Back to Work!

Hope you all had a very pleasant holiday. I suppose most of you spent the time in Hawaii or Fiji, sunning yourself by the pool in a 5 star hotel, as you were served cool drinks by nubile waitresses or handsome waiters. The palm trees were quietly swaying in the breeze, the waves lapped gently against the beach of golden sand and thoughts of PTEB and English homework were a million miles away. Well, WAKE UP!!! It's back to reality now. For the blocks that had to do the Dancing Monkeys text, it's due on Monday. You can email it to the address at the top of this page if you wish. Make sure you identify yourself clearly with name and block. Either insert the text into the body of the email, or attach it as a Word document (NOT the latest version of Word with the .docx file extension. If you are running the newest edition, then please save the file as a Word 2003 type. ) For the more old fashioned ones among you, just use a feather-quill pen, an ink-well and parchment. See you Monday!!

Exam answers

These are genuine answers given by students in various exams in last year's British GCSE exams (16 year olds)! :

Geography

• Q: Name the four seasons. A: Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
• Q: Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink. A: Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.
• Q: What is a planet? A: A body of earth surrounded by sky.
• Q: What causes the tides in the oceans? A: The tides are a fight between the Earth and the Moon. All water tends to flow towards the moon, because there is no water on the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight.

Sociology

• Q: In a democratic society, how important are elections? A: Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election.
• Q: What are steroids? A: Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs.

Biology

• Q: What happens to your body as you age? A: When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental.
• Q: What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty? A: He says good-bye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery.
• Q: Name a major disease associated with cigarettes. A: Premature death.
• Q: What is artificial insemination? A: When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow.
• Q: How can you delay milk turning sour? A: Keep it in the cow.
• Q: How are the main parts of the body categorized? (e.g., abdomen). A: The body is consisted into three parts-the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity. The branium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels, A, E, I, O and U.
• Q: What is the Fibula? A: A small lie.
• Q: What does "varicose" mean? A: Nearby.
• Q: What is the most common form of birth control? A: Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium.
• Q: Give the meaning of the term "Caesarean Section." A: The caesarean section is a district in Rome.
• Q: What is a seizure? A: A Roman emperor.
• Q: What is a terminal illness? A: When you are sick at the airport
• Q: Give an example of a fungus. What is a characteristic feature? A: Mushrooms. They always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas.

English

• Q: What does the word "benign" mean? A: Benign is what you will be after you be eight.

Technology

• Q: What is a turbine? A: Something an Arab wears.

Irony

Irony:
Verbal irony is a disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect.For instance, if a speaker exclaims, “I’m not upset! and intended to communicate that she was upset by claiming she was not, the utterance would be verbal irony.

These can often be combined with other figures of speech such as similes, for example:
· as hairy as a bowling ball
· as subtle as a sledgehammer
· as porous as steel
· as bulletproof as a spongecake
The intended audience for such similes must sufficiently understand the concepts involved so as to appreciate that the opposite of the intended meaning is being conveyed.

This is not entirely the same as "Sarcasm" which is ironic, but has the added purpose of the intention to insult or verbally hurt someone else, for example, if your teacher says to you, "Well, you certainly spent a long time on this piece of work!!" while awarding you grade E. Or if you miss a penalty in the last minute of a World Cup Final and your team mates say to you "Well Done" with a look of disdain on their faces.

Text for Holidays

Taken from The Bafut Beagles by Gerald Durrell. Look him up on Wikipedia to find out more about this writer.
Start with a general overview in terms of genre, purpose, tone etc then look at the specifics, vocabulary, figures of speech. There is extensive use of personification, simile, some alliteration etc. Your commentary should not read like a list, but rather like an essay. Remember, identify the language feature then COMMENT on the effect achieved or at least sought by the writer. ENJOY, lah!!!

Toads and Dancing Monkeys
Most West African lorries are not in what would call the first flush of youth and I had learnt by bitter experience not to expect anything very much of them. But the lorry that arrived to take me up to the mountains was worse than anything I had seen before: it tottered on the borders of senile decay. It stood there on buckled wheels, wheezing and gasping with exhaustion from having to climb up the gentle slope to the camp, and I consigned myself and my loads to it with some trepidation. The driver, who was a cheerful fellow, pointed out that he would require my assistance in two very necessary operations: first, I had to keep the hand brake pressed down when traveling downhill, for unless it was held thus almost level with the floor it sullenly refused to function. Secondly, I had to keep a stern eye on the clutch, a wilful piece of mechanism, that seized every chance to leap out of its socket with a noise like a strangling leopard. As it was obvious that not even a West African lorry driver could be successful in driving while crouched under the dashboard in a pre-natal position, I had to take over control of these instruments if I valued my life. So, while I ducked at intervals to put on the brake, amid the rich smell of burning rubber, our noble lorry jerked its way towards the mountains at a steady twenty miles an hour; sometimes, when a downward slope favoured it, it threw caution to the winds and careered along in a madcap fashion at twenty-five.
For the first thirty miles the red earth road wound its way through the lowland forest, the giant trees standing in solid ranks alongside and their branches entwined in an archway of leaves above us. Flocks of hornbills flapped across the road, honking like the ghosts of ancient taxis, and on the banks, draped decoratively in the patches of sunlight, the agama lizards lay, blushing into sunset colouring with excitement and nodding their heads furiously. Slowly and almost imperceptibly the road started to climb upwards, looping its way in languid curves around the forested hills. In the back of the lorry the boys lifted up their voices in song:
Home again, home again,
When shall I see my home?
When shall I see my mammy?
I’ll never forget ma home…
The driver hummed the refrain softly to himself – glancing at me to see if I would object. To his surprise I joined in, and so while the lorry rolled onwards trailing a swirling tail of red dust behind it, the boys in the hack maintained the chorus while the driver and I harmonized and sang complicated twiddly bits, and the driver played a staccato accompaniment on the horn.
Breaks in the forest became more frequent the higher we climbed, and presently a new type of undergrowth began to appear: massive tree-ferns standing in conspiratorial groups at the roadside on their thick, squat and hairy trunks, the fronds of leaves sprouting from the tops like delicate green fountains. These ferns were the guardians of a new world, for suddenly, as though the hills had shrugged themselves free of a cloak, the forest disappeared. It lay behind us in the valley, a thick pelt of green undulating away into the heat-shimmered distance, while above us the hillside rose majestically, covered in a coat of rippling, waist-high grass, bleached golden by the sun. The lorry crept higher and higher, the engine gasping and shuddering with this unaccustomed activity. I began to think we should have to push the wretched thing up the last two or three hundred feet, but to everyone’s surprise we made it, and the lorry crept on to the brow of the hill, trembling with fatigue, spouting steam from its radiator like a dying whale. We crawled to a standstill and the driver switched off the engine.

Euphemisms

Block 5: Here is a (sanitised!) selection of the euphemisms we looked at the other day. I am sure you can remember what they mean, if you can't, then look them up in the dictionary.

Ample proportions
Be excused
Between jobs
Big boned
Bite the dust
Bought the farm
Breathe one's last
Broad in the beam
Bun in the oven
Cash in your chips
Collateral damage
Dear John
Depart this life
Differently abled
Do your business
Dropped off the perch
Economical with the truth
Eternal rest
Ethnic cleansing
Fall asleep
Full figured
Happy event
In the club
In the family way
In trouble
It fell off the back of a lorry
Kick the bucket
Laid off
Leave the room
Little boy’s/girl’s room
Lose your lunch
Meet your maker
No longer with us
Pass on/away
Pass over to the other side
Peg out
Pop your clogs
Powder your nose
Put to sleep
Rest room
Smallest room in the house
Snatched from us
Spend a penny
Supreme sacrifice
The call of nature
The N word
The wrong side of the blanket
Tired and over emotional
Turn up your toes
Up the duff
Visually challenged
Well fed
With child

Oxymorons

These are lexical items made up of two parts which are seemingly contradictory.

Examples:
· Act naturally
· Found missing
· Minor catastrophe
· Near miss
· Great depression
· Genuine imitation
· Same difference
· Almost exactly
· Sensitive man
· Government organization
· Everything except
· Alone together
· Silent scream
· Living dead
· Small crowd
· Soft rock
· New classic
· Sweet sorrow
· "now, then"
· Synthetic natural gas
· Passive aggressive
· Taped live
· Clearly misunderstood
· Peace force
· New and improved
· Plastic glasses
· Terribly pleased
· Definitely maybe
· Pretty ugly
· Diet ice cream
· Rap music
· Working vacation
· Exact estimate
· Loners club
· Artificial grass
· Authentic replica
· Crash landing
· Extinct life
· Fairly accurate
· Decaffeinated coffee

Interesting

Strange things to say.
If you fall and break your leg, don't come running to me!
Don't look at me with that tone of voice
That question was so easy you could have answered it blindfolded.
Math illiteracy affects 7 out of every 5 people.

Definitions not in a dictionary
Avoidable: What a bullfighter tries to do.
Handkerchief: Cold Storage.
Polarize: What penguins see with.
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Shellfish: A bit like a shelf.

An English Teacher Joke and a few observations about English

An English teacher at PTEB spent a lot of time marking grammatical errors in his students' written work. He wasn't sure how much impact he was having until one overly busy day when he sat at his desk rubbing his temples.
A student asked, "What's the matter, sir?"
"Tense," he replied, describing his emotional state.
After a slight pause the student tried again, "What was the matter? What has been the matter? What might have been the matter? What will be the matter... ?"

No wonder English is so hard to learn:
We polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
A farm can produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt

Metaphors are a Minefield!!

Block 5. These are the examples we looked at, if you didn't manage to copy them down. See if you can identify the two sides of comparison, and the effect this has, or the image being created. Do as many as you think you can manage, don't worry if you only do two or three. Have fun!!

• Metaphor - From the Greek, "carrying over"
  

· "The apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet black bough."(Ezra Pound, "In a Station at the Metro")
· "My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill."(William Sharp, "The Lonely Hunter")
· "Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food."(Austin O'Malley)
· "Words are bullets, and should be used sparingly, aimed toward a target."(Army Colonel Dick Hallock)
· "Language is a road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going."(Rita Mae Brown)
· "The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world."(John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961)
· "Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love. I'd stepped in it a few times."(Rita Rudner)

Similes are as easy as ABC!!

Have a look at these links to give you a better idea about similes

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/CET/flashactivities/similes.html

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/using_similes/eng/Introduction/default.htm

Recently voted "The World's Funniest Joke"

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his cell phone and calls emergency services.He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: "Take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the hunter says, "OK, now what?"

What to Expect

Nice to see all of you today (4th March). There seemed to be so many of you!!

Just to reiterate:

• You register for the EAS exam (Code 8693) in about April 2008, for the November 2008 sitting. The only reason not to register would be financial.
• You take the exam in November.
• In January 2009 you start studying GP
• At end of January 2009 you get results from Nov 08 EAS exam.
• At end of Jan/early Feb 2009 you register for June GP paper (Code 8004) if money is not an issue.
• If your EAS result was not what you wanted, you also register for June EAS repeat.
• In June 2009 you take GP and if applicable, repeat EAS.
• In August 2009, results for the June papers come out.
• If you have got a good grade in GP, then you can stop attending GP classes.
• Everyone takes the November 2009 GP paper. (Code 8001) (Paid for)