viernes, 22 de abril de 2011

BUNGHOLE OF THE WEEK: RED TAPE


Red tape is excessive bureaucracy or rigid adherence to bureaucratic rules and regulations. But why tape? And why is it red?
It is tradition, dating back to the 18th century, to bind government documents together using a red ribbon or tape. There is no particular reason for choosing the color red; it’s just an arbitrary choice. From Maryland Laws, written between 1696 and 1715:
The Map...upon the Backside thereof sealed with his Excellency’s Seal at Arms on a Red Cross with Red Tape.
And we start to see metaphorical use by 1736 in John Hervey’s Poetical Epistle to the Queen:
Let Wilmington, with grave, contracted brow, Red tape and wisdom at the Council show.
The association between red tape and bureaucracy was firmly established by the 19th century. From Catherine Gore’s 1837 Stokeshill Place:
My dear, you mistake John Barnsley...Dearly as he loves a bit of red tape, you never saw him try to inspire any other man with the love of business.
(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)
From: http://www.wordorigins.org/


 

miércoles, 20 de abril de 2011

A HARD RAIN'S A-GONNA FALL


Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son ?
And where have you been my darling young one ?


I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans

I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son ?
And what did you see, my darling young one ?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'

I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin'
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children

And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ?
And what did you hear, my darling young one ?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin'
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world

I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'

I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter

Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet my blue-eyed son ?
Who did you meet, my darling young one ?

I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow

I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred

And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son ?
And what'll you do now my darling young one ?

I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin'
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden

Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it

And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my songs well before I start singin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

lunes, 18 de abril de 2011

NEW LAW BANS FARTING

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12363852


BUNGHOLE OF THE WEEK: BLOCKBUSTER

This term has at least three distinct senses. The first use of blockbuster was during World War II, meaning a large aerial bomb. It was formed from the words for a city block and bust, a verb meaning to break. A blockbuster was a bomb large enough to destroy a city block. Time magazine printed this in its 29 September 1942 issue:
Inside a sturdy observation tower a mile from the exploding block busters which the Army is now testing.1
The second sense means anything, especially a movie, play, or book, that is large, important, or popular. The term appears to have arisen shortly after the war, and was probably a play on the concept of the large bomb. Ironically, the term bomb in show business or publishing means a complete failure, while a blockbuster is a huge success.
J.H. Burns’s The Gallery of 1946 has this:
The largest woman in captivity...We call her blockbuster.2
The show business sense appears in 1957 in Godfrey Smith’s The Friends:
One day I had what seemed to me like a block-buster of an idea for a musical play.3
The third sense is from real estate. A blockbuster is a real estate agent who sells a house in an all-white neighborhood to a minority, especially black, family. Once the city block is busted, the other houses on the block are likely to come on the market at a depressed price and end up being sold to other minority families. This term, again created from the words for city block and bust, meaning to break, appeared after the war as well, and again was probably a play on the original concept of the aerial bomb. Only this time, it was not the size of the bomb that is the reference, but rather its ability to “destroy” a city block.
From Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer’s USA Confidential (1952):
They are kept out...with the same kind of coercion and violence that whites show when their neighborhoods are block-busted.4


Oxford English Dictionary, block, n., 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 29 Dec 2008 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50023732>.
Historical Dictionary of American Slang, v. 1, A-G, edited by Jonathan Lighter (New York: Random House, 1994), 190.

from: www.wordorigins.org

martes, 5 de abril de 2011

CHANGING EDUCATION PARADIGMS




Teacher: What have we here, laddie? Mysterious scribblings? A secret code? No! Poems, no less! Poems, everybody!
[class laughs]

Teacher: The laddie reckons himself a poet!
[reads poem]
Teacher: "Money get back / I'm all right, Jack / Keep your hands off my stack / New car / Caviar / Four star daydream / Think I'll buy me a football team." Absolute rubbish, laddie.
[whacks him with a ruler, growls at Pink]
Teacher: Get on with your work. Repeat after me:“An acre is the area of a rectangle whose length is one furlong and whose width is one chain.” 




When we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who would hurt the children anyway they could
by pouring their derision upon anything we did
exposing every weakness however carefully hidden by the kids.

But in the town it was well known that when they got home at night
their fat and psychopathic wives
Would thrash them within inches of their lives!

ooooooooooooo, oooooooo, ooooooooooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo,oooo.

We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

(A bunch of kids singing) We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

Spoken:
"Wrong, Guess again!
Wrong, Guess again!
If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddie!"

THE SECRET POWERS OF TIME

PASSIVE VOICE

http://english4bachillerato.wikispaces.com/file/view/passive_3.pdf

http://www.iescarrus.com/dep/ing/material/4eso/passive.pdf

http://www.autoenglish.org/gr.passive.pdf

http://www.englishgrammar.org/passive-voice-exercise/

http://www.write.armstrong.edu/handouts/PassiveVoiceExercises.pdf

http://ies1libertas.edu.gva.es/departamentos/ingles/PDFs/segundob/epassv2b1.pdf

http://www.azargrammar.com/assets/advanced/UUEGTeacher-CreatedWorksheets/Worksheets11/Modals-PassvVoice.pdf

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Passive_Bloodshed.pdf

http://www.englishpractice.com/grammar/active-passive-voice-exercise/

http://bachiller.sabuco.com/ingles/eloy/2bach/passive.pdf

http://www.grammar-worksheets.com/worksheets/Lesson.Voice.Active.Passive.pdf

http://www.esl-galaxy.com/crosswords/what'sitmadeof.pdf

http://www.law.louisville.edu/sites/www.law.louisville.edu/files/Active-passive-voice.pdf

http://www.ekolayingilizce.com/quws/upper_answerkey.pdf

http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/grammar/extraexercises/GFW%209.9.6.BLM.pdf

http://www.maristasjaen.es/declase/110201_ing1b-t03_Passive-exercises-b.pdf

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Passive_Voice_Exercise.pdf

http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/pdf/passive.pdf

http://writing.umn.edu/docs/sws/quicktips/activevpassive.pdf

http://www.englishcorner.vacau.com/grammar/rules/passive.pdf

http://www.eoioviedo.org/anacarmen/passive/Passive.pdf

http://www.edu.xunta.es/centros/iesblancoamorculleredo/system/files/passive+voice.pdf

http://profeblog.es/blog/teacher/files/2009/03/passive-exercise-unit-6.pdf

http://www.english-to-go.com/_pdf/_database/lessons/1727_jdU3GiGNFDGZ7BaUZYhIAFI5FDtWL8kF.pdf

http://www.sdc.uwo.ca/writing/handouts/Active%20and%20Passive%20Voice.pdf

http://www.englishforeveryone.org/PDFs/Active%20-%20Passive%20Voice.pdf

http://uczniowie.lo-zywiec.pl/~ang/cottage/files/other_grammar_points/Passive_Voice.pdf


viernes, 1 de abril de 2011

BUNGHOLE OF THE WEEK: TABLOID



In today’s speech, tabloid refers to a sensational style of journalism and somewhat more rarely, to a newspaper print format that uses smaller pages and folds like a book (as opposed to broadsheet, the traditional newspaper format). But the term got its start in the field of pharmaceuticals.
Tabloid was registered as a trademark in 1884 by Burroughs, Wellcome & Co. They formed the word by blending tablet with -oid, meaning resembling or similar to. From the Trade Marks Journal of 23 April 1884:
Tabloid...Burroughs, Wellcome & Company, Snow Hill Buildings, Holborn Viaduct, London, E.C....Chemical substances not included in Class I, used in Medicine and Pharmacy.
Around 1900, the term transferred to journalism in reference to news that was presented in an abbreviated and easily read (and often sensational) format. From the Westminster Gazette of 1 January 1901:
He advocated tabloid journalism.
And from the same paper on 1 April 1902:
The proprietor intends to give in tabloid form all the news printed by other journals.
Use of tabloid as a noun meaning such a paper comes about two decades later. From W.E. Carson’s 1918 Northcliffe, about tabloid pioneer Alfred Harmsworth, the 1st Viscount Northcliffe:
Since 1908 Alfred Harmsworth, like his famous ‘tabloid’, has disappeared from view.
The introduction of the smaller page in lieu of the traditional broadsheet happened about the same time—the smaller format being easier to read on public transport, which appealed to a different reader demographic, one who wanted more sensational stories—and the name stuck to the page size as well. Tabloid papers did not originate the practice of sensational journalism, that was common on both sides of the Atlantic long before tabloids were introduced, but tabloids pursued the practice of sensational journalism with a fury.
(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)
From: http://www.wordorigins.org/

MAMA TOLD ME NOT TO COME - RANDY NEWMAN



Will you have whiskey with your water
Or sugar with your tea?
What are these crazy questions
That they're asking of me?
This is the wildest party that there ever could be
Oh, don't turn on the light 'cause I don't want to see
Mama told me not to come
Mama told me not to come
Mama said, "That ain't no way to have fun"
Open up the window, let some air into this room
I think I'm almost choking on the smell of stale perfume
And that cigarette you're smoking 'bout to scare me half to death
Open up the window, let me catch my breath
The radio is blasting, someone's beating on the door
Our hostess is not lasting - she's out on the floor
I seen so many things here I ain't never seen before
I don't know what it is - but I don't wanna see no more
Mama told me not to come
Mama told me not to come
Mama said, "That ain't no way to have fun"