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Carol H Tucker
Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
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beladona Memorial
Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
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the last Monday of March
Today is the 2nd day of the 13th week, the 25th day of the 3rd month, the 84th day of 2019 [with only 274 shopping days until Christmas], and: - International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade -- a reminder instituted in 2007 that over a 400 year period more than 15 million men, women and children were enslaved and transported
- International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members – a UN holiday that commemorates the anniversary of the abduction of Alec Collett, a former journalist who was working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) when he was kidnapped by armed gunman in 1985
- International Day of The Unborn Child
- International Waffle Day
- Maryland Day -- a legal holiday in Maryland. In 1634, the first European settlers landed on to St. Clement’s Island [currently an uninhabited Potomac River island lying one-half mile southeast of Colton's Point, St. Mary's County], the third English colony to be settled in British North America
- National Day of Celebration of Greek and American Democracy
- National Lobster Newburg Day
- National Medal of Honor Day
- Old New Year' Day – as late as 1752, Britain and the American colonies were celebrating the start of the new year on this date!
- Pecan Day
- Tolkien Reading Day – why today? Because today is the day the Ring was destroyed and the new age began; launched by the Tolkien Society in 2003.
English is an odd language to learn, I think most folks agree with that. There are grammar rules that make little sense except to those who grew up with them. A good example is “I” before “e” except after “c” – except there are a whole bunch of words that break that rule, so many in fact that one has to wonder if it is the exception rather than the rule. Don’t get me started on when you can use “me” in a sentence or when you have to use “I”, it is almost as confusing, as is the old saw about never ending a sentence with a preposition. Sentence diagramming is actually a thing as we try to figure out where the adverbial phrases and the future plusperfect tenses belong. But when I read this quote from Mark Forsythe in The Elements of Eloquence [a writer whose work concerns the meaning and etymology of English words], I came to a full stop:
“Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.”
Wait, there is an order in which you have to describe something? Seriously, this is the first time I have heard of this one! And apparently folks have been chatting about this for some time too! - Quantity or number.
- Quality or opinion.
- Size.
- Age.
- Shape.
- Color.
- Proper adjective (often nationality, other place of origin, or material).
- Purpose or qualifier.
And you absolutely automatically follow this rule all the time. Except when it is supplanted by the rule of ablaut reduplication when it is the vowel sounds that determine the order -- I, then A, then O. Well at least that explains the Big [size] Bad [opinion] Wolf – although I guess you could make an argument that “bad” was not an opinion but the Wolf’s purpose in the story -- and the Wonky Donkey!
To top it all off, some languages have adjectives that change their meaning if you place them before or after the noun. Others place then in front of the noun, but the order is different. And still others just change the adjective’s ending. Then you get into the fact that Romance languages usually indicate gender, and don’t forget the colloquial expressions…
No wonder learning a new language can be so hard! It’s a miracle with al the different mind maps, we communicate at all!
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