Let's talk about.....

[makilli]

You understand......oh,yes you do mari...

[mariposa]

vlado kaže: I'm sorry, but you make a mistake You're sad: "O thank you so math" math=matematika so, you should say: "O, thank you very much"

Thank you very much,but I say :my english is very bad,I know just what I learning in the school,very time`s ago,sometime my litle daughter help me,because I can`t remember,I must to use the dictionary,I don`t speak english very long time,I am sorry,but thank you very much for your help,I hope that you can anderstand me,I love you everybody... bye,bye....

[MamAna]

Hi guys,

Have fun

[Cecara]

Woooooooooow I have just found out about this, I haven't seen this topic before. I like the idea very much, but unfortunately, not many people have been here recently. Anyway, let's try to revive it.

Here is something that might raise your interest. I heard this when I was in primary school and I have never forgotten it. It just proves how flexible English is. The same words are used, but the meaning of each sentence is completely different.

1. No one knows the woman I love.
2. The woman knows I love no one.
3. I love no one the woman knows.
4. The woman knows no one I love.
5. No one knows I love the woman.
6. I love the woman no one knows.
7. No one I love knows the woman.
8. The woman I love knows no one.

see you soon!

[euridika]

mariposa kaže: I hope that you can anderstand me,I love you everybody... bye,bye....

We do understand you Marice You may come back to us here, we haven't seen you for quite sime time. Come on Mari

Cecara kaže: Anyway, let's try to revive it. Here is something that might raise your interest. I heard this when I was in primary school and I have never forgotten it. It just proves how flexible English is. The same words are used, but the meaning of each sentence is completely different. 1. No one knows the woman I love. 2. The woman knows I love no one. 3. I love no one the woman knows. 4. The woman knows no one I love. 5. No one knows I love the woman. 6. I love the woman no one knows. 7. No one I love knows the woman. 8. The woman I love knows no one. see you soon!

I guess that this is something what one can do in many languages, combine couple of different words and make quite some number of sentences.

But it is interesting and nice to see how you can change the meaning of the sentence by just changing the order of the words.

[Cecara]

euridika kaže: I guess that this is something what one can do in many languages, combine couple of different words and make quite some number of sentences. But it is interesting and nice to see how you can change the meaning of the sentence by just changing the order of the words.

Well yes, I think this can be done in those languages that do not have cases, such as English, and in which the meaning of the sentence is dependent on the word order.
Now, I will take the liberty of correcting you and I hope you don't mind me doing so.
The word 'some' can be put before countable nouns in plural or before uncountable nouns. Now, since the word 'number' is countable, we shouldn't say 'some number of', but rather 'a number of'.
There is another slight mistake. The correct expression is 'a couple of'. This is not such a rare mistake since there are no articles in our language and sometimes it is difficult for us to understand their use. Just another particularity of English...(and not just English, mind you..)

[euridika]

Cecara kaže: Well yes, I think this can be done in those languages that do not have cases, such as English, and in which the meaning of the sentence is dependent on the word order. Now, I will take the liberty of correcting you and I hope you don't mind me doing so. The word 'some' can be put before countable nouns in plural or before uncountable nouns. Now, since the word 'number' is countable, we shouldn't say 'some number of', but rather 'a number of'. There is another slight mistake. The correct expression is 'a couple of'. This is not such a rare mistake since there are no articles in our language and sometimes it is difficult for us to understand their use. Just another particularity of English...(and not just English, mind you..)

Please do correct me

That is why we are here - to learn something from eachother.

Thanx

[Cecara]

Ok, here is something I hope you will find interesting. It is about the English language. It is not really a topic for discussion, but hey... just sit back, read and enjoy yourselves.


How the Days Got Their Names


The English language took its names for the months of the year from Latin by way of French some time around the year 1000 with the great influx of French and scholarly Latin words into Britain along with the coming of the Normans. But the names for the days of the week are strictly Germanic, although even there they were not immune to the Latin influence.
Earlier writers have speculated that the idea of dividing the week into seven days goes back much earlier than the Romans, possibly to the Babylonians. They at some point associated the days with the seven known planets, that is, the seven heavenly bodies then known to move through the sky. It was during the late pre-Christian period that the Romans adopted this seven-day week, giving Latin names to the days: solis dies (sun’s day), lunae dies (moon’s day), Martis dies (Mars), Mercurii dies (Mercury), Jovis dies (Jupiter or Jove), Veneris dies (Venus) and Saturni dies (Saturn). In Latin, the names of the planets other than the sun and the moon were also names of gods, and these days were dedicated to their gods. In the Romance languages that grew out of Latin (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian), the Latin influence is still strong.
The early Germanic peoples were also influenced by the Romanic culture with which they had contact, and from the Romans they took the names for the days of the week. But, instead of borrowing the Latin names, these peoples translated the Latin names into the Germanic equivalents. Thus, solis dies (sun’s day) was translated to a compound that eventually yielded the Old English sunnandǽg (Old English: sunne = sun, dǽg = day); lunae dies was translated to monandǽg (OE mona = moon). But here the translations took an interesting turn. Since the other days of the week were names for Roman gods, the Germanic people substituted the names of their own gods having the same qualities or characteristics. For example, the Roman god Mars was considered the god of war, for the Germanic people, this position was taken by the god Tyr (spelled ‘Tiw’ in OE). Thus, when Mars’ day was transported into the Germanic languages, it became tiwesdǽg in Old English. Mercury became associated with the Germanic god Odin (Woden in OE) perhaps by the Romans themselves and thus Mercurii dies was taken in Germanic languages in a way that gave us wodnesdǽg (Woden’s day). In like manner, the Germanic people substituted the name of the thunder god Thor for the Roman god Jupiter or Jove, creating thursdǽg (Thor’s day) and their Frigg (the wife of Odin) for the Roman Venus to yield friggedǽg (Frigg’s day) for Friday. The Germanic people apparently had no other god to equate with Saturn, the Roman god of seed and sowing, so the Latin name was merely translated, giving us sǽterdǽg in Old English, our modern Saturday.


Latin
solis dies
lunae dies
Martis dies
Mewrcurii dies
Jovis dies
Veneris dies
Saturni dies

Old English
sunnandǽg
monandǽg
tiwesdǽg
wodnesdǽg
thursdǽg
friggedǽg
sǽterdǽg

Modern English
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

[Cecara]

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

rudolph1.gif

To most of us, the character of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer — immortalized in song and a popular TV special — has always been an essential part of our Christmas folklore. But Rudolph is a decidedly twentieth-century invention whose creation can be traced to a specific time and person.
Rudolph came to life in 1939 when the Chicago-based Montgomery Ward company (operators of a chain of department stores) asked one of their copywriters, 34-year-old Robert L. May, to come up with a Christmas story they could give away to shoppers as a promotional gimmick. (The Montgomery Ward stores had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year, and May's department head saw creating a giveaway booklet of their own as a way to save money.) May, who had a penchant for writing children's stories and limericks, was tapped to create the
booklet.
rudolph2.gifMay, drawing in part on the tale of The Ugly Duckling and his own background (he was a often taunted as a child for being shy, small, and slight), settled on the idea of an underdog ostracized by the reindeer community because of his physical abnormality: a glowing red nose. Looking for an alliterative name, May considered and rejected Rollo (too cheerful and carefree a name for the story of a misfit) and Reginald (too British) before deciding on Rudolph. He then proceeded to write Rudolph's story in verse, as a series of rhyming couplets, testing it out on his 4-year-old daughter Barbara as he went along. Although Barbara was thrilled with Rudolph's story, May's boss was worried that a story featuring a red nose — an image associated with drinking and drunkards — was unsuitable for a Christmas tale. May responded by taking Denver Gillen, a friend from Montgomery Ward's art department, to the Lincoln Park Zoo to sketch some deer. Gillen's illustrations of a red-nosed reindeer overcame the hesitancy of May's bosses, and the Rudolph story was approved. Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of the Rudolph booket in 1939, and although wartime paper shortages curtailed printing for the next several years, a total of 6 million copies had been given by the end of 1946.

The Rudolph post-war demand for licensing the Rudolph character was tremendous, but since May had created the story as an employee of Montgomery Ward, they held the copyright and he received no royalties. Deeply in debt from the medical bills resulting from his wife's terminal illness (she died about the time May created Rudolph), May persuaded Montgomery Ward's corporate president, Sewell Avery, to turn the copyright over to him in January 1947. With the rights to his creation in hand, May's financial security was assured. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was printed commercially in 1947 and shown in theaters as a nine-minute cartoon the following year. The Rudolph phenomenon really took off, however, when May's brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the lyrics and melody for a Rudolph song. Marks' musical version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (turned down by many who didn't want to meddle with the established Santa legend) was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold two million copies that year, and went on to become one of the best-selling songs of all time (second only to "White Christmas"). A TV special about Rudolph narrated by Burl Ives was produced in 1964 and remains a popular perennial holiday favorite in the USA.

May quit his copywriting job in 1951 and spent seven years managing his creation before returning to Montgomery Ward, where he worked until Book cover his retirement in 1971. May died in 1976, comfortable in the life his reindeer creation had provided for him.

It might be fitting to close this page by pointing out that, although the story of Rudolph is primarily known to us through the lyrics of Johnny Marks' song, the story May wrote is substantially different in a number of ways. Rudolph was not one of Santa's reindeer (or the offspring of one of Santa's reindeer), and he did not live at the North Pole. Rudolph dwelled in an "ordinary" reindeer village elsewhere, and although he was taunted and laughed at for having a shiny red nose, he was not regarded by his parents as a shameful embarrassment. Rudolph was brought up in a loving household and was a responsible reindeer with a good self-image and sense of worth. Moreover, Rudolph did not rise to fame when Santa picked him out from the reindeer herd because of his shiny nose. Santa discovered the red-nosed reindeer quite by accident, when he noticed the glow emanating from Rudolph's room while delivering presents to Rudolph's house. Worried that the thickening fog — already the cause of several accidents and delays — would keep him from completing his Christmas Eve rounds, Santa tapped Rudolph to lead his team, observing upon their return: "By YOU last night's journey was actually bossed. Without you, I'm certain we'd all have been lost!"