College Prep English class for homeschoolers at EIE October 30, 2014
Dear Homescholars,
The October 30, 2014 class.
This week’s class feed:
Class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/caueeb9o2cul1dckde2t0pur4n8
Youtube page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTzDREahh5Q
The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x
To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.
The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y
Agenda
Discussion of submitted projects
Recitations
Let’s do any prepared recitations.
Discussion of Assignments
Let’s discuss, recite and analyze further parts of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Let’s visit our vocabulary journals. Remember that one chooses a word because it is the right word for the subject and the audience. When writing for an academic audience, there should generally be no restrictions on obscurity but make sure to use all words correctly and to understand them completely. A few words from last week:
- scant: meager, exiguous, paucity
- prophetic: vaticinal, mantic, Sibylline, oracular.
Let’s talk about using the comedic devices discussed in your writing.
Language Immersion
Let’s discuss the unscripted TED talk by Glenn Greenwald on the importance of privacy.
Let’s discuss the excerpt: Christopher Hitchens on History and Fascism.
We should be finishing up Born Talking by Jonathan Miller. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3372937D4DE2E849
Let’s discuss: The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.
Let’s look at Chapter 3 in the text: Confused Verbs:
Commonly Confused Verb Pairs
Even native speakers of English have trouble distinguishing between certain verb pairs which share forms and meanings, the most commonly misused probably being lie and lay.
A transitive verb takes an object. Lay is a transitive verb: I lay the offensive soufflé before the embittered in-laws. The verb lay acts directly upon a person or thing, in this case the soufflé, which is the object of the verb.
By contrast, the verb lie is intransitive. It takes no object and indicates the state of its subject: The soufflé lies before the embittered in-laws. The soufflé is the subject and the verb lie gives its state. English has several pairs of verbs that act this way, one transitive and the other intransitive. It is easier to recognize the differences between them by considering the present, past, and past participle forms of each.
Lie/lay
|
present |
past |
past participle |
|
lay |
laid |
laid |
|
lie |
lay |
lain |
Transitive: Today I lay the soufflé before the embittered in-laws. Yesterday I laid it before the embittered in-laws. I have laid it before the embittered in-laws.
Intransitive: Today the soufflé lies on the table. Yesterday it lay on the table. It has lain on the table since September when it was still marginally edible.
The lie/lay pair is particularly confusing as the past tense of the verb lie (lay) is the same as the present tense of the verb lay.
Other Oft-Mangled Pairs:
|
present |
past |
past participle |
|
fell |
felled |
felled |
|
fall |
fell |
fallen |
He fells a tree and the tree falls. Yesterday he felled the tree and the tree fell. The fallen tree was felled by a felonious furry fellow who fells firs that fall fast.
|
present |
past |
past participle |
|
raise |
raised |
raised |
|
rise |
rose |
risen |
Raise the flag so they can see it rise above the landfill. When it rose, they could not understand why it would be raised where none had ever risen before.
She is raising a rose to rise higher than any other rose raised here has risen.
She rose late again today and then raised the issue of installing a luminous sundial for use before the sun has risen.
|
present |
past |
past participle |
|
hang |
hanged |
hanged |
|
hang |
hung |
hung |
The verb hang is a special case in that the older transitive verb hang/hanged/hanged fell into disuse and survived only through being used as a legal term for execution by hanging, while hang/hung/hung has come to be used in all other senses, both transitive and intransitive. (The equivalent verbs in German are still used in their full transitive and intransitive forms: hängen, hängte, gehängt and hangen hing gehangen.)
Transitive: They wanted to hang him today for rustling, but that was pointless as they already hanged him yesterday. They have hanged several rustlers, confiscated their potato chips, and threatened to hang one passerby who produced excessive noise with an eel skillet and a runcible spoon.
Intransitive: Today the revolting image hangs on the wall. Yesterday it hung on the wall. It has hung on the wall, evoking revulsion, for years.
Note that, in each of these pairs, the transitive verb is regular, taking ed for its past and participial forms (except for laid, which has mutated a bit from layed), while the intransitive verb is irregular.
Lie / Lay Playsheet
Circle the errors in the following and correct them.
1. Could you lie those Etruscan water skis over there next to where the experimental begonias and the enigmatic Siberian banana sculpture are laying?
2. I couldn’t rise the somnolent tortoise high enough to be seen above the rising flood of enthusiastic insipient herpetologists.
3. I couldn’t figure out whether to fall or fell the tree before it falls on its own, so I just cut it down.
4. Tiberius couldn’t sit the elaborate but somewhat aging eggplant centerpiece so that it would set reliably upright on the table, so he lay it down next to the infuriated Rabbi.
5. The imaginary emu lay in the corner of the room blithely laying eggs and knitting thneeds.
6. Set it on the couch beside the tureen where the querulous scabiosa is laying and the truculent eschscholtzia is setting.
7. I couldn’t lie down where the peacock had laid yesterday.
8. I couldn’t lie down where the peahen had laid yesterday.
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Let’s look at The 42 Best lines from the Hitchhiker’s Guide.