Summer Reading Essay Test -- Results

The first essay test of the year is graded, and the results graphed above. Interpolation: Out of 14 tests, ranging from 14%-91%, the mean score was 73.4%, which is a B in the Honors grading scale used in this course. A 14% would indicate that a student read none of the assigned summer reading books. A 91% would indicate that all three books were read, and read actively. I expect that this first test will be the most challenging of the year. Why? Because we, as a class, did not "study" any of these novels. In other words, I think you will find that class discussions, presentations, and close study of the works we'll read this year will result in much higher grades and much more raw learning.

A good deal of doing well on an essay test depends upon being intimately familiar with the subject matter (the what), but your success also depends upon knowing how to express that familiarity and understanding on paper in response to specific questions. I've already given you tips on how to take this sort of test, but I am supplementing that now with a sample answer key to the Summer Reading Essay Test. The answers on this sample key are taken from answers supplied by you, the students, on the test you took Wednesday. All of these are exemplary answers to the questions posed. Each received the full 10 points, and in some cases an extra 3 points for a "best in class" answer. You would do well to study these answers in order to understand the "how" of taking this type of test.

Available in PDF here: Summer Reading Essay Test - KEY.

Your tests will be returned to you Tuesday morning.

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Over the past year we've talked plenty about the idea of "re-telling" stories, in the manner of Chaucer or Boccaccio or Irving. An American writer by the name of Seth Grahame-Smith recently teamed up with the long-dead Jane Austen to produce a hybrid novel called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. That's right, Grahame-Smith took Austen's work and grafted his own zombie novel onto it, producing some very, er, interesting results.

Apparently the Austen-hybrid fad has caught on. A new novel -- this one by Ben Winters -- is due out on September 15: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. The New York Times reports:

Like some monster stitched together in a mad scientist’s laboratory, another Jane Austen novel is about to be grafted to a classic horror milieu in hopes of creating a best seller. Publishers Weekly reported that Quirk Books would follow its unexpected hit “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” with a new title, “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters,” to be published on Sept. 15. “Zombies,” written by Seth Grahame-Smith, combined about 85 percent of Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” text with a tale of undead flesh eaters. The new book, to be written by Ben H. Winters, will find the Dashwood sisters tossed from their home and sent to an island of man-eating sea creatures. Jason Rekulak, a Quirk Books editor, told Publishers Weekly that the book would take inspiration from everything from “Jules Verne novels to ‘Lost’ to ‘Jaws’ to ‘Spongebob SquarePants.’ ” Mr. Grahame-Smith, meanwhile, signed a two-book deal with Grand Central Press that includes a new book called “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.”

You may want to check out the dramatic trailer for the book.

American Folklore Pageant

Here is the first draft of the program for the American Folklore Pageant. Please check that I have you assigned to the proper character. You may change your mind about whom you would like to portray, as long as you let me know about it before Noon on Monday -- Labor Day. If you would like to change or amend the one line description of your character to tailor it more to your presentation, please let me know. The order given below is by the numbers that were assigned. This will be the order the pageant will follow:

Joseph B: Brer Rabbit
The plantation trickster, known to outsmart those who would rather eat him for lunch or dinner

Elizabeth: Paul Bunyan
The giant lumberjack whose life companion was a blue ox named Babe

Julianna: Unsinkable Molly Brown
The American socialite who became famous for surviving the 1912 sinking of the Titanic

Mike: Al Capone
The notorious gangster and racketeer dedicated to bootlegging during the Prohibition

Naomi: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
The notorious train robbers and bank robbers who headed up the Hole in the Wall Gang

Jennifer: Black Aggie
The spooky, cowl-clothed statue rumored to come alive at night with glowing red eyes

Ashley: Amelia Earhart
Aviation pioneer who disappeared in the South Pacific while attempting to circumnavigate the globe

Marcella: Annie Oakley
Exhibition sharpshooter who became known as the first female American superstar

Sean: Pecos Bill
Legendary cowboy immortalized for using a rattlesnake for a lasso and riding a cyclone

Olivia: Sacajawea
Shoshone woman who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their exploration of the western U.S.

Annmarie: Harry Houdini
Magician and stunt performer most well known for escaping from handcuffs, strait jackets, and an over-sized milk can

Gabriela: Jersey Devil
Legendary flying biped said to inhabit and haunt the Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey

Larry: The Catskill Gnomes
Famous "little people" with bushy beards and eyes like pigs', known for their special brew

Peter: Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind
A woman so strong that she could throw a crocodile a mile and wrestle bears with impunity

Word of the Day: Ripsnorter

Speaking of American folklore, here's a word-of-the-day attributed to folk hero Davy Crockett:

Ripsnorter: (n.) -- a person or thing that is strikingly active, forceful, exciting, wild, rambunctious, or a striking example of its kind.

“Of all the ripsnorters I ever tutched upon, thar never war one that could pull her boat alongside of Grace Peabody.” -- attributed to Davy Crockett, Farmer's Almanac, 1840

Davy was also credited with coining nonsense phrases and words supposedly used by "mountain men" -- e.g., circumflustercated and scentoriferous.

N.B. Anyone who can sing The Ballad of Davy Crockett in full -- in front of the class -- will be granted 50 extra credit points for the quarter. "Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee..."

Boston Review Short Story Contest: $1500

Here's a great opportunity for those who like to write short fiction:

Seventeenth Annual Short Story Contest

Deadline: October 1, 2009
Judge: Chang-Rae Lee
First Prize: $1,500

Complete guidelines:
The winning author will receive $1,500 and have his or her work published in Boston Review, the summer of 2010. Stories should not exceed 4,000 words and must be previously unpublished. Manuscripts should be submitted with a cover note listing the author's name, address, and phone number; names should not appear on the stories themselves. Entrants will receive a one-year print subscription to the Boston Review beginning with the Summer, 2010 issue. Submissions must be postmarked no later than October 1, 2009. Manuscripts will not be returned. The winner will be announced no later than May/June, 2010, on the Boston Review Web site.

For full details see: The Boston Review

Words of the Day: Clichés vs. Euphemisms

Someone recently asked me if cliché is just another word for euphemism. The simple answer is no. They both involve words, but it is there that their similarities stop.

Cliché is a saying, expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect. More simply put, a cliché is something that is trite or hackneyed -- lacking power to evoke interest due to overuse or repetition. Cliché is something you want to avoid in your writing. If someone says he thinks your writing is cliché, it's not a compliment.

Examples of phrases or sayings that are clichés:

a face only a mother could love
a frog in my throat
a picture's worth a thousand words
a rose is a rose is a rose
like a bat out of hell
black as coal
black as night
black as pitch
black as sin
black as soot
black as tar
dead as a doorknob
dead as a doornail
don't push your luck
don't put all your eggs in one basket
don't put the horse before the cart
don't rock the boat

If you would like to read 1600 more of the most common clichés, see Steve's list.

Now, euphemism is entirely different. A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt. Some examples:

"ethnic cleansing" for "genocide
"termination of pregnancy" for "abortion"
"kick the bucket" for "die"
"senior citizen" for "old person"

Someone was nice enough to put together the top 1500 euphemisms for "being stupid."

Doublespeak (or doubletalk) is similar to a euphemism. a phrase in doublespeak is, like a euphemism, a roundabout way of saying something, but usually with the intent to confuse or deceive. Examples?

"I reminded [the soldiers] and their families that the war in Iraq is really about peace." -- George W. Bush, April 2003

The term "black-bag operations" was used by the FBI to describe illegal break-ins in the 1970s.

Usage Tip o'the Week: Good vs. Well

How should you answer the simple question, "How are you today?"

There's nothing technically wrong with answering, "I'm well," when asked "How are you?" since "well" in this context is an adjective that generally means "not sick." It's just that "well" is also an adverb that modifies "am," and not "I". The adjective "good" does describe "I," which seems much more to the point of the question.

So, if you would like everyone to know that you are not sick with stomach cramps or a splitting headache, it would be appropriate to answer: "I'm well."

But if you would like everyone to know you feel emotionally good, the more common intention, it would be appropriate -- and grammatically correct to answer: "I'm good" or "I'm great" or "I'm fine, thank you."

But "good" can feel wrong to those with painful memories of being corrected by their know-it-all elders. May I suggest "I am fine"? There's no absolute here, but it's probably better to save "well" for when someone asks you how you are doing.

Here's what Grammar Girl has to say on the topic:

“I'm good” is what you're likely to hear in general conversation, but there are grammar nitpickers out there who will chide you if you say it. The wonderful news is that those nitpickers are wrong: it's perfectly acceptable to say, “I'm good,” and you shouldn't have to shamefully submit to teasing remarks such as the time-honored and leering, “How good are you?”

The nitpickers will tell you that well is an adverb (and therefore modifies verbs) and that good is an adjective (and therefore modifies nouns), but the situation isn't that simple.

The key is to understand how linking verbs differ from action verbs. (Trust me, this is worth it so you can look people in the eye and say, “I'm good,” with absolute confidence.)

read on...

Word of the Day: Flibbergibbet

flibbergibbet: (n.) an irresponsible, silly, gossipy person, who lacks good judgment; a flighty or frivolous woman; muggins, saphead, tomfool, fathead, wally, meshuggeneh, gossipmonger, newsmonger, rumormonger, cat, blabbermouth, talebearer, chatterbox, nosey parker, busybody, meddler, parrot, prattler, snoop, tabby, buttinsky, fink, fussbudget, intermeddler, windbag, quidnunc

...The modern spelling is due to Shakespeare, who borrowed it from one of the 40 fiends listed in a book by Samuel Harsnet in 1603. In King Lear Edgar uses it for a demon or imp: “This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. .. He gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth."...

Here's a bit of trivia: Did you know that the word "gossip" comes from a transmutation of a contraction for "god's siblings"? Hawthorne uses the word "gossips" in The Scarlet Letter to refer to the women townsfolk, and not because they are necessarily flibbergibbets or rumormongers.

American Folklore Research

Please note that I've included a number of links to educative websites pertaining to the broad subject of American folklore. See right-hand column. These sites are a great place to start your research. In addition to these online resources, you will find the Cincinnati Public Library an indispensable resource, not only for this assignment, but for research assignments throughout the course and beyond.

Start your search at the library with the online catalog's POWER SEARCH before you head downtown -- or to a local branch. For term paper assignments you will be able to request that books be sent to your nearest branch library, or to the Oakley library by school. This is a valuable service. Plan on using it. If you don't have one already, get a library card -- that is an imperative.

Word of the Day: Kerfuffle

kerfuffle: (n.) a commotion or fuss; disruption, disturbance, flutter, hoo-ha, hurly-burly, brouhaha, hubbub, katzenjammer, uproar, wrangle, row, tumult, affray, altercation, rumpus, ruckus, ruction

...we know kerfuffle was originally Scots and it’s thought that its first part came from Scots Gaelic car, to twist or bend. The second bit is more of a puzzle: there is a Scots verb fuffle (now known only in local dialect), to throw into disorder, dishevel, or ruffle. No obvious origin for it is known and experts suspect it was an imitative word. It is probably linked with Scots fuff, to emit puffs of smoke or steam, definitely imitative, which in the late eighteenth century also had a sense of going off in a huff or flying into a temper.

How to Stay Awake While Reading

If you haven't had enough of Mortimer J. Adler just yet, here's another of his articles on reading -- worth reading. But first: Who is Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001)? He was the founder of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas and premiere promoter of the Great Books movement. He is rumored to have read more books than anyone alive during his lifetime.

How to Keep Awake While Reading

by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D.

The rules for reading yourself to sleep are much easier to follow than are the rules for keeping awake while reading. Just get into bed in a comfortable position, see that the light is inadequate enough to cause a slight eyestrain, choose something you don't care whether or not you read, and unless you have insomnia, you will be nodding soon enough. Those who are expert in relaxing with a book don't have to wait for nightfall or for bed. A comfortable chair in the library will do at anytime.

Unfortunately, the rules for keeping awake do not consist in doing just the opposite. It is possible to keep awake while reading in a comfortable chair or even in bed, and people have been known to strain their eyes by reading late, in light too dim. What kept the famous readers by candlelight awake? One thing certainly -- that it made a difference to them, a great difference, whether or not they read the book they had in hand.

Whether you read actively or passively, whether you try to keep awake or not depends in large part on your purpose in reading. There are many kinds of reading and many sorts of things to read. You may be seeking the same effortless pleasures of relaxation that the movies and radio so readily afford, or you may be making the effort to profit by your reading. Let me roughly divide books into those which compete with the movies and those with which the movies cannot compete. They are the books that can elevate or instruct. If they are fine works of fiction, they can deepen your appreciation of human life. If they are serious works of nonfiction, they can inform or enlighten you... [ read on ]

Word of the Day: Codswallop

You've probably heard the word, but what does it mean?

codswallop: (n.) nonsensical talk or writing; bull, bunkum, bosh, fiddle-faddle, flapdoodle, hogwash, horse feathers, hooey, hokum, malarkey, poppycock, tommy-rot, whang-doodle, balderdash, piffle, rubbish, baloney, bilgewater, blather, blither, falderal, "the stuff they feed fools on," or common, everyday windbaggery.

Surely, other synonyms spring to mind...

Are You Annoyingly Redundant?

The grammar tip o'the week comes courtesy of "Grammar Girl," who asks an apt question: Are you annoyingly redundant? If you say (or write) later this year or earlier this week, future plans or past history, or "please RSVP" you just might be.

How about these?

In the Process of

One such phrase to excise from your writing is “in the process of,” as in, “My kids are in the process of driving me crazy.” Delete it, and you have, “My kids are driving me crazy.” Anytime you see “in the process of,” take it out and check to see whether any meaning is lost. You’ll save your fingers thousands of superfluous keystrokes over a few decades. (Notice we didn’t need to say “a period of a few decades.”)

Whether or not

Another quick way to trim a couple of words at a time from your writing (and your speech) is to keep an eye on the “whether” – the “whether or not,” that is. I can’t decide whether or not to bring my umbrella. Lose the “or not”in that instance, and you’re fine. Just don’t lose your umbrella.

check out more tips (and be sure to read the comments)

Clarisse McClellan Remade

Some movie adaptations of novels (called "palimpsests") are better than others. In 1966, French director Francois Truffaut adapted Fahrenheit 451 to the silver screen. You can judge for yourself, but many would call the adaptation "abysmal." During the 20th century, directors unfortunately took grave liberties with the original novels -- not only failing to capture the essence of the novel, but actually distorting it. That's exactly what Truffaut does with Bradbury's classic story. Most notably, Clarisse McClellan, the "inciting force" in Fahrenheit 451, is transformed into Guy Montag's "mistress," thereby gutting the virtue and attraction of her character. The "trailer" for the 1966 movie is worth watching if only for its sheer corniness. Note how the "Hapiness Boys" are dressed (see above).

N.B. If you would like to arrange an extra credit writing assignment that contrasts the movie with the novel, please see me!

Addendum: A new adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 is planned for release in 2012. It promises to be more faithful to the novel.

A Retrieved Reformation

For your edification, I have posted an exemplary short-story analysis of O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation." This should give you an idea of the level and thoroughness of work I expect on this type of assignment.

In PDF format: Analysis -- "A Retrieved Reformation"

Word of the Decade Nominations Open

At the American Dialect Society annual meeting in Baltimore next January, not only will the Society choose Words of the Year just past (2009), but members and friends will also have the solemn responsibility of choosing a Word of the Decade 2000–2009.

Nominations may be sent to the chair of the ADS New Words Committee, Grant Barrett, at woty@americandialect.org. The committee will hold an open meeting to consider nominations on Thursday, January 7, 2010, with the final vote the next day.

Candidates will include the ADS Word of the Year for each year, though the choice for Word of the Decade need not be limited to them. Some of them pervaded the whole decade, but others characterized only their particular year. These were the Words of the Year, many of which now require explanation:

2000 chad, a small scrap of paper punched from a voting card.

2001 9/11, terrorist attacks on September 11.

2002 weapons of mass destruction or WMD, sought for (without success) in Iraq.

2003 metrosexual, fashion-conscious heterosexual male.

2004 red/blue/purple states, red favoring conservative Republicans and blue favoring liberal Democrats, as well as the undecided purple states in the political map of the United States.

2005 truthiness, what one wishes to be the truth regardless of the facts. (From the Colbert Report on television.)

2006 to be plutoed, to pluto, to be demoted or devalued, as was the former planet Pluto.

2007 subprime, a risky or less than ideal loan or investment.

2008 bailout, rescue by government of companies on the brink of failure.

The American Dialect Society was established in 1889 to study the English language in North America. It has been choosing Words of the Year since 1990, and Words of the Decade since 2000. In 2000 the Word of the Decade was web. (That year the Society also chose Word of the Century, jazz, and Word of the Millennium, she.)

More information on Words of the Year is available at the American Dialect Society website, http://www.americandialect.org/woty/

Background on Ray Bradbury

Here are a couple of resources you may find helpful in completing your data sheets for you summer reading of Fahrenheit 451. The first is an introduction to the novel and the author that I put together for the Middle School class last Spring.

Fahrenheit 451 - An Introduction (PDF)

The second is Ray Bradbury's official website: RAY

By way of trivia, Bradbury is the only living author we'll be studying this year. (Arthur Miller died four years ago.) If you liked F451, you might want to read Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, and Dandelion Wine.

The 'Third Man' Phenomenon

Some of you have seen the excellent movie The Third Man (1950). Well, here's a "third man" of a different sort: Today's Wall Street Journal carries a review of an interesting new book called The Third Man Factor:

In 1953, Austrian mountaineer Herman Buhl became the first person to climb Nanga Parbat in the ­Himalayas—at 26,660 feet, the ninth tallest peak in the world. He climbed by himself and not far from the summit was forced to spend the night out in the open without a sleeping bag or tent. It was an agonizing ­bivouac, but Buhl survived—in part, he later wrote, ­because he sensed that he shared the ordeal with a ­companion. "I had an extraordinary feeling," he wrote, "that I was not alone."

Accounts of experiencing a supportive presence in extreme situations—sometimes called the "third-man phenomenon"—are common in mountaineering ­literature. In 1933, Frank Smythe made it to within a 1,000 feet of the summit of Mount Everest before ­turning around. On the way down, he stopped to eat a mint cake, cutting it in half to share with . . . someone who wasn't there but who had seemed to be his ­partner all day. Again on Nanga Parbat, on a 1970 climb during which his brother died, Reinhold Messner ­recalled being accompanied by a companion who ­offered ­wordless comfort and encouragement.

In "The Third Man Factor," John Geiger, a fellow at the University of Toronto, presents many accounts of such experiences, and not only from climbers. Among those who have felt a ghostly companionship he cites Charles Lindbergh on his solo flight across the ­Atlantic in 1927 and the last man to walk out of the South Tower of the World Trade ­Center before it ­collapsed on 9/11.

read on at WSJ...

Blackjack Country

We noted today that Elmore, Arkansas, is -- according to O. Henry -- located in "blackjack country." From the context of "A Retrieved Reformation" we understand that the phrase connotes a backwoods, out-of-the-way place. With a little research I found that 18th century farmers

recognized the poorer soils in the blackjack country of the eastern uplands, so called because of the predominance of blackjack oak, a small, scrubby, thick-barked tree especially suited to poor soils.

The upshot: observant farmers would not settle in blackjack country because the soil was poor; thus "blackjack country" is typically a sparsely populated region -- or, at least it was in the early 1900's.

The Apostrophe Protection Society

The Apostrophe Protection Society was started in 2001 by John Richards, now its Chairman, with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English language.

When I inquired into becoming a member of the Apostrophe Protection Society, Chairman Richards informed me there is no "membership" as such; however, he did send along a form letter that he sends out to businesses when he receives a complaint that they've misused or have failed to use an apostrophe appropriately. The good chairman says we may send out this form letter (under your own name, of course) with the APS letterhead.

I'm making the form letter on APS letterhead available in Microsoft Word (.doc):
Click here

N.B. -- Extra Credit Opportunity: If you happen to notice a public sign (say, in a shop window or in front of a restaurant) that misuses the apostrophe -- or simply doesn't include it, send the business the form letter, describing the offense. Copy me on the letter and you'll receive up to 10 points extra credit per letter (with a maximum of 5 letters per quarter).