The aim of this blog is to serve as a meeting point to those who study or have studied English philology and, more broadly, to all those who love literature and language.

27 Mar 2009

SOME JOKES FOR THE WEEKEND

A sample of humour based on phonetics and spelling:

Ode to a Spell Chequer
I have a spelling chequer
It came with my PC
It plainly marks for my revue
miss takes I cannot see
I've run this poem threw it
I'm shore your pleased two no
its letter perfect in its weigh
my chequer tolled me sew
.



Humour based on lack of pragmatic competence (some sentences found in labels and packages):
On a bag of Fritos:
You could be a winner!
No purchase necessary.
Details inside.
On Boot's Children Cough Medicine:
Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication.
On some Swanson frozen dinners:
Serving suggestion: Defrost.



Humour based on change of register and literary knowledge:

A woman was out shopping one day with her son. The boy spotted a man who was bowlegged.
The boy pulled on Mom's hand and said, "Momma, look at the bowlegged man!"
Mom was mortified and told her son that it was not polite to point to a person and make that sort of comment.
For punishment, the boy had to read a play by Shakespeare. He couldn't go shopping again until he finished reading the play. Finally, he finished and his mom took him once again to the mall.
Again he spied a bowlegged man, but remembered what happened the last time. So he pulled on his mother's hand and said, "Lo, what manner of men are these, who wear their balls in parentheses?"



26 Mar 2009

TÍTULOS UNIVERSITARIOS



No he podido resistirme a hacer una entrada sobre el aragonés José Luis Iborte que con 83 años opta al título Guiness por tener 17 títulos universitarios.

"Geografía e Historia, Historia del Arte, las Filologías Románica, Inglesa, Francesa, Clásica en griego y latín, Italiana, Humanidades, Económicas, Empresariales y Medicina. A eso se suman sus tres doctorados, recibidos cada uno con apto cum laude."



Y sigue estudiando. Su próxima licenciatura será Filología Semítica con asignaturas como hebreo, griego bíblico, árabe, arameo y sánscrito.

A pesar de ser un hombre de letras hizo Medicina aceptando un desafío:

"Lo de estudiar medicina ha sucedido anecdóticamente. Cuando trabajaba de abogado en un hospital en Bilbao, yo hablaba con los médicos acerca de los informes que me entregaban para reclamar a las compañías de seguros. Una vez, en un diagnóstico, discutimos otro médico y yo y él me dijo: 'Tú me hablarás de esto a mí cuando tengas tu título de medicina en la mano'".

"Reto desde aquí a todos los que tengan más carreras que yo", dice José Luis.



Increíble!!


http://www.elpais.com/articulo/gente/83/anos/titulos/universitarios/Guinness/vista/elpepugen/20090323elpepuage_5/Tes

PANTOUM

The pantoum is an unusual and curious verse form. Although its origins are in Malaysia, in 15th-century, it has been translated and adapted by western poets, such as Victor Hugo or Charles Baudelaire. More recently John Ashbery, Thomas Lux (“All the Slaves”) or Peter Meinke (“Atomic Pantoum”) have cultivated this exotic kind of poetry.

In the pantoum each stanza has four lines and the poet links consecutive stanzas with a simple device: the fourth and second lines of a given stanza are used as the first and third lines of the next one.

The interlocking pattern of repeated sounds provides an echoing effect that is reinforced by the fact that in the last stanza there are no new lines at all. Here, lines first and third are the second and fourth from previous stanza and the second and fourth lines are the third and first ones of the first stanza. So the first and last lines of the poem are the same.

In this sample of pantoum verse we may see how the poet avoids monotony by employing movable punctuation and homophones:

We live in this house.
It fits right in.
Its windows face
The long afternoons.

It fits right in,
And no one would guess
The long afternoons
Mean nothing to us

And no one would guess
That the other houses
Mean nothing to us-
Except for the little boys

That the other houses
Gather in a dusk.
The little boys
Think we´re gosts

Gathering at dusk
To frequent their dreams.
They think we´re ghosts
When our night visits seem

Too frequent. Their dreams
Make them shudder-
Our night visits seem
Like shadows, wavering by persistent.

Make them shutter
Their windows, face
Their own shadows. Wavering but persistent,
We live in this house.
Marilyn Taylor

23 Mar 2009

GRAN TORINO

Gran Torino is a good film. I would even say that it is a very good film. It is full of significances and hidden meanings and I dare to predict that in the years to come Gran Torino will become a ‘cult movie’ and they will write about it more than about all the previous Eastwood´s films. People will find in it metaphors, allegories, homages and all that kind of things.

However, as a linguaphile, I want to mention one aspect of this remarcable film: the language as it is supposedly used by middle-class men in U.S.A. The main character, Walt Kowalski, teaches the Hmong kid, Thao, the way he has to talk to be accepted by men as one of them. It is one of the funniest parts of the film.

As I said before, it is a very good film. Thank you, Mr. Eastwood!

(For some reason I can´t post a clip with the aforementioned scenes of Gran Torino, but you can see them here.)

17 Mar 2009

LEARNING AND REVISING PHRASAL VERBS AND IDIOMS

Face Up to Phrasals is one of the many sections in the BBC Learning English website. Its structure is nice (three sets of short spoken dialogues, each of them showing a particular phrasal verb in context) and allows learners to measure out the number of phrasal verbs they want to learn or revise at a time.

Other sites, such as English Idioms & Idiomatic Expressions provide explanations and examples of a good number of idioms sorted out according to topic.

In case we just want to test our knowledge on these items, we can try some of the exercises collected in Self-Study Idiom Quizzes.

There are even videos to help students widen their range of idiomatic expression, such as this one about ‘dog idioms’.

12 Mar 2009

ENTREVISTA A JON BASTERRA

He aquí la entrevista que hemos hecho a Jon, estudiante de Filología Inglesa y reciente colaborador en este blog.

1. ¿Dónde estudias Filología Inglesa?
En la UNED. A través de su centro asociado de Bergara (Gipuzkoa).

2. ¿En qué curso estás?
En realidad he comenzado estos estudios este mismo curso 2008-2009. Y me he matriculado en tres asignaturas. La vida no me da para más. De momento he escogido Lengua Inglesa (I), Literatura Inglesa (I) y Análisis Contrastivo de Textos.

3. ¿Qué otros estudios has realizado?
Soy periodista de profesión y de estudios. En su día me licencié en algo que por entonces llamaban Ciencias de la Información, rama de Periodismo.

4. ¿Por qué te decidiste a iniciar estos estudios?
En primer y principal lugar por pura pasión anglófila. Y, también, porque soy eso que los catalanes llaman un “lletraferit”. Llevo años leyendo principalmente autores británicos en todas sus variedades. Si se unen estas dos “manías” con la “crisis de los cincuenta” se puede estar bastante cerca de entender mi motivación.

5. ¿Qué asignaturas prefieres: las de literatura o las de lenguaje?
Aunque acabo de empezar y no conozco con detalle el conjunto de asignaturas de la carrera creo que voy a disfrutar más con todas las relacionadas con la literatura, con todo tipo de literaturas, y también con las que me aporten mayor conocimiento y dominio de la lengua inglesa. Me temo que las que sean más del ámbito de la lingüística o de la enseñanza de lenguas me resultarán más áridas y lejanas.

6. Teniendo en cuenta tu experiencia, ¿qué opinas de la metodología de los estudios universitarios?
Desconozco completamente cómo funciona hoy en día la universidad convencional o presencial. En cuanto a la UNED me ha sorprendido muy agradablemente el desarrollo que tienen en Internet tanto los cursos virtuales como los aspectos de secretaría o información general, así como la calidad y cantidad de las publicaciones y libros de texto.
Lógicamente por esa vía de las nuevas tecnologías hay mucho recorrido por hacer todavía.

7. ¿Qué consideras lo más positivo que te han aportado hasta el momento estos estudios?
Varias cosas. Quizás la más íntima es que me ha despertado una nueva ilusión, el arrancar un proyecto personal que me está resultando muy motivador. Es cierto, como me dicen algunos amigos, que no tengo necesidad ni de títulos ni del “stress” de tener que pasar exámenes. Pero todos sabemos que sin esa exigencia y ese método, el día a día y las mil obligaciones impiden hacer algo de manera sistemática.

Estudiar de manera organizada tanto Lengua Inglesa como Literatura, me están permitiendo, por una parte, refrescar y mejorar mi inglés, que es una pelea que me acompaña a lo largo de toda la vida, y, por otra parte, profundizar de una manera ordenada y metódica en el mundo de la literatura inglesa, tanto de la teoría como en el conocimiento de los propios textos (Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare…). Para mí está siendo un verdadero placer. Y eso que sólo llevo cinco meses.

8. ¿Qué recomendarías a alguien que quiere empezar esta carrera?
Un primer consejo sería de orden práctico: hacerlo con el mayor nivel posible de dominio de la propia lengua inglesa.
Y, luego, en la medida de lo posible, no limitarse a realizar unos estudios universitarios. Hay que enamorarse de todo lo inglés. Para algunos será el comienzo de una historia de amor. Para otros, como en mi caso, es la culminación de un enamoramiento, que dura ya décadas, con una lengua, una historia, una cultura y un modo de vida.

KEEP INFORMED


I just wanted to share with you this very good link I got from a friend to keep us well informed with newspapers front pages from all over the world.

http://kiosko.net/

Beatriz.

11 Mar 2009

“I find no peace”

The text that we - students of “Literatura Inglesa-1” - have had to comment for the second exam in last February exam has been one of Wyatts’s sonnets.
Wyatt, along with Surrey, was the first to introduce the sonnet into English. He wrote extraordinarily accomplished imitations of Petrarch's sonnets, including “Whoso List to Hunt” and the one we had to identify and comment at the exam: “I find no peace”'.
Although I was not able to remember the author’s name at the exam, I think that it is a lovely and moving poem that deserves to be copied here for the pleasure of all the blog’s readers.


I find no peace, and all my war is done ;
I fear and hope, I burn, and freeze like ice ;
I fly aloft, yet can I not arise ;
And nought I have, and all the world I seize on,
That locks nor loseth, holdeth me in prison,
And holds me not, yet can I scape no wise :
Nor lets me live, nor die, at my devise,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eye I see ; without tongue I plain :
I wish to perish, yet I ask for health ;
I love another, and thus I hate myself ;
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.
Lo, thus displeaseth me both death and life,
And my delight is causer of this strife

It wasn't until 1557, 15 years after Wyatt's death, that a number of his poetry appeared alongside the poetry of Surrey in printer Richard Tottel’s anthology, generally known as Tottel's Miscellany. The rest of Wyatt's poetry, lyrics, and satires remained in manuscript until the 19th and 20th centuries "rediscovered" them. Wyatt and Surrey often share the title "father of the English sonnet."

10 Mar 2009

Indie Writers Deathmatch 2009

Literature and competition, why not? After all literary contests have been in vogue since long ago. We all know how they work: an institution, both public or private, convokes a literary contest, publishes the rules and writers send their work. Then a jury, often composed by a heterogeneous group of literary experts, select the best piece and this one is declared the winner. Don´t ask about how they decide which is the best one.


Well, in these cases writers compete among all of them at the same time. Exciting, but not very exciting. Now, what is really exciting is when two people fight one against each other. Like in tennis. Or boxing. I know that literary ayatollahs would hate me comparing a boxing match with a literary contest, but… take a look at what the people of Broken Pencil have launched! They call it Indie Writers Deathmatch 2009. And if you click in the link you will attend just at the final round, between Natalie Pendergast and Chris Illuminati. Here the readers are the jury and they vote for the short story they like more. I´ve already made my choice.


8 Mar 2009

FAMOUS WOMEN

Looking for something to celebrate International Women's Day before it ends, I've come across the Encyclopaedia Britannica section 300 Women Who Changed the World.

Browsing through the list of biographies, I find these historic personalities, thinkers and writers we learnt about in different subjects when studying English Philology at the UNED:

Jane Austen, Boudicca, Anne Bradstreet, Charlotte Brönte, Emily Brönte, Hélène Cixous, Emily Dickinson, Eleanor of Aquitaine, George Eliot, Elizabeth I, Zora Neale Hurston, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Mary, Queen of Scots, Toni Morrison, Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Phillis Wheatley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf

4 Mar 2009

WORD CLOUDS

WORDLE is a web tool to generate “word clouds” from a given text. The picture below shows the outcome of typing this blog URL.

Wordle: Poe Blog

It is amazing to see how many people test it and create these 'web graffiti'. It is also curious to observe the kind of texts they choose to do it. These are some examples:


Wordle: EnglishWordle: Cauldron; MacBethWordle: Yes I canWordle: In a station of the metro

2 Mar 2009

AS MAD AS A MARCH HARE

Yesterday we started a new March, a month with two thirds of winter and the other third of spring. Maybe that changing feature provides the idea of instability attributed to hares in the phrase as mad as a March hare. Although the origin of the expression is dated in 1529, in Sir Thomas More's The supplycacyon of soulys: "As mad not as a march hare, but as a madde dogge", our immediate source of reference takes us to Alice in Wonderland's March Hare.

A 'mad' way of celebrating the beginning of this month can be to visit Alice in Wonderland: an Interactive Adventure website and browse through some of its simple funny activities based on Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. A mad tea party, for instance, allows the visitor to read crazy dialogues made up of quotes from Carroll's books just by placing the mouse on the three characters in the picture.