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 Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 08:38 AM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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Hello, guys!
I would like to read some good literature to improve my English. Could you tell me names of such authors? Requirement: the text must contain "ideal" grammatical language if it's possible.
Some work I've done. I was recommended to read Jerome K. Jerome. But I would more to have a choice.
Any good movies are appreciated too)
As a part of my learning I listen to BBC Radio when I'm at work (of course I do my work too)))) and read some news.
But I still feel that I do many many many grammatical mistakes. I don't feel your language well as you do 
Sorry if I've written something rude... And thank you so much for your help  |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 10:34 AM |
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Joined: Nov 09, 2011
Posts: 395
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Almost all novels published by mainstream publishers will contain gramatically correct English. There might be a few exceptions where the language is deliberately non-grammatical - for example, something might be told from a first-person's point of view, and the author wants to emphasise the spoken language of the narrator.
I don't think you'll find that there's a form of English that is widely accepted as "ideal". Within the range of grammatical English, the differences in writing are mostly due to style, and that's something driven by personal preference rather than any supposed "ideal" style.
Here are some suggestions, that mostly reflect my own likes.
Iain M Banks - good science fiction. He has a straightforward style.
Patrick O'Brian has a long series of Naval themed novels set in the Napoleonic wars. His writing is rather formal, and some of the language used is a bit dated.
Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun" is a rather challenging but very enjoyable science fiction series. The language in it is not difficult to understand. The challenging aspect is understanding the first person narrative and deciphering the underlying meaning.
As for online websites, major newspapers published in English speaking countries usually have good, contemporary writing styles. However, you might need to be a little bit wary - some sections of such sites may not be edited very carefully, and some sites have notorious reputations for embarrassing errors (especially the "Grauniad" . I'd lean towards journals that aren't published daily - I've found that the less frequent journals tend to have better writers. My recommendations here would be http://www.theatlantic.com and http://www.economist.com
- S |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 01:00 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62220
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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| Just get the entire series of "DiscWorld" novels by Terry Pratchett and have a good giggle. Quite a lot of his humour depends on play on words which probably makes a good exercise in learning English. (of course you may read some bits and completely miss the underlying meaning I guess). |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 01:59 PM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18520
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Since this is about bettering your English:
You don't say "recommend a good literature", you say "recommend good literature". (Just as you don't say "I eat a food" but rather "I eat food".)
For a very good online glossary, I would reccomend Wiktionary ( http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literature ).
I try to keep the English I post under control by using a browser with a spell-checker (this post is done w/o that, BTW).
I've found that not-so-current litterature have been excellent teaching material for me:
For an easy but still amusing read I would recommend "The Wind In The Willows" by Kenneth Grahame. Personally I swear by "Winnie The Pooh" (A.A. Milne) to but that is because I was fostered on them. (If you ever decide to learn Swedish the translations are excellent!)
Not sure that it qualifies as litterature (in the snobbish sense) but all "Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle (short stories and novels) are good reads IMO. |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 02:35 PM |
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Joined: Apr 20, 2007
Posts: 6061
Location: Long Island New York
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Do what most american kids do to learn 'english'... Watch TV
No joke. |
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Jim
I have decided that I am no longer going to plan anything in advance. In a court of law this is called Pre-Meditated, and does not look good for the defense.....
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 02:42 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62220
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
but all "Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle (short stories and novels) are good reads IMO.
If you want to talk like a Victorian
"Upon my word" and "Good Heavens" it's elementary that would be a most singluar solution. It is, upon the face of it, not an impossible supposition! |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 03:06 PM |
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Joined: Oct 04, 2008
Posts: 406
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I suggest you search this website for "zbaird".
He is one of the best living poets of the free world in my opinion. |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 03:06 PM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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Oh, so much answers and recommendations Thank you so much! I digest it all)
BTW, I forgot to say: I also like songs of Celine Dion, ABBA, Baccara, Nightwish and other bands. Are their lyrics grammatically correct? I's just simpler to memorize the poem as an example of good speech. |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 03:43 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 13815
Location: Vancouver, BC
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Except that poetry is one of the places where it is acceptable to throw good grammar out the window. There are often reversals of word order, unusual contractions and intentional misspelled/misused words in order to meet the cadence or meaning to be conveyed.
I would recommend Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski). He didn't learn English until later in life, but wrote in it beautifully. It will not only get you good grammar, but inspiration that it can be done. |
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Regards,
Steve A.
The Board helps those that help themselves.
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 03:58 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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hehe
Not sure you'd want to learn grammar from poetry.
What kinds of books would you like to read? I've been reading 19th or early 20th century novels lately. |
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Discursive design,
Torby
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 04:31 PM |
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Joined: Jun 19, 2002
Posts: 950
Location: SF Bay area
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I'd recommend "Juvenile" literature aimed at teens and young adults. Harry Potter, perhaps.
A simpler plot. I remember my "advanced" German class in highschool, where we read a German Mystery novel. Trying to follow a complex story line when I could barely keep up with the vocabulary was ... AWFUL. :=(
I wish I had read more foreign children's books.
(For instance, someone recommended Ian Banks. Bleh. He can be difficult to follow even if you're a native english speaker.) |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 06:20 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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clawson wrote:
Just get the entire series of "DiscWorld" novels by Terry Pratchett and have a good giggle. Quite a lot of his humour depends on play on words which probably makes a good exercise in learning English. (of course you may read some bits and completely miss the underlying meaning I guess).
I've read all of Pratchett twice and will likely do a third run. But I'm pretty sure some of his puns will prove difficult for non-English folk. For instance he describes something 'as hot as a stolen volcano' to me this is laugh out loud funny, but if you don't know that hot refers to both heat and something that has been stolen you might not get it.
I second the motion on Harry Potter. Even though I am an adult near senescence I loved it. The language in this series doesn't get in the way of the story, and that really is how English should be written.
Hunger Games is good also and the movie is making lots of noise at the moment.
If you want a really long book to fall into then you might try another of my favorites: The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follet.
Oh, and I've read some Dostoyevsky which reads very well in English so I wonder if getting some popular Russian book and reading the English translation might not help more than anything? I recently read Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and that translation read like it was written originally in English.
Smiley |
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 06:29 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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| I've lately been on a Kipling kick. Burned through both Jungle Books, Stalky & Company, and now on Captain's Courageous. Yes, I know, most American boys read that when they were 10, but I had all these cool "Happy Hollister" books. |
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Discursive design,
Torby
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 06:50 PM |
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Joined: Mar 01, 2001
Posts: 4951
Location: Rocky Mountains
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| I will also recommend the Harry Potter series. Good, fun read. The language doesn't get in the way, and you can tell that the author increased the vocabulary level as the series went on, and as the children in the story, and the children reading it, get older. |
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Eric Weddington
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 - 07:07 PM |
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Joined: Oct 23, 2010
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| The last two books I read were "Sirens of Titan" and "Slaughterhouse 5", both by Kurt Vonnegut. I enjoyed them both. |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 01:18 AM |
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Joined: Apr 20, 2007
Posts: 6061
Location: Long Island New York
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Back to my TV kick, my three year old uses Wow Wow Wubbzy!!
I like James Patterson |
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Jim
I have decided that I am no longer going to plan anything in advance. In a court of law this is called Pre-Meditated, and does not look good for the defense.....
Timer function not working properly? Check CLKDIV8 Fuse first
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 02:45 AM |
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Joined: Jul 10, 2006
Posts: 2654
Location: Minneapolis
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| I've no time for fiction anymore, but my favorites are James Clavell, Tom Clancy, Tolkien, and Ayn Rand. All good stuff. |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 03:06 AM |
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Joined: Jun 19, 2002
Posts: 950
Location: SF Bay area
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sixty pages of John Galt speech in a foreign language? OMG!
Do you think it's useful for there to be a native-language translation of the book you're trying to read? (speaking of Harry Potter: translated into 67 languages!) On one hand, if you get stuck, you can go figure out what is going on. On the other hand... less motivation to struggle on, and possible source of confusion. (There was a fascinating discussion on r.a.sf.w some years ago where the translator for the Italian version of some popular SF Novel (Bujold) was describing how difficult it was to translate descriptions of "subtle hand gestures" into something that made sense in Italian. A translated novel is not the same as simply translating the text...) |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 04:56 AM |
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Joined: Jan 09, 2007
Posts: 1857
Location: Arlington, Texas, U.S.A.
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smileymicros wrote:
Oh, and I've read some Dostoyevsky which reads very well in English so I wonder if getting some popular Russian book and reading the English translation might not help more than anything?
Maybe not. A Russian PhD student was studying at a US university. From the university's library, he read some English translations of Russian classic novels and was appalled at the poor translations. He stated that a reader of Russian needs more than the words; i.o.w. there's meaning behind and between the words (likely difficult unless one lives Russian). When the opportunity appeared to create the English translation of the Russian Anastasia series (English is Ringing Cedars), he enthusiastically offered his effort. |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 06:42 AM |
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Joined: Jan 03, 2006
Posts: 4410
Location: Hemel Hemsptead, UK
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Torby wrote:
Stalky & Company
You said the magic words and may now gloat!
As others have said, most published English is grammatically correct - but beware those published in the last few years which can suffer from an excess of zeal of the spell-checker...
A good source of material is Gutenberg - just look at their hundred most popular (http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top) and you'll find plenty in there which is both eclectic in taste and excellent in style. There's nothing wrong with Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) and Burton (The Karma Sutra) in one sitting... beware though Dickens - a great read but a lot of dialect and accented speech spelt phonetically. Tricky the first time you come across it...
(Strange but true: I have over a hundred peer-reviewed published papers on the subject of spelling. Not one is free from spelling mistakes in the text...) |
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Neil Barnes
www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 03:18 PM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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Well! I want to say 'Thank you so much!' for the help.
All have been told me I've digested carefully.
The first candidates to read are:
1. Winnie The Pooh. I also, as JohanEkdahl, was fostered on it. Very beautiful story and animation based on it. In Russia we saw two versions: our native and Walt Disney Company's.
2. Harry Potter. I saw several films in Russian and English. Now I'm gonna try to read some of them.
3. "DiscWorld" novels by Terry Pratchett. As smileymicros warned me there are puns. I think it's useful to me to have met with them.
Other recommendations I also accept. I will continue reading the news (usual on BBC) and watching the films.
As for Russian translations into English I don't know what to say But it's surely very interesting. Need to see)
smileymicros, did you have a fun with those both authors? |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 03:35 PM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
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Location: Lund, Sweden
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Quote:
In Russia we saw two versions: our native and Walt Disney Company's.
For the recent'ish Disney versions I consider them a pure rape. IMO nothing of the original thoughtfulness and "finesse" remains. They totally "miss the point" E.g. Tigger is completely and utterly destroyed. In retrospect, it was one of the sad days in English literature when the rights where sold off to Disney. |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 04:09 PM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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JohanEkdahl wrote:
They totally "miss the point"
That's why my mother (long ago) and my wife (now) don't like it)
But when I was a child I love both versions. Now I'm gonna download original book and have a fun))) |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 04:15 PM |
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Joined: Sep 04, 2002
Posts: 21248
Location: Orlando Florida
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| I bought a book called "The Dictionary Of Cultural Literacy" by Hersch, Kett and Trefil, Houghton-Milllin, and I have loaned it to many of my buddies from other countries to help them catch up on US idioms and literary references. It might be on Amazon. I'd be surprised if it wasn't. |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 04:15 PM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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| Frankly speaking, there is a very very bad Disney's animation which I don't like. It's Tom and Jerry. I think there are plenty of violence. Poor cat! |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 04:18 PM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
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Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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bobgardner wrote:
and I have loaned it to many of my buddies from other countries to help them catch up on US idioms and literary references.
Oh, it's very tempting offer! |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 04:45 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62220
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
there is a very very bad Disney's animation which I don't like. It's Tom and Jerry.
Not Disney - they were MGM. They lost their way after 1967 when it appeared they were trying to do cell shade animation on the cheap. |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 04:52 PM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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clawson wrote:
Quote:
there is a very very bad Disney's animation which I don't like. It's Tom and Jerry.
Not Disney - they were MGM. They lost their way after 1967 when it appeared they were trying to do cell shade animation on the cheap.
Oh, I made a blunder. My apologizes to Desney! |
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 05:08 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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| No need to apologize to Disney! In one of their winnie-the-pooh animations, Christopher Robin isn't even an English boy! Shocking. |
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Discursive design,
Torby
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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Posted: Apr 28, 2012 - 05:22 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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haker_fox wrote:
smileymicros, did you have a fun with those both authors?
Oddly, I found that the late 19th century Russian authors spoke for 'my people' much more accurately than my contemporary English (language) authors. It seems that these characters were allowed to think more deeply and struggle with their souls more than what I was seeing in my native tongue. And by soul, I don't mean the spooky thing that religions talk about, I mean the inner person - the 'me' that argues constantly with the rest of 'me. Both American and British writing from that period seems naive in comparison. Okay: IMHO.
As far as Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, my step-son recommended it and is (was?) trying to get it made into a movie. It presents the Devil in a way I've not seen before, more of a clown than an evil and yet more evil for it, and it has some very visual scenes which I think would translate well to the screen.
Smiley |
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Posted: Apr 29, 2012 - 02:24 AM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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Torby wrote:
No need to apologize to Disney!
OK, I wont.
Torby wrote:
In one of their winnie-the-pooh animations, Christopher Robin isn't even an English boy! Shocking.
How could they make such mistake?  |
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Posted: Apr 29, 2012 - 02:44 AM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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smileymicros wrote:
haker_fox wrote:
smileymicros, did you have a fun with those both authors?
Oddly, I found that the late 19th century Russian authors spoke for 'my people' much more accurately than my contemporary English (language) authors. It seems that these characters were allowed to think more deeply and struggle with their souls more than what I was seeing in my native tongue. And by soul, I don't mean the spooky thing that religions talk about, I mean the inner person - the 'me' that argues constantly with the rest of 'me. Both American and British writing from that period seems naive in comparison. Okay: IMHO.
As far as Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, my step-son recommended it and is (was?) trying to get it made into a movie. It presents the Devil in a way I've not seen before, more of a clown than an evil and yet more evil for it, and it has some very visual scenes which I think would translate well to the screen.
Smiley
Thank you for such response about the authors! They really were the great authors! Some of their works were studied by me in a school. Unfortunately, after the October Revolution and establishment the Soviet Government we had lost them (not only Dostoevsky and Bulgakov). There was a tabu for such freedom ideas.  Fortunately, the tabu has been destroyed over past years.
As far the movie - it's a great idea! I would watch it with great pleasure! |
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Posted: Apr 29, 2012 - 04:00 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
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Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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Actually there there was a mini series for TV done in Russia in 2005, so you might be able to find that. I think my step-son was looking for a version with English sub-titles but I don't know if he found it. I'll ask next time we talk.
Smiley |
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Posted: Apr 29, 2012 - 05:20 AM |
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Joined: Jul 10, 2006
Posts: 2654
Location: Minneapolis
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westfw wrote:
sixty pages of John Galt speech in a foreign language? OMG!
Well worth the time no doubt, but "We the Living" might be more interesting to a Russian: a wonderful semi-biographical novel set in the Bolshevic revolution. She was too young to understand the western preference for happy endings, but she learned. |
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Posted: Apr 29, 2012 - 12:06 PM |
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Joined: Jun 27, 2005
Posts: 3411
Location: St.Petersburg, Russia
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| Original Tom & Jerry cartoons are early Hanna-Barbera work. Then they scaled up and it's easy to see how quality of stories and animation went downhill. Not everyone pays enough attention to cartoons to notice such things, but it had to be said. |
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The Dark Boxes are coming.
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Posted: Apr 29, 2012 - 12:51 PM |
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Joined: Jun 27, 2005
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Location: St.Petersburg, Russia
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It's an interesting thread.
@smiley: I didn't realize that Master and Margarita was known to the English world at all. Although you might be not a typical representative. The 2005 mini TV series is actually alright. Many fans of the book criticise it, and it has really poor camera work and incredibly monotonous pace, but the actors are great and it revitalised the interest to the novel. It even made me think for a while that not all is lost for the Russian TV, but unfortunately that feeling quickly passed away.
As for English translations of Russian authors... I think reading them can be interesting, but on a different level. Colleagues often ask me how to say this in English or how to translate that. I tend to get completely dumbfounded by such questions because translation is not a matter of knowing a foreign language. Even in daily routine business correspondence you have to rethink the idea completely and synthesize it over again to produce a readable sentence or a paragraph. Seeing how professionals cope with this problem can be very educational. But just reading your favourite Russian novel in English for the first time can cause a lot of discomfort, even protest. Actually, Russian translations of foreign texts are often less than stellar either. This is less so for the classics, but the modern translations are often just awful. The situation is even worse with the Spanish, as I have discovered recently, even though Russian and Spanish appear to be more emotionally close to eachother. I enjoy finding translators' errors, they make me feel that the time invested in learning was well spent.
It may be very intersting to read Nabokov's English language originals. Reading Pnin changed my opinion on foreign languages: I discovered that you can write in English with Russian stylistics and be a great English language writer. BTW, most translations of Pnin into Russian are awful too.
JohanEkdahl wrote:
Personally I swear by "Winnie The Pooh" (A.A. Milne) to but that is because I was fostered on them. (If you ever decide to learn Swedish the translations are excellent!)
+1. When I was like 5 I knew most of the book by heart. In Russian of course, but it doesn't change anything.
Nobody has mentioned Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass? How so? They are a rather hard read by the way. |
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Posted: Apr 29, 2012 - 06:45 PM |
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Location: Arlington, Texas, U.S.A.
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Posted: Apr 30, 2012 - 04:59 AM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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svofski wrote:
Nobody has mentioned Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass? How so? They are a rather hard read by the way.
Oh, I tried to read this one some years ago. It did seem to me it was a hard work. There were a lot of complex sentences and thoughts. I wonder whether I can read it now? It needs to try over again  |
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Posted: Apr 30, 2012 - 05:02 AM |
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Posted: Apr 30, 2012 - 04:37 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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I love Shakespearean insults!
Thou goatish half-faced minnow! |
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Discursive design,
Torby
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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Posted: Apr 30, 2012 - 05:05 PM |
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Joined: Jun 27, 2005
Posts: 3411
Location: St.Petersburg, Russia
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| http://shakespeare-online.com/ is a nice place with commentary, analysis and sometimes very helpful (sometimes more confusing than helpful) paraphrases. But I don't think that this is really related to studying normal English as such, this is studying Shakespeare. |
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Posted: Apr 30, 2012 - 05:38 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62220
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
I love Shakespearean insults!
Thou goatish half-faced minnow!
Then I imagine you'll love this:
The Shakespeare Programming Language
An example wrote:
[Enter Hamlet and Romeo]
Hamlet:
You lying stupid fatherless big smelly half-witted coward!
You are as stupid as the difference between a handsome rich brave
hero and thyself! Speak your mind!
As it explains:
Explanation wrote:
Assignment of Values
Now, how do we use those numbers? Well, just have a look at the two statements ``You lying stupid fatherless big smelly half-witted coward!'' and ``You are as stupid as the difference between a handsome rich brave hero and thyself!''
The first one is simple: A second person pronoun, followed by a number. The effect of this statement is to assign the value of that number (in this case, $-64$) to the character being spoken to. Think ``$X=-64$''.
The second one is slightly more complicated. For starters, what is the value of ``thyself''? That's not a noun, that's a reflexive pronoun. It's value is the current value of the character being spoken to. So the number in the second statement is $8 - X$, where $X$ is the value of the character being spoken to. And just as you might expect from your experience with English, the second statement is just another assignment. Think ``$X$ = 8 - $X$''. Being ``as bas as'', ``as good as'', or as [any adjective] as something else, means being equal to that something.
Output
The other kind of sentence used in the Hello World program is output. There are two different output sentences, ``Open your heart'' and ``Speak your mind''. The first causes the character being spoken to to output her or his value in numerical form, and the other, being more literal, outputs the corresponding letter, digit, or other character, according to the character set being used by your computer.
So the quoted speech by Hamlet outputs the letter "H" (in fact this is the 'H' or "Hello world" in the classic "Hello World" program).
(8 - (-64) = 72 = ASCII character 'H') |
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Posted: Apr 30, 2012 - 07:01 PM |
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Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 6694
Location: Bellingham, WA - USA
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| Reminds me of COBOL. |
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Chuck Baird
"It's better to catch the trapeze than test the safety net" -- RPi book
http://www.cbaird.org
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 08:54 AM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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| I'm afraid I'm gonna take a rest in a madhouse after such insults))) |
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 03:18 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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| Hence, horrible villain, or I'll spurn thine eyes like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head, Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd'in brine, smarting in lingering pickle. |
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Discursive design,
Torby
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 03:45 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 13815
Location: Vancouver, BC
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Quote:
Though Shakespeare would be advanced English
I would not call Shakespeare "advanced" English, it is archaic English. |
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Regards,
Steve A.
The Board helps those that help themselves.
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 04:22 PM |
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Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 6694
Location: Bellingham, WA - USA
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Quote:
Hence, horrible villain, or I'll spurn thine eyes like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head, Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd'in brine, smarting in lingering pickle.
How do you expect us to debug such a small snippet of code? |
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Chuck Baird
"It's better to catch the trapeze than test the safety net" -- RPi book
http://www.cbaird.org
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 05:13 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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Koshchi wrote:
Quote:
Though Shakespeare would be advanced English
I would not call Shakespeare "advanced" English, it is archaic English.
Wikipedia:
Quote:
By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 16th - early 17th century),[13] the language had become clearly recognisable as Modern English.
Some even go so far as to say Shakespeare defined modern English.
Smiley |
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 05:13 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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Wishing to know Visual C# better (Shudder), I built myself a program with the shakespearean insulter kit, so every 60 seconds at the bottom of my screen, it calls me something rediculous. I think the Bard himself did a better job, Thou wayward fen-sucked flap-dragon.
I'd put it in a tiny 2313 if I had a good output device handy. |
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Discursive design,
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Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 05:20 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 13815
Location: Vancouver, BC
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Quote:
By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 16th - early 17th century),[13] the language had become clearly recognisable as Modern English.
When was the last time you used an expression like "wherefore art thou"? Do you even know, without looking it up, what it means? |
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Steve A.
The Board helps those that help themselves.
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 05:45 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62220
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
Do you even know, without looking it up, what it means?
Sadly yes.
(Didn't most people here do a play like Romeo & Juliet for O-level English or whatever the exam is called in your country? The upside was the coach outing to all go and see the Zeffirelli 1968 film version and large amounts of humorous tittering from the back rows when they get it on the night before they die.  Sadly the study/exam involved analysing pretty much every sentence line by line to understand the true meaning. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun...) |
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 08:35 PM |
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Joined: Jul 02, 2005
Posts: 5921
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Torby wrote:
I'll unhair thy head
... you're too late ... nature got there before you. |
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Ross McKenzie
ValuSoft
Melbourne Australia
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 08:46 PM |
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Joined: Jan 03, 2006
Posts: 4410
Location: Hemel Hemsptead, UK
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Also yes - but my local accent used thee and thou forms well into the seventies and later: "Don't thee thou me; I'll tell thee when thee can thou me."
Studying Shakespeare as writing takes all the joy from it. If you want to know Shakespeare, get thee hence to the Globe and watch it.
Critics and literary analysts should be drowned at birth. I have a firm belief that picking words apart tells you as much about a play or a book as a kick in the balls tells you about a cobbler. |
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Neil Barnes
www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk
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Posted: May 01, 2012 - 10:23 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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| One Dr. Who companion, Ace, was supposed to be an American. She blew it once when she said to Sylvester McCoy (sp?) "Don't let's be cross." |
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Discursive design,
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Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 12:01 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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Koshchi wrote:
Quote:
By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 16th - early 17th century),[13] the language had become clearly recognisable as Modern English.
When was the last time you used an expression like "wherefore art thou"? Do you even know, without looking it up, what it means?
Of course I know what it means. I had the Bible crammed down my throat when I was kid so I'm quite familiar with thees and thous and wherefores and etc. Did you have to look it up?
I see far more difference in the English of the Cantebury Tales from 200 years before Shakespeare than I do in his work and what we see 400 years later.
I think my argument was with 'archaic'. I don't see much more difference in most of Shakespeare versus what is spoken today than I see the difference in what I learned growing up (in a very rural Southern area) and what is spoken today. I'd almost be willing to say that there is less difference between Shakespeare and modern English than what is spoken in British pubs versus what is spoken in our honky-tonks.
But I do agree that reading Shakespeare doesn't help a non-English speaker learn modern English as well as say watching every episode of South Park would.
Smiely |
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 12:24 AM |
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Joined: Sep 04, 2002
Posts: 21248
Location: Orlando Florida
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| How about George Clooney, "O Brother Where Art Thou", an odd take on the Iliad and the Odessy, and its hit song, "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" |
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Imagecraft compiler user
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 12:30 AM |
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Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 6694
Location: Bellingham, WA - USA
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| But where are thou != wherefore art thou, which is (I think) Steve's point. |
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Chuck Baird
"It's better to catch the trapeze than test the safety net" -- RPi book
http://www.cbaird.org
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 01:01 AM |
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Joined: Jun 27, 2005
Posts: 3411
Location: St.Petersburg, Russia
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smileymicros wrote:
But I do agree that reading Shakespeare doesn't help a non-English speaker learn modern English as well as say watching every episode of South Park would.
That's my method. |
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 01:25 AM |
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Joined: Jul 10, 2006
Posts: 2654
Location: Minneapolis
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| I've known university grads with degrees in English that were surprised to know that "wherefore" does not mean "where" but "why". Public education sucks. |
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 03:28 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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O Romeo, Romeo!wherefore art thou Romeo?
Down in the bush you damn fool, the ladder broke. |
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 06:50 AM |
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Joined: Jan 03, 2006
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Location: Hemel Hemsptead, UK
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 09:43 AM |
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Joined: Nov 09, 2011
Posts: 395
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 10:15 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62220
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
O Romeo, Romeo!wherefore art thou Romeo?
Down in the bush you damn fool, the ladder broke.
Except that joke also fails to understand the meaning of "wherefore". It's not asking "where are you Romeo?" but "why are you Romeo?" or more accurately "why are you a Montague?". In other words, why are you a member of the family that my family has a feud with as this is gonna get real tricky. |
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 03:59 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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Whoa, learn something new ever day. Wonder wherefore I didn't already know this?
Smiley |
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Posted: May 02, 2012 - 04:30 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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Wrote this some years ago when I had a client who was afraid of going to SQL:
http://clarionconnection.com/tosql.htm |
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Discursive design,
Torby
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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Posted: May 03, 2012 - 01:19 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 13815
Location: Vancouver, BC
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Quote:
I think my argument was with 'archaic'.
From Dictionary.com:
Quote:
archaic - adjective
...
2. (of a linguistic form) commonly used in an earlier time but rare in present-day usage except to suggest the older time, as in religious rituals or historical novels. Examples: thou; wast; methinks; forsooth.
Quote:
Whoa, learn something new ever day. Wonder wherefore I didn't already know this?
So does this mean that you actually did not know the meaning, or was that a joke? |
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Steve A.
The Board helps those that help themselves.
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Posted: May 03, 2012 - 02:00 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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No, it was not a joke. I learned that 'down in the bushes' joke when I was a kid and always thought it meant wherefore was a long form for where. My problem with archaic comes from when I learned about the history of the English language which was divided into Old, Middle, and Modern the latter of which being coincident with Shakespeare and Johnson. Howsomeever, methinks I'll accept thine definition of archaic wast correct and concede total humiliating defeat forsooth yea wastrel.
Smiley |
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Posted: May 03, 2012 - 07:02 AM |
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Joined: Oct 15, 2005
Posts: 530
Location: Russia, Far East Siberia, Irkutsk
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clawson wrote:
Quote:
O Romeo, Romeo!wherefore art thou Romeo?
Down in the bush you damn fool, the ladder broke.
Except that joke also fails to understand the meaning of "wherefore".
It's very exciting but my wife understood the sentence without looking it up in a dictionary! Excellent! Unfortunately I didn't |
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Posted: May 05, 2012 - 07:14 PM |
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Joined: Nov 11, 2003
Posts: 3849
Location: Chicago Illinois USA
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You know, he could read Chaucer. Or Burns.  |
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Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
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