Sunday, September 27, 2015
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Monday, September 21, 2015
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Hispanic Heritage Month
What is it?
National Hispanic Heritage Month is the period from September 15 to October 15 in the United States, when people recognize the contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans to the United States and celebrate the group's heritage and culture.
BackgroundHispanic Heritage Week was approved by president Lyndon Johnson and the length of it was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period (September 15 - October 15). It was enacted into law on August 17, 1988 on the approval of Public Law 100-402.
About the Dates
September 15 was chosen as the starting point for the celebration because it is the anniversary of independence of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. They all declared independence in 1821. In addition, Mexico, Chile and Belize celebrate their independence days on September 16, September 18, and September 21, respectively
Hispanic Heritage Month also celebrates the long and important presence of Hispanic and Latino Americans in North America, starting with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus on the morning of October 12, 1492. A map of late 18th-century North America shows this presence, from the small outpost of San Francisco founded in the desolate wilderness of Alta California in 1776, through the Spanish province of Texas with its vaqueros (cowboys), to the fortress of St. Augustine, Florida — the first continuous European settlement in North America, founded in 1565, forty-two years before the English landed in Jamestown, Virginia.
Events
Major museums and institutions across The United States pay tribute to Hispanic Culture by holding special exhibits and cultural events. Similar events are held in schools and colleges where special activities take place.. Some cities, specially does with Latino influence, hold cultural and culinary festivals in public parks.
The Hispanic Society of America, founded in 1904 in New York City by Archer Milton Huntington, holds a major black tie gala in mid-September where prominent figures from across Latin-America and Spain are honored.
taken from:
Words that Come from Literary Characters
#1: Quixotic
Definition:
: idealistic and utterly impractical; especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or chivalrous action doomed to fail
About the Word:
The novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes (published in 1605 and 1615), is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature ever. It also has given us a small, but useful, batch of words and phrases for describing that special kind of person who is unencumbered by common sense and the notion that grand gestures are often impractical.
Definition:
: an uncouth or rowdy person
: idealistic and utterly impractical; especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or chivalrous action doomed to fail
About the Word:
The novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes (published in 1605 and 1615), is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature ever. It also has given us a small, but useful, batch of words and phrases for describing that special kind of person who is unencumbered by common sense and the notion that grand gestures are often impractical.
#2: Yahoo
Definition:: an uncouth or rowdy person
About the Word:
Yahoo comes to the English language from the fertile imagination of Jonathan Swift, author of the famed Gulliver's Travels (as well as the somewhat less-remembered Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue).
In Gulliver's Travels the Yahoos were an imaginary humanoid race, brutish and uncouth. This book was also responsible for introducing the words Lilliputian and brobdingnagian.
#3: Pooh-bah
Definition:1 : one holding many public or private offices
2 a : one in high position
b : one who gives the impression of being a person of importance
About the Word:
Readers of a certain age might be excused for thinking that the pooh-bah comes from the cartoon series The Flintstones. That show occasionally featured a 'grand poobah', who was a high-ranking member of a secret society. However, the roots of pooh-bah extend far beyond Saturday morning cartoons.
It originated in the Gilbert and Sullivan 1885 comic opera, The Mikado. The character of that name finds himself in possession of a wide variety of positions and offices, and is dubbed Lord-High-Everything-Else.
#4: Pander
Definition:: someone who caters to and often exploits the weaknesses of others
About the Word:
Pander has undergone a bit of what linguists and other wordy types like to call "pejoration," the process by which a word's meaning and connotation goes downhill.
The initial meaning in English was in reference to someone who acted as a go-between for a pair of lovers, a facilitator of romance. The word entered our language in this sense as an alteration for the name of a character (Pandare) in Chaucer's classic poem Troilus and Criseyde; Pandare assisted the lovers in this poem in their romance. However, soon after the word began to take on slightly...less noble shades.
Pander began to be used as a term for a pimp, or a person who procured the services of a prostitute. After this it broadened to include any person who helped satisfy any one of a number of questionable urges.
#5: Gargantuan
Definition:
: of tremendous size or volume
About the Word:
Gargantuan comes from the title character of the 1535 satire by Rabelais, Gargantua.
In this work, Gargantua is a giant with a ravening appetite (eating, for instance, six pilgrims in a salad). The name appears to have been first converted into an adjective in 1596, by Thomas Nash
#6: Serendipity
Definition:
: an assumed gift for finding valuable or agreeable things not sought forAbout the Word:
Serendipity was the creation of Horace Walpole, the famed 18th-century English writer, who is known both for authorship of the first Gothic novel in English (The Castle of Otranto) and for having a lifelong obsession with writing letters (more than a thousand of which were to Horace Mann).
#7: Malapropism
Definition:: a blundering use of a word that sounds somewhat like the one intended but is ludicrously wrong in the context
About the Word:
Richard Sheridan, the Irish dramatist, is responsible for the word malapropism, as it is based on the name of a character, Mrs. Malaprop, who appears in his 1775 play,The Rivals.
#8: Milquetoast
Definition:: a timid, meek, or apologetic person
About the Word:
Comic strips may not seem like the most likely source to have provided English with new words, but they have actually been quite fertile in this regard.
Milquetoast is one such word: it comes from the name of Caspar Milquetoast, a character invented by cartoonist H. T. Webster in 1924 for his strip Timid Soul (it was based on milk toast, a dish of toast softened in milk). Comic strips have also given us the word dagwood (a comically large sandwich, named after Dagwood Bumstead, from the comic Blondie), and it is likely that goon (a thuggish man) was largely taken from the character Alice the Goon in the comic strip Thimble Theatre in the early 20th century.
#9: Micawber
Definition:: an improvident person who lives in expectation of an upturn in his fortunes
About the Word:
Wilkins Micawber was an eternally optimistic and frequently impoverished character from Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, published as a serial novel in 1849 and 1850.
#10: Panglossian
Definition:: marked by the view that all is for the best in this best of possible worlds
About the Word:
Master Pangloss, the tutor for the titular character of Voltaire's novelCandide, was prone to making such pronouncements as "they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best."
The novel, a satire on the subject of philosophical optimism, is Voltaire's best-known work. In large part due to this popularity the fictional tutor has seen his name forever associated with unfettered and irrational optimism.
taken from:
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Friday, September 11, 2015
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Monday, September 7, 2015
Labor Day
Labor Day in the United States is a public holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September. It honors the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country.Labor Day was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, who organized the first parade in New York City. After the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago on May 4, 1886, U.S. President Grover Cleveland feared that commemorating Labor Day on May 1 could become an opportunity to commemorate the affair. Therefore, in 1887, the United States holiday was established in September to support the Labor Day that the Knights favored.
History
In 1882, Matthew Maguire, a machinist, first proposed the holiday while serving as secretary of the CLU (Central Labor Union) of New York. Others argue that it was first proposed by Peter J. McGuire of the American Federation of Laborin May 1882, after witnessing the annual labour festival held in Toronto, Canada. Oregon was the first state to make it a holiday on February 21, 1887. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day.
Celebrations
The form for the celebration of Labor Day was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday: A street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations", followed by a festival for the workers and their families. This became the pattern for Labor Day celebrations. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the civil significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the Labor movement.The holiday often marks the end of the traditional summer season (although summer doesn't officially end until September 21), as students normally return to school the following week, although school year starting days now vary.
Retail Sale Day
To take advantage of large numbers of potential customers free to shop, Labor Day has become an important sale weekend for many retailers in the United States. Some buyers retailers claim it is one of the largest sale dates of the year, second only to the Christmas season's Black Friday.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Adjectives Clauses
What are adjective clauses?
First of all, it’s important to understand the meaning of a clause. A clause is a group of related words that contain a subject and verb. So, an adjective clause is a group of related words with a subject and verb that describes a noun or pronoun. An adjective clause is also always dependent which means it cannot stand alone as a sentence.
Nonrestrictive Adjective Clauses
A nonrestrictive modifying clause (or nonessential clause) is an adjective clause that adds extra or nonessential information to a sentence. The meaning of the sentence would not change if the clause were to be omitted. Nonrestrictive modifying clauses are usually set off by commas.
Here's an example:
Old Professor Legree, who dresses like a teenager, is going through his second childhood.
This who clause is nonrestrictive because the information in the clause doesn't restrict or limit the noun it modifies (Old Professor Legree). The commas signify that the adjective clause provides added, not essential, information.
Other examples:
Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote "The Raven," is a great American poet.
Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony until 1898, when it was ceded to the United States.
Restrictive Adjective Clauses
A restrictive modifying clause (or essential clause) is an adjective clause that is essential to the meaning of a sentence because it limits the thing it refers to. The meaning of the sentence would change if the clause were deleted. Because restrictive clauses are essential, they are not set off by commas.
Here's a example:
An older person who dresses like a teenager is often an object of ridicule.
Here, the adjective clause restricts or limits the meaning of the noun it modifies (An older person). A restrictive adjective clause is not set off by commas.
Other examples:
All students who do their work should pass easily.
The car that I want is out of my price range.
The gas company will discontinue our service unless we pay our bills by Friday.
So let's keep in mind two basic rules:
Nonrestrictive
An adjective clause that can be omitted from a sentence without affecting the basic meaning of the sentence should be set off by commas.
Restrictive
An adjective clause that cannot be omitted from a sentence without affecting the basic meaning of the sentence should not be set off by commas.
taken from:
http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/restrictiveclauses/
First of all, it’s important to understand the meaning of a clause. A clause is a group of related words that contain a subject and verb. So, an adjective clause is a group of related words with a subject and verb that describes a noun or pronoun. An adjective clause is also always dependent which means it cannot stand alone as a sentence.
Nonrestrictive Adjective Clauses
A nonrestrictive modifying clause (or nonessential clause) is an adjective clause that adds extra or nonessential information to a sentence. The meaning of the sentence would not change if the clause were to be omitted. Nonrestrictive modifying clauses are usually set off by commas.
Here's an example:
Old Professor Legree, who dresses like a teenager, is going through his second childhood.
This who clause is nonrestrictive because the information in the clause doesn't restrict or limit the noun it modifies (Old Professor Legree). The commas signify that the adjective clause provides added, not essential, information.
Other examples:
Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote "The Raven," is a great American poet.
Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony until 1898, when it was ceded to the United States.
Restrictive Adjective Clauses
A restrictive modifying clause (or essential clause) is an adjective clause that is essential to the meaning of a sentence because it limits the thing it refers to. The meaning of the sentence would change if the clause were deleted. Because restrictive clauses are essential, they are not set off by commas.
Here's a example:
An older person who dresses like a teenager is often an object of ridicule.
Here, the adjective clause restricts or limits the meaning of the noun it modifies (An older person). A restrictive adjective clause is not set off by commas.
Other examples:
All students who do their work should pass easily.
The car that I want is out of my price range.
The gas company will discontinue our service unless we pay our bills by Friday.
So let's keep in mind two basic rules:
Nonrestrictive
An adjective clause that can be omitted from a sentence without affecting the basic meaning of the sentence should be set off by commas.
Restrictive
An adjective clause that cannot be omitted from a sentence without affecting the basic meaning of the sentence should not be set off by commas.
taken from:
http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/restrictiveclauses/
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