Tuesday 22 May 2012

Forget him, focus on you!!


I recently tied the proverbial knot to my high school sweetheart. Guys, I must say that marriage may very well just be the best thing that has ever happened to me. That being said, I enjoy really those stolen moments to myself. Not picking up after someone, or tidying up the kitchen, or doing the laundry...How many of you out there can relate?

It’s so easy to lose yourself to someone...even easier to convince yourself that you are OK with doing just that! Do I have news for you! Watching that very scenario play out in other relationships has taught me not to make the same mistake – that means, loving ME.



To love me, I have to find ME
Don't get me wrong, I love my husband. He completes me & makes my life so meaningful... BUT Ladies, let’s face it, it’s not an obedient, slaving, “replacement for a mother” that he fell in love with, is it? It’s that feisty tigress, who is opinionated and loud, who makes him laugh, and who challenges his status quo to make him discover himself that he wants to be with. I’m sure you are similar in the things that count...you should be. But don’t lose yourself & start to emulate your partner...else, he may as well be married to, or date, himself.

I was lunching with friends, when we started discussing the things we do, when it’s just USJ
Try a few:

·         Don’t bother combing your hair or using makeup
·         Try a facialJ you’ll feel like a million bucks
·         Walk around naked (after you get over the awkwardness, the freedom will be exhilarating)
·         Throw away the stuff he has been hoarding. It’s therapeutic
·         Wash your car... finally, it’s “your” time to enjoy that Lady
·         Leave stuff lying around in the house, and say to yourself “you’ll stay there until I say so”
·         Eat all the junk food you want (no guilt)
·         Listen to "girly" music real loud & dance around the house, singing really loud (even if you are outta tune)
·         Eat all the Lindt by yourself (they weren’t meant for sharing anyway)
·         Watch tear-jerker romantic comedies (Notebook, The Vow). You can salivate over Channing Tatum all you want without feeling guilty. And, you won’t feel like slitting your wrists at the sight of a skinny, barber-doll heroine, whom you loathe for being so miserably perfect
·         Hog the remote (**evil laugh**)



You don't have to predict his every move or even be perfect . . . be you!! Any chance that I get to be on my own – is my time. My time to indulge and let it loose! To be silly and give him a chance to miss me!! Look, I get that some couples are very “close-knit”, to say the least. But Ladies, remember that you can only be your best, as a partner, if you know who you are. You can also catch my articles at www.all4women.co.za

-Sam


What are some ways to help your child improve their reading and writing skills?



Hi guys,

Today, I want to discuss something really important: The future of our children. The issue of a child’s learning is so blatantly avoided that it could bring one to tears. Being one who would prefer to curb this growing threat to future generations...I’d like for you to take this problem really seriously. Our kids will potentially be around long after we have passed on. So why not build a solid foundation – starting at the beginning.

Research has shown that children whose parents (or any significant adults) read to them are always better students than those who are not read to. Reading to your child exposes him/her to vocabulary, sentence structure, communication skills, and logic. Reading to them shares the joy of reading and storytelling. Reading to them also gives you quality time together, which strengthens your child-parent bond.



1. Encourage your child to read
Provide plenty of reading material that will interest your child - either buy books or take them to the library every few days. If your child is interested in dinosaurs, have books about dinosaurs in the house - both science or non-fiction books and fiction or storybooks, because reading is not just for fun, but also for information. Find out what your child's interests are, and provide books that feed those interests.

2. Help your child
If your child is having trouble reading, first make sure they do not have some sort of correctable problem like poor eyesight. Work with the school to test for learning disabilities like dyslexia, which can cause poor reading skills. Help your child learn vocabulary and spelling so that they can read better – you can either have regular Q&A sessions where you quiz them on vocabulary and spelling words or you can make games like "Word of the Day" where you find fun ways to improve their vocabulary.

3. Set a regular time for schoolwork each day
This will also help with any school subject. Make a special place for them to do their work, someplace where they will not be distracted by a TV, games, cell phones, computer chat rooms, IMs, or anything else. Have at least one hour daily (some children will need longer) during which homework is done – if they say they do not have homework, then they will use the time to read over their material. During this time, you can "assign" reading and writing practice also – have them read a section, then quiz them to be sure they understand what they have read. You can show them how to read for information, how to tell when a term is important in a textbook, and where to look for definitions and more help.

4. Make reading and writing fun
Again, if you use your child's interests, you will have more luck with this. Encourage your child to make up stories and write them down. Don't worry about spelling or grammar at first – just get them to start writing! Read what they have written if they want you to, and talk about their stories over the dinner table, or in the car. The more you encourage them to read and write, the more they will want to – notice I said "encourage" and not nag. The trick is to make it fun for them. 

Go the extra mile
·         Buy a book that your child can read with slight difficulty and once you help them master the words in that book buy the next book up to that one and do the same again and so on.
·         The best way to help a child learn to enjoy reading is to read with them!
·         The best way to help children read better is to have a home where reading is a part of life. Start out reading to the child, and let the child see you reading for enjoyment.
·         Write down the story he tells you then show it to him. Explain to him that he was the one who came up with that story. Then ask him to read the story. 
·         Many popular children's cartoons come in book form. You can also try comic books. You can both take a trip to a local comic book store and let him choose something he likes to read (Make sure it's age appropriate).
·         Throw out your TV. A week without television has been shown to improve reading and attention span.
·         Try getting a tape recorder and have him read a book aloud being taped and then play the tape back to himself while reading the book of his choice.
·         Good old PHONICS help.
·         Keep it simple with a lot of praise for doing well (not "good job") if it's not. Don't be negative but also don't "over praise" for non-performance. Make it fun.
·         Read to him/her every night, preferably at the same time.
·         Stop the story or the book at an interesting part, so that he'll look forward to the next night's story time.
·         Let him choose books on subjects that he is interested in and pick one day out of the week where he gets to read whatever he wants to you!
·         Make a trip to the bookstore fun and exciting...stop at the park first or get a treat afterwards.
·         Let them look at the pages as you read.

-S






Monday 21 May 2012

The Avengers: Movie Review

It's been long guys, but back to work now:), I had to share possibly the best movie of the year with you guys!



A movie feverishly anticipated by comic book geeks, action freaks and superhero devotees, it’s almost impossible to fault The Avengers, now that it’s finally, actually here. The Avengers is truly a movie event on a spectacular scale and this adds an almost impossible level of expectation on Marvel, writer-director Joss Whedon and the cast to make all those fan boy fantasies come true.



Be assured, The Avengers is all that and a whole heap of fun to boot. We’ve all come to be familiar with the individual characters over the course of a few years, with two Iron Man movies, Thor and Captain America having been introduced in their own film franchises. All are present to reprise their roles, except Edward Norton who played Dr Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk and opted out of The Avengers to make way for Mark Ruffalo as the hot-headed green giant. (A sorely disappointing choice for me.)







As the film opens, the Avengers are scattered: Tony Stark is developing a new power source while living in bliss with Pepper Potts. Bruce Banner has exiled himself to India where he’s figured a way to keep "the other guy" at bay. Captain Steve Rogers is a super-soldier without a war to fight. Scarlet Johansson (Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow) gets a particularly great intro, while her fellow SHIELD agent Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is compromised early on when Loki makes his entrance.




When the gang finally comes together on SHIELD’s impressive aircraft carrier-cum-stealth flyer, it’s an incredibly thrilling moment, even though there is some serious doubt amongst them that it’s probably not the best idea, since one of them could explode into a destructive rage monster at any moment. Much in-fighting ensues, especially once Loki is captured and Thor crash-lands from Asgard to claim Loki as his prisoner to be dealt Asgardian justice. It’s pretty exciting just seeing all these larger than life characters all in a room together, sizing each other up and bickering like old friends.







That it all feels so natural and lived in is, of course, thanks to the wizardry of Joss Whedon himself, a true and devoted believer in the power of fantasy and science fiction as a means to explore real human relationships.  The truly magical thing about The Avengers is how well-compartmentalised it all is, allowing each and every one of our heroes an almost equal amount of screen time to flesh out their character arcs and deal with a wealth of back-story and essentially build relationships as the franchise thunders along for who knows how many more years and spin-off films. This could so easily have been a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, and in fact turns out to be the complete opposite. The Avengers works because each character’s voice and presence matters.



The cast



The cast is as close perfection as possible. I challenge anyone to suggest another actor who could infect Tony Stark with as much cockiness as Robert Downey Jr, or convey the inner turmoil of Captain America – a man out of time – with the kind of affecting strength Chris Evans has brought to the character. They may wear impressive (and skin-tight) costumes, but the actors’ performances give weight to the characters rather than shift the focus to their heroic alter egos.








Though it’s bad boy Loki (played by a dangerously magnetic Tom Hiddleston) who steals most of the scenes, torturing the Avengers with his withering wit and steely gaze as his plot to overtake Earth and make subjects of the human race is slowly revealed. That he is Thor’s brother complicates matters even further and together with Chris Hemsworth (as the Norse god of thunder...yummy!!!) Hiddleston’s Loki is always on the cusp of redemption (even though he’s crazier than an old lady with a bag of cats) and ever more lethal because of his sensitivity where Thor is concerned.







As expected, the chaos of the thrilling action scenes as Midtown Manhattan is being obliterated by Loki’s army is a head-spinning prospect as one superhero more powerful than the next gets a turn to shine. Joss Whedon’s distinctive voice can be heard throughout all of the characters’ attempts at one-upmanship. It’s there in Agent Phil Coulson’s barely concealed and very sweet Captain America fandom, in the unspoken competitiveness between Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, and the roguish fun that is promised around every corner.

The Avengers is exactly what it needed to be: Over the top but awe-inspiring, faithful to the characters and the comics, whip-smart and funny and, above all, an insanely good-looking.

Criticism
The plot surrounds Thor and Loki and takes off as a sequel to Thor almost. I believe, due to the Norse/Asgard influences/ themes, there should have been more substance to the characters of the aforementioned men. The film is also made to influence us into believing that Loki has some secret diabolic plan concerning Bruce Banner, but that also lies very weak in its plot. There is also a scene in the movie where our heroes bicker like little girls in the sandbox and suddenly we see Bruce with Loki’s staff in hand – that also does not tie up at all.





The Avengers smashes box office record
The Avengers launched the summer movie season with a $200.3m opening weekend domestically, by far the biggest debut ever. If distributor Disney's revenue estimate on Sunday holds when the final weekend count is released on Monday, The Avengers would be the first movie ever to haul in $200m in a single weekend. A $200m total for every movie in release is considered a great weekend for the business as a whole, so The Avengers redefines the standards for a blockbuster debut.
The Avengers shot past the previous record of $169.2m for the debut of last year's Harry Potter finale.
With $441.5m overseas since last week, The Avengers worldwide total climbed to $641.8m.

Overview
All in all, a brilliant watch for the young and old at heart. Action for all you fanatics out there, brilliant vocabulary for the nerdy folk, eye candy for us gals....and Chris Hemsworth for me. Enjoy!!


-S




Monday 7 May 2012

Consumers called their BLUFF



NO MORE BEEF IN MUTTON


Merely reading this article enraged me so much that I had to blog about it. Please beware when purchasing from the butchers you trust & you think you know!!

The new regulations governing the labelling and advertising of food products came into effect last month, forcing food makers to come up with labels which reveal a lot more about what’s in their products than before.

That’s great news for consumers, but for some, the new, more revealing labels have made them realise, for the first time, what they’ve really been buying - and eating - all this time.

As a devout Hindu, Ashmina Maharaj of Umkomaas does not eat beef in accordance with her religion.

For years she's bought products labelled “mutton sausages” and “mutton mince” from Bluff Meat Supply’s Kingsburgh branch, believing the only meat in them to be mutton, as the labels didn’t say otherwise.

But recently she couldn’t find any mutton sausages in the butchery, so she made enquiries and was told they’d never sold pure mutton sausages - they had always been a mutton-beef combination.

Apparently this is a common practice in the industry, because of the high cost of lamb.

Bluff Meat Supply’s new label, on the same product, describes the sausages as Mutton Beef.

I found two different labels on the same product in the company’s Pinetown branch this week.

One stated just 'Mutton Beef', along with date it was packed and its weight and price.



The other has that information, plus a full breakdown of the ingredients, including the fact that it’s 38% mutton and 34% beef.



Ashmina is horrified that she’s been unwittingly eating beef, in these products, for years.

Responding, Mark Bielovich said the company had never made any claim to have produced or processed any product to conform to any specific religious beliefs and that its labels had never stated that the mutton sausage was pure mutton.

But he confirmed that the old label on the mutton beef sausages had made no reference to fact that there was beef mixed in with the mutton.

“We have many Hindu customers, many of whom would ask about the contents of processed products, thereby eliminating any confusion and ensuring that the processed product that they are purchasing does not contain an element that would defy their religious belief,” he said.

The company had always been willing to supply a specific product on request, he said.

Selling for at least R72 a kilo, pure mutton mince is significantly more expensive that mutton/beef blends.

“We sincerely apologise to Mrs Maharaj for any misunderstanding that has occurred in the past,” Bielovich said, “and would agree that the new legislation will allow the consumer to make more informed decisions as to the specifics of what they are purchasing,”
Bielovich said.

Asked why she never queried the contents of the so-called mutton sausages before, given their relatively low price,
Ashmina said she trusted the information which was printed on the labels.

As for why some labels on the mutton beef sausages in the Bluff Meat Supply store I visited had a full ingredients list, while others did not, Bielovich said the company had introduced the new full-disclosure labels at the beginning of the year, but that the labelling machine had been out of order for a short time, so the fresh meat labelling machine - which doesn’t produce detailed labels - had had to be used instead.
The new labelling regulations include what’s called QUID - Quantitative Ingredient Declarations.

What that means is if a food manufacturer emphasises a key ingredient in the name or description of a product, they have to say was the ingoing percentage of that ingredient is.

So in the case of mutton mince, the percentage of mutton in that mix must be revealed.

I did a whip around a few stand-alone butcheries and supermarket butcheries this week, and found that, by and large, the labels on mince and sausage packs are compliant.

They reveal the types of meat in the product and their various percentages.

At Checkers in Davenport Square, I found a pack of “mutton mince” at R80 a kilo, but no indication of the percentage of mutton in the mix.



When I asked a butchery employee, I was told it was 100% mutton - and the price appears to back that up, but the label ought to be clearer about this.

Across the way at Dirk’s Meats, I found a pack labelled Sausage Meat with a prominent Mutton sticker on it, selling for just R36 a kilo.



When I asked whether it was pure mutton, I was told there was beef in the mix as well.

Owner Peter Limbouris later conceded that the label didn’t comply with the regulations, and said the butchery was in the process of converting to the full disclosure labels, many of which are already in the store.

Right, so what do we need to take out of all of this?

All food labels should comply with the new labelling regs by now, but if you’re buying a sausage or mince product that’s labelled, mutton, say, and there is no breakdown of ingredients, don’t assume it’s pure mutton.

Ask the butchery staff.

The new full disclosure labels are there for your benefit, so use them - if you’re buying sausages, be they chicken, pork, or mutton, don’t only check what kind of meats are in them, but check out the percentages too, because that’s what determines the quality of the product.

If the price of the pack seems really good, it could be that the meat content is relatively low.

For example, Woolworths 500 gram pack of Porkies, at R24,99, are R10 cheaper than the same size pack of Woolies’ pork bangers. But if you examine the label, you’ll find that the Porkies are only 44% pork, while the bangers are 75% pork.

As always, knowledge is power. And as they say, the devil is in the small print!”

-Sam

Parts of Speech


Hello Bloggers,

For today’s "imparting", I’d like to take you back to basics. I know everyone reading this has gone to school...still, how many of you actually remember the Rules/Parts of Speech?? Here’s a quick recap...Enjoy!

tenor (ten-er)
the subject of a metaphor, such as "she" in "she is a rose."

metaphor (met-uh-fawr, -fer)
a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in "a mighty fortress is our God."

parable (par-uh-buh?l)
a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson.

simile (n.)
a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in "she is like a rose."

analogy (uh-nal-uh-jee)
a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based.

allegory (al-uh-gawr-ee, -gohr-ee)
a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms.

vehicle (n.)
the thing or idea to which the subject of a metaphor is compared, as "rose" in "she is a rose."

catachresis (n.)
misuse or strained use of words, as in a mixed metaphor, occurring either in error or for rhetorical effect.

Have fun playing with words:)

-S






Friday 4 May 2012

Hello or Goodbye Peter?


Hi guys,

Now, many of you are aware of the HelloPeter site, and most of you reading this have used it, on occasion. Now, there has been so much of hullabaloo about whether the site should get a yay or a nay!!

I have always been under the impression that HelloPeter is an accomplishment in terms of consumer activism. It serves as a platform where disgruntled consumers can report poor service or unfairness. Don't get me wrong, they aren't just about slating. Consumers are also welcome to post positive comments about great services received. Regardless of this balance, however, the site has received an onslaught of criticism. You be the judge!

The creator of the site, Peter Cheales, has been called an “extortionist”. This remark relates to the fact that in order for a company to respond to an aggrieved customer's comment, the company has to fork out the bucks! Many companies feel that they shouldn't have to pay for this privilege.

Amongst the various criticisms, is one that HelloPeter only lists companies on its “Compliments” list if they pay whereas even if a company does not pay, its details will go up on the “Complaints” list. HelloPeter has also been accused of providing misleading statistics and of deleting comments that were aimed at HelloPeter, itself.

Extortionist, maybe, but many consumers view HelloPeter's creator as a consumer champion since the site hands consumers a means to air their grievances and it forces companies to respond, in order for them to clear their bad reputation. This, in turn, promotes greater customer service as companies will try and avoid being mentioned on the site. The site is also free to the public which is appealing to consumers, the no-cost factor provides the incentive to log onto the site and speak their mind.

The choice is yours people. You can choose to commend or condemn the site! I for one am all for it. I mean, it certainly provides consumers with a tool with which to expose poor customer service. In my books, if it urges companies to become more pro-active and to start adopting customer satisfaction as a value, then it gets both thumbs up from me. 




To decide for yourself visit www.hellopeter.com

-Sam


Facebook Privacy Measures


Follow these guidelines to preserve your privacy...

1. Organise Facebook friends in lists

Friend Lists are the foundation of your Facebook privacy settings. Select Friends from the top menu, and use the Create link to create friend lists like Co-workers, Family, College Friends, etc. Your friends can’t see your lists, so you can name them whatever you like.


2. Customise Profile Privacy

Click Settings > Privacy Settings > Profile. Select which parts of your profile will be seen by whom. If you choose Customize in the drop down, you can be more specific. This is where the Friend Lists you created before become really useful.

Also go to the Contact Information tab and choose how you want your contact information to be shared on the Internet.


3. Set Facebook Privacy Level of Photo Albums

On the Photos tab of your profile page, click Album Privacy. Here again, you can use your Friend Lists to set the privacy for each photo album. Note that your profile pictures go into a special album that is always visible to ALL your friends.


4. Restrict search visibility

Click Privacy > Search to set your visibility when someone searches Facebook for people. This is an important way to safeguard your Facebook privacy.


5. Control automatic wall posts and news feed updates

Your actions in Facebook such as comments, likes, appear as highlights on ALL your friends’ home pages. You cannot use friend lists here, only turn them on or off. Go to Privacy > News Feed and Wall and make your selections.


6. Set Facebook wall privacy

Go to your profile page, click Options > Settings under the status box. Here you can control whether your friends can post to your Wall, and who can see the posts made by your friends.


7. Avoid appearing in advertisements

Facebook has two types of advertisements: third-party and Facebook. Third-party advertisements are currently not allowed to use your pictures, but there is a setting to disallow it if it is allowed in the future. Go to Privacy > News Feed and Wall > Facebook Ads tab to turn this off.


8. Protect yourself from friends’ applications

Go to Privacy > Applications, and click the Settings tab and uncheck all the boxes. These settings control what information about you is visible to applications installed by your friends.
By default, these are set to visible. This means that your information is readily available to one of the million worldwide Facebook application developers, each time any of your friends takes a quiz, plays a game, or runs any other Facebook app.
These settings control what applications installed by your friends can see about you, even if you don’t install the application yourself.


9. Privacy from your applications

There is no way to control what applications see about you; it is an all-or-nothing affair. The only thing you can do is to authorize only those applications you require and trust. Go to Settings > Application Settings from the top menu. Change the drop-down from Recently Used to Authorized.
Here you can see all the applications you have authorized to get access to ALL your profile information. Remove the ones you no longer need. Also check the list of applications Allowed to Post and Granted Additional Permissions to remove unwanted ones.


10. Quitting Facebook? Delete, don’t just De-Activate your account

You can easily deactivate your account in Facebook from the Settings page. But deactivation will retain all your profile information within Facebook, including pictures, friends, etc.

If you want to permanently delete your Facebook account, click here to submit a deletion request. Note that:

1. There is an unspecified delay between submitting your delete request and actual deletion.
2. If you login to Facebook, your deletion request is automatically cancelled.
3. There doesn’t seem to be any way to confirm that your request was completed.
4. Even after permanent deletion, copies of your photos may remain on their servers for technical reasons.



Thursday 3 May 2012

100% Pure South African Talent: Lungelo Nic Ngobese



Today, I have the pleasure of writing about a really good friend. He is extremely talented in the art of putting together strings of words and creating a masterpiece. Nic, as we know him, is not only a brilliant writer but also has a really artistic mind when it comes to pouring out his heart into his pen only to etch eternal words of poetry that will make butterflies flutter around in your tummy and leave that warm fuzziness in your being...watch out for him guys.

I had the privilege of sifting through some of his material recently, and this bloke is so frickin’ talented. So, a while ago, Nic handed me a manuscript. “This is not complete, just go through it and tell me what you think”, he said. Little did I know what I was in store for!! He proved to be a powerhouse of talent. I sat with the raw manuscript in my hands and was thrilled by the choice of words he used, by the thought structure and especially the authenticity.

Anyone who knows this man will tell you that he is extremely modest, shy and most of all, humble. Nic has been called a “gentleman” time and time again and this reputation is tagged with his most polite mannerisms and the respect with which he treats everyone around him. A simple act like getting the door for a lady, or offering you his jacket when you are feeling cold, or, just letting someone have the last say. This, friends, is the brilliant-minded author I am telling you about. He is a paradox of modesty & immense talented. Nic takes his work very seriously and is open to all types of criticism. The mark of a true star, I think.

Well done on journeying toward your dream, Nic. I guess I should take your autograph now!!

(Watch this space for more news on this promising young writer!!)

-S

Hereafter: Movie Review

Hi guys,

Last weekend I watched Hereafter. A movie where director Clint Eastwood delves into the mysterious world of the hereafter, an ensemble supernatural drama starring Matt Damon, Cécile De France, Jay Mohr, and Bryce Dallas Howard.



Brief Synopsis
In the wake of a near-death experience during a powerful tsunami, French television reporter Marie (De France) takes her married lover's advice to pen the political book she has always talked about writing. As hard as Marie tries to stay focused on the task at hand, however, she repeatedly finds her attention diverted to scientists who have been stigmatised for investigating the afterlife. Meanwhile, in America, reluctant psychic George (Matt Damon) struggles in vain to cease using his powers for profit while falling for a gorgeous stranger (Bryce Dallas Howard). All the while, his greedy brother (Jay Mohr) prods him to milk his ability for all it's worth. Over in London, a pair of inseparable twins is forcibly parted by tragedy when one of them dies suddenly. The harder the more introverted surviving twin (Frankie McLaren) attempts to reach out to his deceased brother in the afterlife, the deeper his mom sinks into heroin addiction. When his mother goes into rehab, the grieving boy is placed in foster care, and begins succumbing to his corrosive ennui.

My personal view
You might expect Hereafter, a movie centred on near-death experiences and visions of the afterlife, to be uplifting and exhilarating, especially with Clint Eastwood at the helm. You'd be right, but only for very brief moments in a two-hour film that, at times, seems like it's gone on for at least four hours. For the most part, Hereafter flat-lines. Clint Eastwood does his usual fabulous job, investing the film with mood and detail galore, and drawing affecting performances from Matt Damon, Cécile De France and Frankie and George McLaren.

The tsunami is a good reason to at least rent the movie when it comes out on DVD: Eastwood puts the viewer in the water with De France's character as she's tossed and tumbled down a chute of roiling water, debris, vehicles and bodies. A scene just before the tsunami strikes, as De France and other characters hear the water but still can't see it, chills to the bone: Standing in an outdoor market, the doomed can see palm trees in the distance snapping and disappearing, but don't yet know what's causing it. (I’d like to point out that this may just be the saving grace of the film.)

The script is so dull that the audience howled with relief anytime a teensy bit of humour worked its way in. Bryce Dallas Howard, wasted in a throwaway role that serves only to emphasise Damon's character's loneliness (which we already got, thanks), gets a huge laugh when her character, in a cooking class, notes, "The woman next to me brought her own knife. She's very intimidating." Yeah...that's how desperate we are for a laugh...or any emotion, for that matter. Damon winningly conveys his character's deep sadness and sense of alienation (although hearing, "It's not a gift, it's a curse," once, was enough) but his Eeyore-type slump and self-degradation get pretty old around the 90-minute mark.

The last 30 minutes of the film hint at what it might have been if someone had whipped that script into shape; the idea of exploring experiences of the afterlife was a great one, and Eastwood certainly has the vision to pull it off. But even the most talented doctor can't revive the really, most sincerely dead. And Hereafter, while not exactly DOA, never makes it out of the emergency room.

-S

Wednesday 2 May 2012

What Is Standard English?


Hello there,

Being very closely intertwined with the English language, I thought this to be a really interesting piece that I could share with you. Today we’re going to tackle an interesting question: When we talk about “Proper English,” what exactly do we mean? Do we mean the English that you can take home to your grandmother? Do we mean the English that will impress your boss? Or do we mean the English that everyone will understand?

Most of the time, we mean all these things. When we go looking for grammar guidance, we’re hoping to refine our tone, our sophistication, and our clarity. We want, at the end of the day, to be better writers.

But if we mean those things, then what we should really say is “Standard English”—although it would probably be even more accurate to say, “The English That a Very Few People Agreed Upon About 600 Years Ago and That We’re Now Mostly Stuck With.”

Because when we use the phrase “proper English,” we’re playing into a whole mess of stereotypes and misconceptions about language. All it takes is a quick look at the history of Standard English to see why this might be true.

Setting the Stage: The History of English
I like to think of a standard variety of language as the lingua franca for speakers of a single language. A speaker from West Texas, for instance, might have trouble understanding a speaker from South Boston, but neither one of them has any trouble watching the national news, which is conducted in Standard English—the type of English that just about everyone will understand wherever it’s spoken.

English first flirted with written standardisation back in the ninth century, when Alfred the Great noticed that everyone’s Latin wasn’t what it used to be (is it ever?) and requested Anglo-Saxon translations of “those books that are most necessary for all men to know.”

When William the Conqueror showed up in 1066, however, he brought with him a slew of scribes and courtiers whose languages of choice were Latin and Norman French, and English was more or less exiled to the monasteries for the next few centuries.

Still, English never ceased to be a widely spoken language. So when England ultimately distanced itself from France, English was right there waiting, ready to reassert itself into official business and the written record.

It happened slowly at first, but by the time of Henry V, English had displaced French as a language of government almost entirely.

Soon the use of written English was spreading rapidly, from guild masters to merchants to churchmen, many of whom must have been wildly relieved to be able to conduct business in a version of their native language.

As English began to be used for increasingly important purposes, it became increasingly important to use a form of English that everyone could understand—and that everyone would respect.

The Rules of the Game
At first standards were largely—though not exclusively—determined by the language of the royal clerks. The rise of the printing press also played a key role in standardising language, particularly with regard to spelling. For instance, we have foreign compositors and typefaces to thank for the use of “gh” instead of “g” in certain words (such as “ghost”).

Soon enough, though, the subject of language standardisation was taken up by dictionary writers, grammarians, and even general linguistic busybodies.

The Influence of Scholars
It’s much more accurate to refer to what many think of as proper English with the term language scholars use: “Standard English.”

Many of the early English dictionaries and grammars ostensibly sought to describe prevailing usage—they were not meant to be prescriptive. But, of course, the selection of any one variety as a representative form is, in and of itself, a kind of prescription.

These early and influential dictionaries and grammars relied on a variety of criteria to determine their recommended words and rules. In his landmark, Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel Johnson—a man who famously remarked that “the chief glory of a nation arises from its authors”—leaned heavily on citations from widely respected authors, a trend that continues to this day.

Grammarians had their own guiding principles, often calling on logic (decrying double negatives and superlatives) or etymology (railing against the substitution of “nauseous” for “nauseated”).

Others rationales were more subjective. Some writers, for instance, believed that it was better to use one-syllable words whenever possible because they were closer to the language of Adam and Eve. And then there were those who felt so strongly about the linguistic virtues of Latin and Greek that they could come to believe, as John Dryden famously did, that a preposition at the end of a sentence is something to be strenuously avoided. (Read the article about ending a sentence with a preposition.)

No matter how persuasive the scholarship, the facts remain the same: the variety that would become Standard English was based on the varieties of the political, economic, and intellectual elite—not because they were necessarily better, but because they were the ones who got to decide.

The Authority of Salesmen
This is when things start to get a bit tricky.

The literary market in the 17th and 18th centuries was not so different from our own. There wasn’t much demand for linguistic observation—what readers wanted was linguistic guidance. And again and again, scholars and linguists from Johnson to Webster to Henry Higgins did their best to fill this need. Even Robert Cawdrey’s 1604 Table Alphabeticall, the earliest English dictionary, makes explicit on its title page that it has been “gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other unskilfull persons. Whereby they may the more easilie and better understand many hard English words.”

But as social mobility increased, the standards of the written language exerted more and more influence on the spoken language, which was looked to as a measure of refinement and “politeness.” Soon the demand for linguistic instruction outstripped the scholarly supply, and readers began to snap up handbooks and how-tos whose advice was justified not by years of study—or any study at all, for that matter—but rather by the ruthlessly efficient principle of “you should.”
Or, more accurately, “you shouldn’t.”

So it was that non-standard language became a nuisance to be dealt with (like troublesome household vermin, as in the 1878 volume Enquire Within upon Everything) or a bad habit to be frowned upon (like breathing through your mouth, as in 1888’s Don’t: A Little Book dealing Frankly with Mistakes & Improprieties more or less Common to All).

And when you teach that there is only one way to be right, it’s only natural to conclude that every other way is wrong.

The Slippery Slope
As long as we’ve had language varieties, we’ve also had stereotypes about the people who speak those varieties. But the implementation of the standard form of a language—couched as it so often is in terms of elegance, propriety, and correctness—can take an otherwise unassuming us/them split and institutionally marry it to a set of pernicious value judgments: what is “right,” what is “educated,” what is “civilized,” what is “good.”

Linguists and philosophers, and just about anyone who has ever stopped to think about it, have been doing battle with perceptions like these for centuries—just as they have been doing battle with similarly ingrained stereotypes relating to race, ethnicity, class, and gender. And they’re having about as much luck with the former as they are with the latter. Today conspicuously non-standard varieties of English—particularly those spoken in the South and by African-Americans—are still routinely characterised as “defective,” “lazy,” and flat-out “wrong.”

But the truth is this: Every variety of English is equally regularised and expressive—just as every language is equally expressive. They all have their own internal rules and grammar. Despite what the usage mavens of yesteryear might have us believe, proficiency with Standard English has nothing to do with innate linguistic superiority, or cognitive or moral superiority. Though the language we use in any given situation is surely a product of external circumstances, it is in no way a function of internal worth.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t learn Standard English—quite the contrary, given the importance placed upon its usage, it would be irresponsible to suggest otherwise.

But surely there’s room for one more standardisation: That we all agree to do away with the idea that there’s a single, objectively superior form we call “proper” English. It’s much more accurate to refer to what many think of as proper English with the term language scholars use: “Standard English.”

So, guys, I hope you found this piece of script informative. I know I did.

Till we speak again...cheers!!!

-S