John McWhorter: Twitterish | The New Republic

John McWhorter: Twitterish | The New Republic

An interesting article on what is, or really isn't, happening to the English language. And full of great vocabulary for us, too!

Grammar Makes Love Songs!

After we talked so much about when to use which grammar when talking about the future, I thought of some songs that use different grammars to talk about the future. In today's Grammar 1/2 Review class, we looked at the lyrics of and listened to a Death Cab for Cutie song called "I Will Follow You Into the Dark." Here are some of the beginning lyrics:

    I Will Follow You Into the Dark

     by Death Cab For Cutie

     Love of mine
     Someday you will die
     But I'll be close behind
     I'll follow you into the dark
     No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
     Just our hands clasped so tight
     Waiting for the hint of the spark

     If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied
     Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
     If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks
     Then I'll follow you into the dark

Now, we first discussed that "the dark" is death or the unknown. Already romantic, huh? But if we look at the use of "will" we can decide that the meaning of this future talk is that of prediction. The singer is saying his love will die someday. Prediction. He will follow her in death (or die also soon after to find her soul again). Prediction. She won't have to go alone. Some of us might say now, "Oh, my... how romantic!" I suppose I would agree.

But think about the same idea with different grammar to talk about the future. How does the meaning change: "Love of mine, someday you're going to die, but I'm going to be close behind; I'm going to follow you into the dark." What did we learn it means to use "be going to" for the future?

Plans!

Is it still romantic if the singer has PLANS for his love to die and PLANS to be close behind and PLANS to follow her? Eek!!! I certainly hope not!!! In fact, this sounds extremely creepy and threatening now! The love song just became a completely different song!

If someone sings you the song using will, kiss him. If someone sings you this song using be going to, call the police. ;)

See? Grammar makes love songs.

I want English over Winter Break!

We only have a few weeks left in the semester before our three-week Winter break. How will you survive without daily study of English?!

Don't fret, my dearies. Today we are going to practice something in the same way you can create your own langauge lesson using the wonderful worldwide web. We're putting our minds to work, right? Just like our chapter has been framing its content.

Today's focus: a recent funny, successful American film. (I hope we have film buffs in class.) First, let's watch the trailer together in case some of us aren't aware of or haven't seen the film yet.

Now, let's hear from director and stars regarding their creative process in making the film by both listening to and reading along to their interview and a wonderful news site I love: NPR (National Public Radio) -- 89.9 FM here in Los Angeles.

Don't leave this blog! Hold down the control button CTRL on your keyboard and click the link above so that the link opens in a 2nd tab instead of navigating away from this page.

At the npr site, we see an article about the film, an option to listen to an 8-minute interview, and an option to see the transcript. First, click play to listen then pause the player. Hold CTRL and click "Transcript" to open that page. Get the transcript in front of you, then play the recording. Listen and read along at your own pace. Pause when you want and look-up any vocabulary you like at http://www.learnersdictionary.com/. Or just listen through without stopping.

This is a wonderful way to practice your listening skills. This site has so many interviews and transcripts to go along with them. You should be listening to the shows on the radio, as well. Hear something interesting? You can come find it here and listen and read more closely to something that interested you.

Need more of a challenge?

Try listening to this more recent interview broadcast this week via the local NPR branch KCRW, which can t be found at their separate affiliate website: http://www.kcrw.com/ or linked to one of their particular programs from its Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/KCRWTheBusiness.

Here, the two co-writers discuss how they began and continued through the writing process. Though they weren't strangers to comedy of comedy, performing or movies, they were somewhat strangers to writing a movie. See how much of the 20-minute interview (which begins right before minute 8) you can follow. No transcript available this time! Hold CTRL and click "more recent interview" above and click "listen" on that website, which opens in a new tab, and in the player that opens in a new window, skip to just before minute 8.

How did you do? How much new vocabulary did you pick up or write down to study? Did you try repeating some of the things you heard? Especially HOW some of the things were said? Pacing...intonation...reductions. Do you think you may try this same kind of activity with a film you are more familiar with? What about these news sites? Would you look around NPR or KCRW's site a bit more to find more interesting interviews or news broadcasts to read and listen to? You could certainly be kept busy for three weeks. ;)

If only I'd stop eating hamburgers everynight...

...then maybe I'd feel more confident about being able to get away from someone who's chasing me. Until then, I remain fearful over whether or not I could escape a hypothetical pursuer. I don't recall how we started talking about it, but I do remember that we laughed about most of our shared inability to successfully run away from someone who may be chasing us, and say...jump a fence, perhaps, without slowing down.

Well, while I work on shedding a few pounds so that I can at minimum be able to jump over a puddle without soaking my shoes, let's all admire what some of us may consider the pinnacle of such an athletic art: parkour (from "parcours"; abbreviated PK). Performed by none other than the French.

The Wildest Dream

Just in time for Halloween....

We've had recurring dreams, known we're dreaming while still asleep, returned to places previously dreamt of and sometimes remember and sometimes don't. What is that one symbol or thing that comes up in your dreams repeatedly? Have you ever thought of what it could mean? Name it here and post your predicted meaning. Then look it up in an online dream dictionary. Do find the same meaning across different websites. How does it compare to your predicted meaning?

What were they thinking?!

So, what is on their minds?

After watching this video, think about the people in bathing suits who participated in this project. What do you think was on their minds during and after the project?

Talk with your group as if you were a participant. Start by telling what he or she did, what they were thinking during the event and now what they think after the event. Did they enjoy it, did they regret it, was it fun, was it weird, did they think, "What have I gotten myself into?!" or "I'll never do that again!"?

So, what is in his mind?

This man has an interesting personality. He wrote a book titled, “Tidying up Art”, and organized the project in the park we watched above. After watching this video below, how would you describe the man in the suit -- how he thinks or why he would do something like this?

Could you be more polite, please?

We are able to use four different modals to politely request others to do something for us. Could you do this? Can you do that? Will you do this? Would you do that? These are not the only uses of these four modals, but they all do share this possible meaning and use. Remember that we also said that can and will may seem more direct while could and would sound more polite at times.

However, watch this video of clips from some of England's popular old television comedies. Notice when the audience laughs. The speakers are using polite speech as we learned, but the requests they are making in these situations aren't very polite, no matter how proper of language they use. Maybe you laugh, maybe you don't. But please, would you just watch?   ;P