans did not bake.

Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623. This was to mark the end of a long drought. Thanksgiving on an annual or occasional basis became common practice in other New England settlements as well.

In 1789, George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States. He asked Americans to express their gratitude for the success in the country’s war of independence and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His successors John Adams and James Madison continued the celebrations.

In 1817, New York became the first state to adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday. Other states followed, but mostly in the north of the country. The American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition.

In 1827, magazine editor and author Sarah Hale launched a campaign to establish Thankgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published editorials and sent letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians. She came to be known as the “Mother of Thanksgiving.”

Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863. At the height of the Civil War, he requested Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or suffers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year.

In 1939, the month of November started on a Wednesday and there were five Thursdays. President Franklin Roosevelt moved the Thanksgiving day to the second last Thursday, saying this gave people more time to shop, and traders the opportunity to close shop early in the season and open them well in time for Christmas shopping. One of the fall-outs of this change in the date was the birth of Black Friday – a day when people go crazy shopping since everything is available at a discount.

In 1940, November had only four Thursdays. However, Thanksgiving was announced to be on the Thursday before the last one. The change in the date had stuck. Reports say that in 1941, the President admitted that the switch was a mistake. Too late! The calenders had been printed marking the third Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. All right said President Roosevelt. What cannot cannot be changed must be endured, so he made the change permanent, by signing a bill making Thanksgiving Day fall on the fourth Thursday of November, whether it was the last Thursday of the month or not.

Words and the day

Now look at some of the words associated with the festival and the legends behind them.

Cornucopia

At Thanksgiving lunch, people place a giant horn-shaped basket full of fruits and vegetables in the middle of the table. It is formally known as “cornucopia” or the Horn of Plenty. The word comes from the Latin cornu, meaning “horn,” and copiae, meaning “of plenty”. The Greek god Zeus is said to have been fed by the food-filled horn of the goat Amalthea when he was a baby. Another myth says Hercules ripped off the horn of a river god in a wrestling match. Then the nymphs turned it into a cornucopia full of fruit and flowers to commemorate his triumph. In The Hunger Games, you see the horn-shaped cache of weapons called “Horn of Plenty.”

Cold turkey

Meaning: wholly and suddenly.

Gobble up

Meaning: to eat/use something very quickly and eagerly;

Turkey Trot

Meaning: a fun long-distance run or foot-race in a turkey costume that is held on or around Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.

Tofurkey

Meaning: the combination of the words “tofu” and “turkey”, i.e. a vegetarian version of turkey usually made from tofu (soybean protein) or seitan (wheat protein) with a stuffing made from grains or bread.

 

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Heard this carol?

Have you heard/sung the song Twelve Days of Christmas? Even if you have, check out the John Denver and the Muppets version. It is fun!

December 25 marks the official start of 12 days of Christmas. And this Christmas carol tells us what those twelve days are about.

In Christian belief, the 12 days of Christmas mark the period between the birth of Christ and the coming of the Magi, the three wise men. It ends on January 6 (Epiphany or Three King’s Day). The four weeks preceding Christmas are described as Advent, which begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on December 24.

In the carol, the singer brags about all the wonderful gifts the group received from their “true love” during the 12 days of Christmas. Each verse is an addition to the previous one, and the song gets longer and longer. The lyrics to “The 12 Days of Christmas” have changed over the years.

The one below is the most popular version.

On the first day of Christmas,

My true sent to me

A partridge in a pear tree.

The song then adds a gift for each day, building on the verse before it, until you sing of all 12 gifts together.

Day 2: two turtle doves, Day 3: three French hens, Day 4: four calling birds, Day 5: five gold rings, Day 6: six geese a-laying, Day 7: seven swans a-swimming, Day 8: eight maids a-milking, Day 9: nine ladies dancing, Day 10: 10 lords a-leaping, Day 11: 11 pipers piping, Day 12: twelve drummers drumming.

The song first appeared in a 1780 children’s book called Mirth With-out Mischief. Some historians think it was first sung in French. Whatever the language, it is a “memory” game, in which singers try to remember the lyrics and lose points if they make a mistake.

An English composer, Frederic Austin is credited with the version most of us are familiar with. In 1909, he set the melody and lyrics. When you sing the stretched “five go-old rings”, you should remember him. It was his idea.

Now let’s see why these gifts were chosen.

Partridge in a pear tree

It is not likely that you will find a partridge in a pear tree. Partridges are ground-nesting birds, and avoid flying high to perch in pear trees. The word “partridge” comes “perdix,” the Greek word for the bird. This in turn comes from a verb meaning “to break wind”, which refers to the sound of the wings as the bird takes off.

Two turtledoves

The turtledove is a bird and the word is used to refer to a beloved one. The “turtle” in the name is based on the Latin turtur that sounds like the bird’s distinctive call.

Turtledoves live in pairs, which show affection for the mate. This bond between birds has been described in Literature. In his poem of 1601 “The Phoenix and the Turtle”, Shakespeare refers to a tale of love between a phoenix and a turtledove.

Three French hens

We don’t know why people will give chicken as a Christmas gift, but poulets de Bresse (Bresse chicken) is a sought-after French hen, so the receiver may accept the three French hens. The word hen comes from the Old English hen(n), and is related to the Latin canere, “to sing,” so it is appropriate to be added to a carol.

Four calling birds

Most of us sing this line as “calling birds,” but in a 1780 version of this song, the line was “colly birds.” Around the time this song was published, “colly” in British dialects meant “dirty, grimy or coal black.” Frederic Austin’s 1909 version of “Twelve Days of Christmas” replaced colly with calling.

Five golden rings

We know what gold means. It stands for the valuable metal, and is form an ancient (Proto-Indo-European) root meaning “to shine.” This same root ultimately gives the word yellow, another meaning for “golden.” In the song, this lyric was originally “gold rings”, rather than “golden rings.”

Six geese a-laying

Birds again! But goose because it stands for a variety of things. It can refer to “the female web-footed swimming bird,” “a foolish person,” or “a poke in the back to startle someone.” There is also the idiom wild-goose chase, which refers to “a wild or absurd search for something unattainable.”

Seven swans a-swimming

It is comforting to know that the seventh day gift of seven swans are swimming and not singing! Swans do not have a voice that will get them to be included in the Christmas choir, so it is good these raucous birds will glide in the water and perhaps keep quiet.

The word swan means “the singing bird,” and is related to the Old English geswin, which means “melody, song” and swinsian, which means “to make melody.”

Eight maids a-milking

Since this song’s appearance in the late 1700s, “milk” in its verb form has stood for a range of actions, mostly shady. In card games, “to milk the pack” means “to shadily deal cards by pulling them from both the top and bottom of the deck.” “To milk at the horse race” was “to throw a horse race.” In the late 1800s, milk meant “to bug a telephone.”

Nine ladies dancing

The word “lady” is from the Old English hlaefdige, thought to literally mean “loaf-kneader” or, more broadly, “wife of a lord.” It entered English in the 1300s. The word dance comes from the Old French dancier. People preferred it to the Old English word for dance, sealtian.

Ten lords a-leaping

The word “lord” comes from the Old English word hlafweard, which literally meant “loaf-keeper.” Remember, “lady” means “loaf-kneader.” The origins of these words tell us about a social structure where wives made the bread and husbands guarded it. Of course today both can be breadwinners.

Eleven pipers piping

The word pipe, as a verb, meaning “to play on a pipe,” can be traced back to the Latin pipare, meaning “to peep, chirp.” It also means “to make a shrill sound like a pipe,” “to lead or bring by playing a pipe,” and, in baking, “to force dough or frosting through a pastry tube.”

Twelve drummers drumming

The word “drum” is the back formation of the longer word drumslade, alteration of the Dutch or Low German word trommelslag, which meant “drum beat.”

 

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What is a précis?

A précis, in general terms, is a shortened form of a passage. It should be clear, compact and logical, and it should not reduce the beauty of the original passage. It is a condensed version that conveys the thoughts in the original passage. The dictionary defines it as a “concise summary”. A précis keeps all the important ideas of the original passage. It is a kind of shorthand for the passage.

How does it help you?

Practice in précis writing helps you to improve your skills in reading. It helps you to write to the point. It helps you to write only what is necessary and it helps you to choose the right words and phrases.

Where do we come across précis writing?

• Newspaper headlines – Safety Meeting Ends in Accident
• Tag lines of articles and lessons – The True Story of a Real Fake
• Opening paragraph of a newspaper story, lecture or notes – Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
• Advertisements – Just do it

Steps to follow

1. Read the whole passage carefully. Read it twice – once to understand what the passage is about. The second time, separate the major points from the minor ones. What can be left out?
2. Recognize the author’s tone and viewpoint. Is he saying “yes”? Is he saying “no”?
3. Re-read the passage if necessary for clear comprehension (understanding) of ideas.
4. Write in direct, assertive language. You are not arguing your points or explaining them. You are just stating them. Use statement (declarative sentences). Don’t refer to the author (“Tagore said that…”), just state directly what the author said.
5. Underline key phrases, make notes in the margin.
6. Observe the emphasis (what does the author feel strongly about?) used by the author.
7. Understand the importance of ideas that the author develops with the use of supporting facts and examples.
8. Do not use the specific examples, figures of speech or quotations cited by the author in your précis.
9. When you are selecting ideas from a passage, ask yourself the following question: If this idea were omitted, would the basic meaning of the passage be changed?

What should I remember?

The goal is to communicate to the reader (and yourself) the main thesis and the major points in the most succinct form.

• Be alert to what is being said in the passage.
• Keep the author’s viewpoint in mind. Respect what he says in the passage.
• Learn to distinguish between major and minor points.
• Learn to emphasise what is important and leave out the fluff.

How exactly do I write the précis?

1. Try to limit your précis to no more than 1/3 the length of the original passage.
2. Use clear, factual expressions, do not attempt to copy the style of the original source.
3. Do not copy a single sentence from the article! You may use the author’s key words and phrases only when they are technical. Understand exactly what the author means, and there is really no better way than to write it in your own words.
4. Do not introduce ideas of your own. Do not criticize or change the author’s ideas. This is not your writing. You are just condensing the passage for the reader.

The final checklist:

1. Is it a correct summary of the key points?
2. Is it comprehensive, touching on all the key points?
3. Is it efficient, saying a lot in a brief way?
4. Is the presentation clear to the reader?
5. Is the writing – grammar, spelling, etc, correct?

How to go about it

Look at a simple example of précis writing

Today there are 6000 million people in the world. Fifty years ago only about 2000 million people lived in it. If Earth’s population were evenly distributed over its land surface, there would be about 1000 persons to the square mile. But Earth has vast areas of forest, mountains and desert which are almost totally uninhabited. On the other hand, it has great cities each with millions of people living in a few square miles. To feed the fast-growing population of our earth, scientists and planners have to discover new ways to produce more. One possible way is to bring more land under cultivation. This can be done only in places where there is a lot of land not used for agricultural purposes. In many places this is no longer possible as all the arable land is already cultivated. A second way is to make use of new types of seeds to produce more. Already a number of new strains of paddy and wheat have been developed in different parts of the world. India is one of the countries where a lot of useful work has been done in the field of agriculture research. (193 words)

Step 1: underline key words or ideas

Step 2: write notes

• Increase in world population in last fifty years
• Population feeding solutions
• What has been done

Step 3: Use your own words to express these key ideas more concisely and to develop a paragraph (of one-third of the length) which conveys the original message accurately and is clear, concise and coherent.

The Précis

World Population and Food Production

During the last fifty years, the world population has increased from 2000 to 6000 million. It is unevenly distributed with millions of people living in a few big cities. Scientists in India and abroad are, therefore, busy with agriculture research to find out new methods of increasing food production to feed them all and they have already developed many new strains of paddy and wheat. (65 words)

 

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