Radio Drama: Slaughterhouse 5

Dresden after WWII carpet bombing by the Americans

A couple of you are reading/have read Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war and time-traveler novel Slaughterhouse 5 for your term-paper project. BBC Radio has an interesting Radio Play adaptation. Brief synopsis: Billy Pilgrim, who hops back and forth in time, relives various moments in his real and fantasy lives, as a prisoner of war, optometrist and time traveler.

It is available here online at the BBC website until Saturday morning.

Usage Tip: Lie vs. Lay

When you're dealing with the present tense, it's pretty simple to keep it straight. "Lay" is a transitive verb -- you lay something, meaning you put it down. A direct object is required (direct objects are boldfaced):

I lay my head on my pillow.
She lays her hands on his head.
They lay their magic carpets in the garage.

"Lie" is an intransitive verb, meaning there's no direct object required. It's something you can do all by your self:

The dog lies in the sun.
I am lying on my belly.
The oysters lie on the beach.

Use this as a memory device for lie vs. lay in the present tense: You lay something down, but people lie down by themselves.

I shall let Grammar Girl explain the usage tip for past tense:

...But then everything goes all haywire, because lay is the past tense of lie. It's a total nightmare! I tried and tried to come up with a mnemonic for this, but I couldn't do it. Instead, I've made a table that you can print out from the website and tape up over your desk or in your notebook, because you just have to memorize this or look it up every time. [see graphic above]

So, anyway, here's how to conjugate these two verbs:

The past tense of lie is lay, so:

Last week, Steve lay down on the floor.
The cat lay in the mud after it rained yesterday.

The past tense of lay is laid, so

Last week, I laid the TPS report on your desk.
Mary forcefully laid her ring on the table.

The past participle of lie is lain, so

Steve has lain on the floor for days.
The cat has lain in the mud for hours.

The past participle of lay is laid, so

I have laid the data sheet on your desk.
Mary has forcefully laid her ring on the table.

Usage Tip: Affect vs. Effect

This is perhaps one of the trickiest usage issues in the English language; but the cartoon above serves as an excellent memory device. But be careful: There are exceptions. Here's a simple, brief explanation from Grammar Girl:

The majority of the time you use affect with an a as a verb and effect with an e as a noun.

Affect
Affect with an a means "to influence," as in, "The arrows affected Ardvark," or "The rain affected Amy's hairdo." Affect can also mean, roughly, "to act in a way that you don't feel," as in, "She affected an air of superiority."

Effect
Effect with an e has a lot of subtle meanings as a noun, but to me the meaning "a result" seems to be at the core of all the definitions. For example, you can say, "The effect was eye-popping," or "The sound effects were amazing," or "The rain had no effect on Amy's hairdo."

Common Uses of Affect and Effect
So most of the time affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun. There are rare instances where the roles are switched, and I'll get to those later, but for now let's focus on the common meanings. This is "Quick and Dirty" grammar, and my impression from your questions is that most people have trouble remembering the basic rules of when to use these words, so if you stick with those, and you'll be right 95% of the time.

So, most of the time, affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun; and now we can get to the mnemonics. First, the mnemonic involves a very easy noun to help you remember: aardvark. Yes, if you can remember aardvark -- a very easy noun -- you'll always remember that affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun. Why? Because the first letters of "a very easy noun" are the same first letters as "affect verb effect noun!" That's a very easy noun. Affect (with an a) verb effect (with an e) noun.

"But why Aardvark?" you ask. Because there's also an example to help you remember. It's "The arrows affected Aardvark. The effect was eye-popping." It should be easy to remember that affect with an a goes with the a-words, arrow and aardvark, and that effect with an e goes with the e-word, eye-popping. If you can visualize the sentences, "The arrows affected the aardvark. The effect was eye-popping," it's pretty easy to see that affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun.

Rare Uses of Affect and Effect
So what about those rare meanings that don't follow the rules I just gave you? Well, affect can be used as a noun when you're talking about psychology--it means the mood that someone appears to have. For example, "She displayed a happy affect." Psychologists find it useful because they know that you can never really understand what someone else is feeling. You can only know how they appear to be feeling.

And, effect can be used as a verb that essentially means "to bring about," or "to accomplish." For example, you could say, "Aardvark hoped to effect change within the burrow."

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Schedule Adjustments

Due to the fact that we've only had two poetry classes together since we began the unit, I am adjusting the schedule generally by an entire week. That means that your second explication will be due next Tuesday, February 23. Your next 5-minute quick quiz will be next Tuesday -- and we'll go from there.

You should download the revised assignment schedule here: [ assignment sheet ]

Please note one other adjustment on the assignment sheet: I have assigned one Junior to give an introductory presentation on each of the remaining poems, beginning with Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts," which we will discuss in the next class, whether it is this Tuesday or Wednesday -- depending on snow. Please consult the revised assignment sheet to see which poem you are responsible for. (Annmarie already gave a presentation on Bartleby the Scrivener.)

NOTE: I am not adjusting the schedule for data sheets. The data sheet due today can either be emailed to me -- or, I will collect it on the morning of the next day we have school.

Do let me know if you have any questions.