E-MAIL WRITING

BUNGHOLE OF THE WEEK: HEAR STH THROUGH/ON THE GRAPEVINE

The expression ‘through the grapevine’ (or sometimes ‘on the grapevine’) is commonly used to mean ‘unofficially’ rather than through an official announcement, for example ‘I heard it on the grapevine that they’re planning to make some people redundant’. Rumours and gossip are spread ‘on the grapevine’ but why ‘the grapevine’? The term originated in the USA and comes from the telegraph system invented in the 19th century by Samuel Morse. The system required thousands of kilometres of telegraph wire to be installed, held in place several meters above the ground by telegraph poles placed at regular intervals along the telegraph route. People thought the wires and poles looked like the strings used to train vines so the telegraph lines became known as ‘the grapevine’. During the American Civil War rumours were often spread via the telegraph lines. When people were asked whether a particular story was true, they would often reply ‘I heard it through the grapevine’.

Source: www.onestopenglish.com

PARTITIVES & CONTAINERS

Partitives from Adriana

IT IS ALWAYS NOW, by Sam Harris

it is always now 
I actually want to talk 
today about death 
now most of us do our best to not to think about death 
but there's always part of our minds that knows 
this can't go on forever 
part of us always knows 
that we're just a doctor's visit away or a phone call away from being starkly 
reminded 
with the fact of our own mortality 
or of those closest to us 
now I'm sure many of you in this room have experienced this in some form 
you must know how uncanny it is 
to suddenly 
be thrown out of the normal course of your life 
and just be given the full time job of not dying 
or caring for someone who is 
but the one thing people tend to realize 
at moments like this is that they wasted a lot of time 
when life was normal 
and it's not just what they, it's not just what they did with their time, it's not just 
that they 
spent too much time working or or compulsively checking email 
it's that they cared about the wrong things 
they regret what they cared about 
their attention was bound up in petty concerns 
year after year 
when life was normal 
and this is a paradox of course because 
we all know 
this epiphany is coming 
I mean, don't you know this is coming? 
don't you know there's going to come a day 
when you'll be sick or someone close to you will die 
and you'll look back 
at the kinds of things that captured your attention 
and you'll think, "what, what was I doing?" 
you know this, and yet if you're like most people, 
you'll spend most of your time in life 
tacitly presuming you'll live forever 
it's like watching a bad movie for the fourth time 
or bickering with your spouse 
I mean this, these things only makes sense 
in light of eternity 
there better be a heaven if we're gonna waste our time like that 
there are ways to 
really live in the present moment 
what what's the alternative? 
it is always now 
however much you feel you may need to plan for the future 
to anticipate it, to mitigate the risks, 
the reality of your life is now 
this may sound trite 
but it's the truth 
it's not quite true as a matter of physics, in fact there is no now 
that encompasses the entire universe you can't talk about an event 
being simultaneously 
occurring here and one 
at the same moment occurring in Andromeda 
the truth is, now is not even well-defined as a matter of neurology because 
we know that inputs to the brain 
come at different moments and that consciousness is built upon layers 
of inputs whose timing to have to be different 
our conscious awareness of the present moment is 
in some relevant sense already a memory 
but as a matter of conscious experience 
the reality of your life 
is always now 
and I think this is a liberating truth about the nature of the human mind in 
fact I think there's probably nothing more important to understand 
about your mind than that 
if you want to be happy 
the past is a memory 
it's a thought 
arising in the present 
the future is merely anticipated, it is another thought 
arising now 
what we truly have 
is this moment 
and this 
and this 
and we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth 
repudiating it, fleeing it, overlooking it, 
and the horror 
is that we succeed 
we we've managed to 
never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we 
are we are 
continually hoping to become happy in the future 
and the future never arrives 
even when we think we're in the present moment we're, we're in very 
subtle ways, always looking over its shoulder 
anticipating what's coming next 
we're always solving a problem 
and it's possible to simply drop your problem 
if only for a moment 
and enjoy whatever is true of your life in the present 
this is not a matter of new information 
or more information, it requires a change in attitude 
it requires a change in the attentiveness you pay 
to your experience in the present moment 

PAST SIMPLE VERBS

This is the tale of Mister Morton
Mister Morton is who?
He is the subject of our tale
And the predicate tells what Mister
Morton must do

Mister Morton walked down the street
Mister Morton walked
Mister Morton talked to his cat
Mister Morton talked
(Hello, cat, you look good)
Mister Morton was lonely
Mister Morton was

Mister Morton is the subject of the sentence
And what the predicate says, he does

Mister Morton knew just one girl
Mister Morton knew
Mister Morton grew flowers for Pearl
Mister Morton grew
Mister Morton was very shy
Mister Morton was

Mister Morton is the subject of the sentence
And what the predicate says, he does

The subject is a noun
That's a person, place or thing
It's who or what the sentence is about
And the predicate is the verb
That's the action word
That gets the subject up and out

Mister Morton wrote Pearl a poem
Mister Morton wrote
Pearl replied in the afternoon
Pearl replied by a note
Mister Morton was very nervous
Mister Morton was

Mister Morton is the subject of the sentence
And what the predicate says, he does

The cat stretched
The sun beat down
A neighbor chased his kid
(Come here, kid - come on!)
Each sentence is completed when
You know what the subject did

Mister Morton knocked on her door
Mister Morton knocked
Mister Morton sat on her porch
Yes, he just sat there and rocked
Mister Morton was a nervous man
When she opened up the door he ran

Mister Morton climbed up his stairs
Mister Morton climbed
Mister Morton rhymed pretty words
Mister Morton rhymed
Mister Morton was lonely
Mister Morton was
Until Pearl showed up with a single rose
Who says women can't propose?
Now Mister Morton is happy
And Pearl and the cat are too

They're the subjects of the sentence
And what the predicate says, they do

BUNGHOLE OF THE WEEK: SPLITTING HAIRS

SPLIT HAIRS - "Argue extensively over trifles or fine distinctions; quibble. A hair can be split today without much trouble, but once it was thought to be so fine that an effort to split it would be a waste of time. The same was true of trifling points, and the analogy between the one and the other was made long ago. A translation in 1691 of Gabriel D'Emillianne's 'Observations on a Journey to Naples' offered: 'Shewing himself very inventive and dexterous at splitting a Hair in his way of handling Scholastick matter.' Gabriel D'Emillianne was the pseudonym of Antonio Gauin." From "Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Wings Books, Originally New York: Facts on File Publications, 1985).

Source: http://www.phrases.org.uk

THE BALLAD OF MARY SLADE, by Robin Fuller

FORGETFULNESS, by Billy Collins

Forgetfulness - Billy Collins Animated Poetry from smjwt on Vimeo.

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart. 

MASKS, by Shel Silverstein