The Bard of Ye Olde England

Shakespeare.

If someone ever mentions the name, we think of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, or funny love stories that become more and more complicated after the turn of each page. Not only has dear Will contributed to our entertainment industry and to England's heritage and tourism income, but he has contributed just as much to our language, though so many of us are unaware of this. And no, they aren't just silly words that mean nothing to us anymore, they are everyday words that we may use whenever we want to express ourselves. That takes some skill.

I am going to provide a list of words first recorded in Shakespeare's works; see if you would ever have expected it of him!

1) Accused (noun). First recorded in Richard III, the word was already a verb from the Latin 'causa', but Shakespeare used it as a noun. It is now commonly used in trials.


Extract: "Face to face / And frowning brow to brow ourselves will hear / The accused and the accuser freely speak"


2) Blushing (adjective). This was used in Richard II. It was also used in Henry VIII and two of Shakespeare's poems called Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.


Extract: When the angry king's face is compared to "the blushing discontented sun".


3) Cater (verb). This word derives from the Middle English noun meaning 'buyer of provisions'. Shakespeare includes 'cater' in As You Like It, when an old servant is talking to Orlando.


Extract: "Take that and He that doth the ravens feed / Yea, providently caters for the sparrow / Be comfort to my age!"


4) Critic (noun). This is used by Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost when Berowne is complaining, having made fun of others for being in love. Shakespeare was, indeed, constantly criticised for his work so it is not entirely surprising that he made up 'critic'.


Extract: "I...have been love's whip / A critic, nay, a night-watch constable".


5) Denote (verb). This is used in Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, said by Friar Lawrence when admonishing Romeo for contemplating suicide. It is from the Latin meaning 'to mark or note out'.


Extract: "Thy wild acts denote / The unreasonable fury of a beast".


6) Frugal (adjective). This word can be found in the comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor, in the scene where Mistress Page is surprised to receive a love letter from someone unexpected. It derives from the Latin word 'frugalis' which means 'frugal or virtuous".


Extract: "Why, he hath not been thrice in my company!... I was then frugal of my mirth".


Here are some briefer examples too:

aerial / aggravate / brittle / bump / castigate / countless / cranny / critical / dwindle / eventful / excellent / fitful / fragrant / frugal / gnarled / gust / hint / homicide / hurry / lonely / majestic / monumental / obscene / pedant / radiance / submerge / summit / 

bare-faced / blood-stained / cloud-capped (towers) / fancy-free / fore-father / ill-starred / heaven-kissing (hill) / lacklustre (eye) / leap-frog / snow-white.

I do hope you enjoyed this bite of knowledge. I think it is so inspiring that one man created so many words that we use in everyday language. Imagine trying to do that...


By Jess

Word of the Day

Still listing words from the first chapter of The Great Gatsby, because there were just so many. F. Scott Fitzgerald is officially one of my idols.

Today's Word:

Genuflect

1. To express a servile attitude (passive or obeying)
2. To bend the knee in worship or reverence

Sentence example: The servant genuflected in his master's presence because he needed to be respected.

Word origin: 'Genu' in Latin means 'knee' and 'flectere' means 'to bend'

Just to let everyone know, Talia has had to go into hospital for surgery (this little anecdote is not from our school obviously). She is fine, but it means that she won't be blogging for a while. Everyone wish her to get well soon!

By Jess

Word of the Day

I think we are all guilty of this in our essay-based exams...

Today's Word:

Trite

Lacking in freshness or effectiveness because of overuse by excessive repetition.

Sentence example: She found it difficult to take his trite argument seriously.

By Jess

Good Morning America

At The English Review we are always looking for ways to expand our audience and cater to more people's English related needs. This is just a quick post to say that we would love to know what our American readers would like to see more of, whether it be words, books, music, films or any other category that has some semblance of English attached to it.

Either comment below with suggestions or email us at: tburrows@godolphinandlatymer.com  or
                                                                                  jhof@godolphinandlatymer.com

Word of the Day

The word for today is one I happened upon whilst whiling away my free time (yes that's right, I am a FREE woman,) on YouTube and Google.

Exegesis:

Critical explanation or analysis, especially of a text

Sentence Example: To understand her homework assignment it would take an exegesis of the source and she was tired, therefore she instead watched the dancing cockatoo on YouTube.

I have included a link of the dancing cockatoo, since it really is highly entertaining.

By Talia

Word of the Day

I thought I would stay true to this season of our year. Just in the nick of time.

Today's Word:

Vigil

Alertness or wakefulness during the hours usually dedicated to sleep.

Sentence example: All night, the vigil caused by anxiety kept her awake, which was a dreadful problem because she had an exam the next morning.

By Jess

Word of the Day

Here is another word, still from the first chapter of The Great Gatsby. Don't you all feel super intellectual?

Today's Word:

Extemporise

To improvise, whether it be with speech, music or just general life.

Sentence example: Annie felt she had to extemporise in her audition as she had forgotten to learn her monologue.

*DISCLAIMER: We at T.E.R. do not recommend following Annie's example. It's scary and makes you shake a lot.*

By Jess

What happened to my sweet girl? She's gone!

So I just watched Black Swan for the third time, and still it is mesmerising. And I decided how better to share my opinion than with all you lovely people.

Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta; Closer), Mila Kunis (The Book of Eli; Friends with Benefits) and Vincent Cassel (Read My Lips; The Crimson Rivers) is a recent film that deals first and foremost with severe psychological issues and extreme striving for an ultimate perfection. Nina Sayers (Portman), is a ballerina in a New York City ballet company who has been wishing for the lead in a production for a long time, especially with her obsessively protective mother telling she deserves it non-stop. When the previous lead female is fired for being too old and past-it, Nina lands herself the role of the Swan Queen in the company's production of Swan Lake, though she does this in a not entirely P.C. way. I shan't elaborate. I will only hint that the director is male.

Anyway, a new addition to the company, Lily (Kunis), arrives and immediately Nina feels threatened. We all know that feeling. I can relate especially to Nina when the director, Thomas Leroy (Cassel), makes it known to poor Nina that he clearly admires Lily and her "passion" for ballet. She is so afraid of being replaced, and perhaps this is what stems a lot of the rest of the storyline.

If you do not know the ballet, let me help you. The White Swan falls for the Prince, but when her evil twin, the Black Swan, seduces him, leading him to reject and hence forget about the White Swan, she kills herself in despair. As 'Swan Queen', Nina has to play both parts immaculately. Precision is not a problem for Nina: she is always accurate and flawless; but it is also her main problem. Leroy insists that the Black Swan has to be passionate and carefree, i.e. a bit like Lily. So when Lily is made the understudy or alternate of the Swan Queen, Nina goes crazy. Not that she was particularly sane before that.

What we see in Black Swan is the production season through Nina's eyes, leading up to the grand performance. As previously mentioned, though, Nina is slightly insane, in that she is extremely paranoid and has magnificently vivid hallucinations. The point is, we are seeing the film through Nina's eyes, so half the time something will occur, the audience is shocked / upset / in a terrible awe; then it will turn out to have been a hallucination. This is what makes the film so thrilling. The goosebumps factor comes in when they play the Swan Lake theme tune in all its delicate glory, whilst her music box plays and the ballerina spinning has eerily had its top half broken off.

The contrast between Nina and Lily is pointed out all the time in Black Swan. Lily always wears black and has tattoos and swears a lot; whereas Nina wears white and is quiet and reserved. However, both have the girly, high voice typical of ballerinas and this sometimes confuses the two of them, especially when it is too dark to see who it is. The cleverness of this staggers me. We do see, however, a change in Nina as the film progresses. When she dons her Black Swan costume after committing a particularly heinous act, she dances as she never has before, with passion and insanity. I shan't tell you the ending, but it is as spectacular as the rest of the film.

Black Swan seems to me to be a bit like marmite. If you love it, you love it. And if not, then you hate it. So many people have reviewed it so badly yet so many have reviewed it so well and by that you know it's going to be hard-hitting. A friend said to me that she found it slightly far-fetched, which is true in a way, but so incorrect in another. Do you see what I mean? The questions are endless. Please do see it if you were unfortunate enough to miss it on the big screen.

Here is the trailer just to persuade you even further:





By Jess

Word of the Day

In case you have been completely mind-boggled by the post below mine I thought I would add a single 'Word of the Day' for you all to learn (on top of the ones below of course - you can never know too many words).

Hegemony:

The political, economic, ideological or cultural power exerted by a dominant group over other groups.

Sentence Example:
The Labour Party were afraid of the hegemony displayed by the Conservative party, and believed that electoral reform was the only way to break their political dominance.

By Talia

Words About Words - Word of the Day Special

For every literary geek out there, and also those who are not so literary and geeky, here is a one of a kind 'word of the day' post just for you. Useful in essays, poetry analysis, and just in general conversation, if you care about words, you'll care about words about words too.

Be prepared:

Acronym: A word formed by the first letters of the phrase that it represents.
Example - 'NASA' stands for 'National Aeronautics and Space Administration'


Anagram: A word which is just another word with its letters jumbled up.
Example - 'married' and 'admirer'

Antonym: A word which means the opposite to another word.
Example - 'light' and 'dark'

Capitonym: A word whose meaning depends on whether or not it is capitalised.
Example - to 'polish' the brass is not the same as a 'Polish' man

Heteronym: A word with the same spelling as another word, though they are pronounced and mean different things.
Example - 'so' as opposed to 'sew'


Holonym: A word whose meaning denotes it as the whole that another word is part of.
Example - 'bedroom' as it relates to 'bed'

Homonym: A word which is pronounced and spelt the same as another word but means something different.

Example - a dog with a 'bark' as opposed to 'bark' on a tree

Homophone: A word which is pronounced the same as another word but means something different.
Example - 'witch' and 'which'

Isogram: A word or phrase with no repeated letters.
Example - 'botany'


Logogram: A symbol that represents a written and spoken word
Example - '&' relating to 'and'


Meronym: A word whose meaning denotes it as a part of another word's meaning.
Example - 'bed' as it relates to 'bedroom'


Neologism: A newly invented word or phrase.
Example - Shakespeare made up words such as 'submerge' and 'majestic'. A full post to come on this soon.


Onomatopoeia: A word which is a sound.
Example - 'cluck'


Palindrome: A word or name which is spelt the same backwards as it is forwards.
Example - 'Hannah'

Paronym: A word from a foreign language that is not changed when used in a different language
Example - 'tsunami'


Portmanteau: A word formed by mixing other words, whose meanings relate to the word
Example - 'telethon'


Retronym: A word that is the adapted form of an older term.
Example - 'bar soap' only became a term when soap started to appear as liquid or gel


Synonym: A word which means the same as another word.
Example - 'tedious' and 'monotonous'

I know these sorts of words can be a wee bit mind-boggling, but just think if you knew them all and just included them in general conversation. You would be a legend.

By Jess

Hungry for more?

I have just finished reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Before you point out that it is not exactly an adult book I would like to point out that reading should be for pleasure, and when my mind has been invaded by the UK constitution and about one thousand Cabinet members, I feel like reading a book that is not too challenging. So for two days I cast aside Anna Karenina (yes I am still reading it, I swear) and picked up The Hunger Games, and I do not regret it.

The novel follows the story of Katniss Everdeen who lives in the post-apocalyptic country of Panem, which is where North America used to stand, in the poorest of areas; District 12. The Hunger Games are an annual televised event shown in every district in Panem, organised by the omnipotent and cruel government in the Capitol, where one male and one female "tribute" from each  of the twelve Districts are put in an arena and forced to fight until only one victor remains alive. Think Big Brother but with killing rather than challenges and more intelligent contestants. Katniss volunteers to enter the Games in place of her younger sister and is forced to take part in the contest she had tried her whole life to avoid.

I think that part of the brilliance of the novel lies not only in the creativity of the idea but also in the way Collins creates a very real and understandable environment for the reader. Despite the entirely different world that the book is set in, it is not a place completely divorced from our lives in the 21st Century. Before the "tributes" take part in The Hunger Games they are put through rapid media training and have an image recreation, they are manipulated by those around them to project an image that is meant to gain them favour with the public. The same thing happens with celebrities today, especially the 'flash-in-the-pan' or '30 seconds of fame' type celebrities that are produced by reality TV shows, where your image is everything. Whilst reading it I felt appalled at all the people of Panem who just let this happen every year and sit back and watch children kill each other and themselves for enjoyment, but is that not just a few steps down the line from watching I'm a Celebrity...Get me out of here! ? Obviously I am aware there is a difference between eating bugs and eating a human because you are starving (an example from the book not my head!) but the passivity displayed by the spectators is definitely not alien to our modern times.

The Hunger Games is currently being made into a movie. It is being directed by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville) and will star Jennifer Lawrence (yes the one who got an Oscar nomination for her first movie last year,) Josh Hutcherson (Little Manhattan, Bridge to Terabithia) and Liam Hemsworth (The Last Song, Miley Cyrus' ex.) If you have read this book then you will understand why I am incredibly excited about the movie, it has everything that could make a fantastic film, provided they don't deviate too much from the story itself.


Just an afterword:
I realise this post may have come across as a rant against reality TV, but let me assure you, I love many reality TV shows, especially X-Factor, The Bachelor and Shipwrecked. All three are balls of vacuous wonderfulness!

By Talia

Say it. Out loud. Vampire?

No, not vampire. I know the title of this post is misleading, but do you honestly think I would write anything about Twilight? Really? I could never stoop so low.

The Reader, a novel by Bernhard Schlink, is set in Germany from about ten to thirty years after the end of World War II. Published in 1995, it looks back at Michael Berg's life and how a certain Hanna Schmitz was involved in it so intricately and so vitally.

For those of you who have not read The Reader, I encourage you to look away if you wish to read or watch the film adaptation without any knowledge of what is coming next. However, I cannot really write any sort of interesting review if I do not spill a couple of secrets. Nothing too terrible, I promise.

Michael first meets Hanna when he is 15-years-old and quite ill, after throwing up in the street. Typically romantic, if you ask me. Anyway, Hanna cleans him up and sends him on his way. However, Michael cannot stop thinking about this mysterious woman and goes back to find her. Immediately, you know he is being a bit silly because firstly she is old enough to be his mother and secondly she doesn't strike the reader as the kindest sort. But Michael does find her eventually and over not too much time they start what I perceive to be a rather twisted relationship, in that they fornicate after school and then he reads aloud to her.

However, it isn't just a purely physical relationship. Though Michael is certainly unsure about what Hanna feels for him (she only ever calls him 'Kid'), he knows he is head-over-heels in love with her, despite her sourly pinched face and her abruptness of speech, and even when she suddenly leaves without as much as a goodbye, he still cannot stop thinking about her.

This is why it comes as a nasty surprise to Michael when he sees Hanna again years later. Michael, at this point, is studying law, and his class is attending a long, drawn-out trial, where former female SS guards are being tried for their actions. Hanna is a defendant. This is when Michael realises in horror that he fell in love with a staunch Nazi.

And this, for me, is when I started to wonder. I already knew the outcome of the story, because I saw the film when it came out, but Schmidt still managed to give me that feeling of shock that Michael must feel when he sees Hanna in front of the judge. Because Hanna's principle crime is truly horrific: the SS were told to lock a large group of women in a village church and make sure no one escaped. When bombs started to fall on the host village, there were screams erupting from the church as it burned down to the ground, but the guards, including Hanna, refused to open the doors. Why? Because no one was allowed to escape; and she was following orders. Personally, this sickens me. But then I thought about it from Hanna's point of view: if she had opened the doors, she and the other guards would probably have been killed for their disobedience. Still, there is no excuse for letting those women die.

Another philosophical point that the novel brings to mind is that of illiteracy. I recently read a series of articles about illiteracy in London, and the figures are staggering. One boy in a primary school, when asked to bring in a book for class, brought in an Argos catalogue, because in his home there were no books at all. For us at The English Review, this is sacrilegious. Hanna Schmitz is also illiterate. For this, she is sentenced to life in jail because she is accused of writing the report on the church incident, though it is impossible, for the above mentioned reason. Even in the concentration camps, Hanna had the weaker women read aloud to her before they were sent off to Auschwitz.

Then I thought about what would happen if I couldn't read, or anyone couldn't for that matter. A Rossetti poem that we studied for AS called Lalla: Reading My Verses Topsy-Turvy is where the idea of words and letters as visually pleasing is explored. Once someone can read, one cannot appreciate the visual effect of a letter. It just becomes a letter that you read (if that doesn't make sense, ask in the comments section). For example, when people look at Chinese letters, if they can't speak Mandarin, they only see a picture, perhaps visually attractive, perhaps not, but they are not reading the letter: they are looking at it as one would look at a painting. You have no idea, but trying to read the rest of a book whilst contemplating this and simultaneously trying to appreciate letters in their beauty is torturous.

I really recommend this book for anyone who is interested in WWII or in law or in anything really. It can be quite shocking in places, but nothing that requires a pillow to scream into or anything. And as I always say, please watch the film afterwards. I know Kate Winslet got the Oscar, and I admit it does stay rather true to the book, but nothing will ever beat the original words on a page.

By Jess

Words of the Day

At the moment I have just started reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so far I have found five words (well, six, but I think I may know what 'vigil' means) which I shall share with you, as always, with great suspenseful gaps of a whole day in between each. Except for today because the first one is not really one to be used in everyday conversation.

Today's Word No. 1:

Rotogravure

1. A printing process using an intaglio copper cylinder
2. A print made in this way
3. The section of the newspaper with pages printed in this way

Sentence example: Jess realised that the word 'rotogravure' was quite pointless for anyone except those in the printing or publishing business, so she decided to add another word to her post.

Today's Word No. 2:

Epigram

1. A witty or ingenious saying
2. A short, satirical poem dealing with a specific idea and ending rather wittily.

Sentence example: Oscar Wilde's plays were filled to the brim with epigrams, making them as popular and enjoyable as they are today.

By Jess

Word of the Day

Now, this word I heard quite a while ago in a Spanish class, but I thought everyone should know it because it has appeared quite a few times since (and by the way, nothing beats the feeling of coming across a particularly difficult word and you know what it means).

Today's Word:

Pedagogy

Adjective: Pedagogical

The act, principles and art of teaching.

Word Origin: From the Greek 'paidagogia' meaning 'education' or 'attendance on children'.

Sentence example: Her style was terribly pedagogical, so that everyone understood what she was talking about.

By Jess

Words of the Day

Please note the additional 's' on the end of 'Word' because today I have not one, but two new words for you. Admittedly this is because the first one is a slightly futile word but it's just fun to say and fun to know.

Avoirdupois:

1.Avoirdupois weight, a system of weights based on a pound containing 16 ounces or 7,000 grains (453.59 grams).

2.Weight; heaviness; as, a person of much avoirdupois.

Avoirdupois comes from Middle English avoir de pois, "goods sold by weight," from Old French aveir de peis, literally "goods of weight,"
N.B: "slightly" futile, not entirely futile as I can put avoirdupois into a sentence!

Sentence example: Charlotte was determined to stay active until middle age and avoirdupois took over.

The next word may not be entirely seasonally appropriate but as I just re-watched 'Home Alone' and fell back in love with Macaulay Culkin, I thought I would share it with you anyway.

Clinquant:

Glittering with gold or silver; tinselled

Sentence Example: The water had been turned clinquant by the sunset.

By Talia