APPALACHIAN ENGLISH
Posted on Saturday, October 23, 2021.
Bald: A treeless area on a mountain
Blackberry Winter: Time where there is cool weather at the same time as the blooming of wild blackberry shrubs in May
Blind House: Windowless cabin
Blockading: Making illegal whiskey or moonshine
Booger: Ghost
Boomer: Red squirrel
Branch: Small stream
Cove: Small valley surrounded by mountains (Cades Cove)
Dogwood Winter: Time of cold weather at the same time as the blooming of dogwood trees in mid-April
Dome: A mountain with a rounded top (Clingman’s Dome)
Foxfire: Something that glows in the dark, like certain mushrooms
Gaum: A mess
Gap: Low spot along a ridge or mountain range (Newfound Gap)
Granny Woman: Midwife
He-balsam: Spruce tree
Hollow: Small sheltered valley (holler)
Jag: Small amount
Leather Britches: Green beans dried in the pod by threading on a string and hanging
Lick: To hit with a hammer or axe
Long Sweetening: Maple syrup
Painter: Mountain lion
Poke: Small bag
Poor Do: Boiled cornmeal
Ramp: Wild garlic
Shamp: To cut hair
She-balsam: Fir tree
Short Sweetening: Sugar or honey
Simples: Medicinal herbs
Slaunchwise: Crooked, sideways, slanting diagonally
Slick-faced: Without a beard
Sorry: Something of little or no value
‘Tater Hole: cold cellar under the cabin floor where foods are stored
Wish Book: Mail-order catalog
Varmint: Wild animal
PRONOUNS
The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us, James Pennebaker, 2013. from this post. This link to Bloomsbury has some excerpts.
“How Saying ‘me’ or ‘we’ changes your psychological response–and the response of other people,” Annelisa Leinbach, Big Think, March 31, 2023.
PHRASES
1. Military Phrases
“The whole nine yards” come from the length of an ammo belt, which was 27 feet long. So instructing someone to “give the whole nine yards” means to give them everything you’ve got; don’t spare any of it.
“If a task is once begun, never leave it ’til it’s done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.”
CONVERSATIONS
1. Compelling Conversations.
2. ESL for Beginners.
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DICTIONARIES & THESAURUSES
1. Dictionary of Contemporary English
2. Thesaurus
3. Urban Dictionary, Slang
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ENGLISH IDIOMS
1. Body Idioms
2. English Idioms
3. Find an Idiom
4. More
5. Even more
6. A good site.
ENGLISH PHRASES
1. Clarw.phrases.org.uk/meanings/index.html”>Phrases
2. American Phrases & Sayings
3. More American English Phrases
PHRASES
1. 9 Phrases Smart People Never Use.
2. 20 Latin Phrases You Should Be Using.
3. Idioms with laughter: Contagious laughter, nervous laughter, and so on.
4. You’ll definitely want to know the different kinds of laughter. And more!
5. Origins of Common Phrases from Mental Floss.
6. Mental Floss has some interesting lists on Language.
Dr. Travis Bradberry on Why We Struggle to Communicate. It’s worth a read, though what you’ll learn is obvious. Still, it’s nice to put what is obvious into words. The best communication involves thoughtful emotional intelligence. He has some pretty good insights. I liked his point in this video where he says that most CEOs have the highest level of emotional intelligence than most of their employees. This is true. When people or managers don’t have this ability, we are tortured with disappointment.
“7 Phrases That Make You Instantly Likable.” Posted Wednesday, December 7, 2022.
1. “I feel so embarrassed . . .”
2. “May I because . . .”
In the famous 1970s “Copy Machine Study,” Harvard researcher Ellen Langer tested the power of the word “because.” In this experiment, she had an actor ask to cut a line of people waiting to use a copier.
Langer had the actor ask to cut the line using three requests:
A. “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”
B. “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make copies?”
C. “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
The results were surprising. People said yes to request A only 60% of the time. But requests B and C had a 93% and 94% compliance rate. Researchers repeated this experiment several times and got roughly the same results.
3. “We should do this . . .”
It might sound counterintuitive in our narcissistic culture, but research has found influential people are more likely to use “we” pronouns than “I,” “me,” or “my.” Psychologist James Pennebaker found leaders use more “we” pronouns because these people are more outwardly oriented.
It makes sense when you think about it. Charismatic charmers focus on others, while insecure people worry more about how others will perceive them, so they use more self-oriented language. Even creepier, when Pennebaker analyzed poems by writers who committed suicide, he found the most common word used was “I.”
4. “Can I ask you to . . .”
Asking permission puts the other person at ease. People who work in fundraising use this linguistic technique. Instead of saying, “Can you donate to this cause,” they ask, “Can I ask you to donate to this cause?”
5. “I am curious . . .”
Curiosity is one of the sharpest tools to seduce someone. When you start a question with “I am curious,” it tells the listener that you are engaged. We like those who begin with a desire to understand instead of a desire to judge.
Best-selling author Arin N. Reeves, Ph.D., explains why curiosity opens up more engaging dialogue:
“Curiosity and bias cannot coexist in your brain at the same time. The minute you say ‘I am curious about this,’ your brain literally halts putting a bias in there.” — Arin N. Reeves, Ph.D.
6. “I need your advice . . .”
We have all heard that “there are no dumb questions,” but now research shows that the platitude rings true. In this study, researchers found asking for advice made someone appear more intelligent. The advice seekers were more likable because people are flattered when we ask for their opinion. Simply put, answering a question that helps someone feels good.
In Captivate: The Science of Succeeding With People, social scientist Vanessa Van Edwards found that we view people who ask for advice as more vulnerable. And that vulnerability creates more trust between the asker and the responder.
7. “I need your help . . .”
8. “I love you . . .”
Author of Raising an Entrepreneur, Margot Machol Bisnow, interviewed 70 parents of highly successful adults to determine what words of encouragement they used the most with their kids. She found one common phrase that smart parents used with their even smarter kids — “I love you.”
PRONUNCIATION
1. Pronunciation in the 1920s.
PUNCTUATION
1. Little Known Punctuation Marks.
2. The Apostrophe Protection Society.
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LANGUAGE TOOLS
1. Common Errors in English Usage.
2. Online Etymology Dictionary.
3. Scientific English.
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HOW DO I APOLOGIZE?
So that it emotionally resonates, so that it doesn’t incriminate, so that it is heartfelt . . . ? A few rules.
1. In person and in speech, less is more. Just a few words. Even with condolence letters, make it brief. For condolence letters, write something like these samples.
2. Be sure to say it. Don’t let your apology hang for days, weeks, months, or years.
3. Don’t pretend nothing happened when you know it did.
4. When you’re apologizing for someone’s death, never say that he or “she is in a better place.” There’s no better place to live or be lived than here on earth. Think of what Robert Frost said in his poem, “Birches.”
So don’t ever tell a grieving friend or family member that he or she is in a better place. The best place for them to be is in good health, happy, sharing joyful moments with their loved one.
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Sam Tetrault is helpful. Actually her introductory remarks are good but her list of examples are terrible
After a tragic loss, it can be impossible to find the right words to ease this pain. All words have their limits, and it often feels impossible to offer your condolences. during someone’s time of need. This is especially true if the loss was sudden or particularly heartbreaking.
It’s because words have their limits that many people don’t or can’t apologize. If you’ve done something horrible and you want to apologize to the injured party or her relatives, your words won’t go very far to ease a family’s loss. No one lives by themselves even if we live aline. So be careful getting involved with people. Go gently. Proceed with extreme caution. Remember that we can’t even rely on our lived ones to look out for us. How many parents greenlighted or had their babies vaccinated? Which means that we have to protect ourselves.
LEARNING
1. Mnemonic tricks for learning. I use these all the time. You probably do too.
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ON USING PROFANITY
“Profanity in a debate is a poor substitute for intellect. It denotes a paucity of intelligence, of reasoning power, of wit.” – Alan Weiss
— Marcia Yudkin (@marciasmantras) January 8, 2021
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READING & MEMORIZING
1. Remember more with Mnemosyne, an online flashcard reading and memorizing site. Give it a try to see if you like it. I used flashcards as a study tool. With them, I was able to learn massive amounts of data that otherwise would have conquered me. One final exam in a literature class required students to know 100 poems, their titles, their authors, his dates, first lines of the poems, and what they were about. Sounds like a lot of information, and in the abstract it is. It takes time to write out 100 3 x 5 cards. I did that. Then I studied them, which takes a few more hours. But it was worth it. I aced the exam.
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ABSTRACT SUMMARIES of BUSINESS BOOKS
This is a terrific site that offers abstract summaries of business books. Oh, yeah. I will be using this regularly. Easy to remember–it’s called getabstract.
ORAL PRESENTATION TOOLS
1. Record your voice with Audacity.
2. Panopreter
3. CuePrompter, an online teleprompter.
TEACHING TOOLS
1. Amvonet.com
2. Blackboard
3. Moodle
4. Straighterline
5. WizIQ
VISUAL LESSONS: TIMELINES
1. Dipity
2. TimeToast
3. Tiki-Toki
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MATH TOOLS
1. Wolfram Alpha.
2. Wolfram.
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BI-LINGUAL
1. Duolingo
2. Spanish Literature @ donquijote.org
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ENGLISH for BEGINNERS
1. English Stack Exchange (a funny play on the compound noun, stock exchange).
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TOOLS for ENGLISH LE English Learners
1. Using English
2. English Proverbs
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Posted Monday, May 9, 2016
1. Useful shortcuts: Alt Codes
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STUDY HABITS
1. Improve Your Reading Comprehension by summarizing with 3 sentences.
2. Here.
3. Take notes by hand than by computer or e-notebooks. But you already knew this.
4. How to Study the Bible, John MacArthur, 1979.
5. Study Habits outlined by Gary North,
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Posted Friday, May 27, 2016
SYMBOLS
Symbols are interesting for their meaning, and their meaning is either contextually specific to the story or their meaning is carried by the culture or history. One interesting kind of symbol is heraldry. Check out the different positions of the beast or lion. They are interesting and send an interesting message about the state’s posture toward its competitors and its, ahem, subjects.
1. Attitude in Heraldry.
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Spin. I love spin.
from Breitbart’s story on Olympic athlete Lochte:
Despite the evidence supporting Lochte’s story, the damage to his reputation has been done. Lochte has apologized profusely for the incident, particularly to the U.S. Olympic team – which he still hopes to join in the 2020 Olympics – and to his sponsors. At least one sponsor, Speedo, has dropped Lochte, citing “behavior that is counter to the values this brand has long stood for.” The U.S. Olympic team, meanwhile, has said further action will be taken against the swimmers without specifying what that may entail.
Note Speedo’s PR comments, “behavior that is counter to the values this brand has long stood for.”
WORD PLAY
Euphemisms. Start here. Then check out these articles. When people use euphemisms to describe personal experiences, we use them to soften criticism to ourselves. Newspapers use euphemisms to downplay the seriousness of an event or person, meaning that the newspapers are protecting or running cover for someone. Take Alec Baldwin’s recent negligence on the film set of Rust, where he took a gun, thinking it was a prop gun, and fired it at the cinematographer and killed her. Drudge began running cover for Baldwin with headlines that shifted personal responsibility onto inanimate things, abstractions, and or other people, away from Baldwin and onto unnamed employees on the set.
Note the AP News and DEADLINE headlines, in which the latter uses “Discharged” for firing the gun as if there was zero personal agency, as though the gun fired itself. And the AP headline is trying to run cover for Baldwin’s incompetence and negligence. Fake or real, anytime you hold any type of gun you make sure it is loaded or make sure there are no rounds in it. Assuming anything about guns is negligence. The reason why these media run cover for Baldwin is because they know what a tremendous impact an opinion in the court of public opinion can have on a court case; even if the defendant wins in a court of law, the prevailing opinions in the court of public opinion will win out. Just ask George Zimmerman who was found innocent in court but has yet to get his life back on track financially or socially.
San Gabriel Tutor 