Vol. I, Is. 8: A Christmas Carol... and More!
Plus Newton, Days of the Week, Rabbit and Coyote, "The House That Jack Built"
Welcome to Volume I, Issue 8, of The Jim Bucket List, an encyclopedic look at the things that "everybody ought to know"!
Contents:
LITERATURE: A Christmas Carol
TIDBITS: Common Mistakes
SCIENCE: Mr. Newton's Universe
TIDBITS: Fun with Words: Malapropisms
MYTHOLOGY: The Gods, the Planets, and the Days of the Week
TIDBITS: Truly Trivial
FOR YOUNG READERS: "Rabbit Tricks Coyote"
READ-ALOUD-RHYME: "The House That Jack Built"
A WORD TO THE WISE: "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost"
VOCABULARY BUILDER: method
THIS WEEK'S BIRTHDAYS: Dec. 20-26
Let's go!
LITERATURE: A Christmas Carol
Listen to the audio of this article:
A Christmas Carol
No modern story says as much about the spirit of Christmas--in a non-religious way--as 1843's A Christmas Carol by the English novelist Charles Dickens. It tells the story of a mean old miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, and his transformation into a kind, loving person.
The story falls neatly into five parts or chapters, which Dickens called "Staves."
In the first Stave, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his late partner Jacob Marley on Christmas Eve--the seventh anniversary of Marley's death. Marley wears heavy chains and metal money boxes which he says were forged by greed during his lifetime. He has come to warn Scrooge that his cruelty to the poor and his dislike of Christmas will lead to the same dire consequences if he doesn't change his ways. Scrooge scoffs at his warning.
He also warns Scrooge that he will be visited by three "spirits," and that he must listen to their warnings.
In Stave Two, the Ghost of Christmas Past appears, and shows Scrooge scenes from earlier Christmases in which Scrooge was younger, and had not yet become as hardened. His loneliness at boarding school, his happiness as a young clerk working for a kind boss, his fiancée Belle (who finally rejects him because of his love of money), and other scenes bring forth in Scrooge a nostalgia for the man he could have been.
In Stave Three Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Present. The spirit takes him out to see people preparing to celebrate this Christmas. He sees his clerk, Bob Cratchit--whom Scrooge treats very unkindly--and sees Bob's youngest boy, Tiny Tim, who is extremely cheerful despite suffering from a handicap. The spirit tells Scrooge that if things continue as they are, Tiny Tim will die.
They then visit Christmas celebrations in other places--a miner's cottage, a lighthouse, and a ship at sea--before dropping in on a party at the home of Fred, Scrooge's nephew. Fred had invited Scrooge to the party, but with a "Bah! Humbug!" he had refused to attend.
At last, the spirit reveals under his long robe two horrible, emaciated children named Ignorance and Want--the hidden side of these celebrations. When Scrooge expresses concern for them, the spirit mocks his sudden burst of compassion.
In Stave Four, Scrooge meets the third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. On a Christmas Day in the future, Scrooge sees the mourning of Bob Cratchit's family at the death of Tiny Tim.
He also sees that a man deeply disliked by others has died, and no one mourns his passing: they want a lunch at his funeral; they steal his goods; they rejoice that his passing will give them more time to pay their debts to his business.
When Scrooge asks who the unpopular dead man was, the silent spirit points to a neglected grave with a tombstone that reads "Ebenezer Scrooge." Sobbing now, Scrooge pledges to change his ways.
Stave Five opens on Christmas morning of the same year in which the story began. Scrooge has indeed changed: he sends a large turkey to the Cratchits, and spends the afternoon enjoying the company of Fred and his family. The next day, at work, he gives Bob Cratchit a pay raise, and he becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim, who grows stronger every day.
And "it was always said of him," we are told, "that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge."
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PRACTICE:
Vocabulary: Match the words to their meaning. Answers below.
1. dire
2. emaciated
3. forged
4. greed
5. handicap
6. hardened
7. humbug
8. miser
9. mocks
10. mourns
11. neglected
12. nostalgia
13. pledges
14. scoffs at
15. transformation
A. a change in appearance or character
B. extremely thin
C. not maintained; forgotten and ignored
D. a physical disability
E. promises
F. created; formed
G. makes fun of
H. a desire for the past
I. dismisses; mocks
J. a very stingy person
K. a scam; also, nonsense
L. pitiless; unfeeling
M. feels sad about
N. terrible; dreadful
O. extreme love of and desire for money
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER
Answer the following questions in your own words. Suggested answers below.
What is the main point of A Christmas Carol?
What unusual things is Marley's ghost wearing, and what do they mean?
Aside from Marley's ghost, who are the "three spirits" that visit Scrooge?
Who are the children under the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present? How are they related to Christmas?
How do we know that Scrooge has really had a "change of heart"?
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT:
These questions do not have "right" or "wrong" answers. They only ask your opinion.
As the Ghosts show things, is Scrooge responsible for the death of Tiny Tim?
What responsibility do we have to help the people around us? How much of our own desires should we give up to meet those needs?
Is Scrooge right to think that Christmas (as most people celebrate it today) is a "humbug"?
TIDBITS: Common Mistakes
WRONG: I was so excited, I waited with baited breath.
RIGHT: I was so excited, I waited with bated breath.
MEANING: I held my breath (with excitement).
TIP: Bated comes from "abated," meaning "lessened, reduced." When one's breath is (a)bated, it's barely happening. ("Baited breath" might work if you've been eating anchovies!)
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WRONG: Our candidate can't lose! She's a shoe-in!
RIGHT: Our candidate can't lose! She's a shoo-in!
MEANING: a shoo-in is certain to succeed, and especially to win a competition
TIP: To shoo somebody or something is to chase them, usually away. "Shoo, cat!" The phrase shoo-in originates in horse racing, where a "rigged winner"--a type of cheating--was figuratively shooed in by powerful criminal interests. You couldn't lose betting on a "shoo-in"!
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WRONG: Have an hors-d'oeuvre; it will wet your appetite.
RIGHT: Have an hors-d'oeuvre; it will whet your appetite.
MEANING: It will increase or sharpen your appetite.
TIP: Whet literally means to "sharpen something"; knives are sharpened on a whetstone. So to whet one's appetite means to "sharpen one's desire for food."
SCIENCE: Mr. Newton's Universe
Listen to the audio of this article:
Mr. Newton's Universe
The English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is famous, and for good reason--after all, not many people have had a universe named after them!
According to the Julian calendar, which England used at the time, Newton was born on Christmas Day. Although many countries were using the Gregorian calendar by the time he was born, England did not make the change until 1752--nearly a quarter of a century after he was born. We use the designation "O.S." or "Old Style" to refer to Julian dates; "N.S." or "New Style" means Gregorian dates. So Sir Isaac was born December 25, 1642 O.S., and January 4, 1643 N.S.
His father, a farmer also named Isaac, died three months before the boy was born. Young Isaac was born prematurely, and--after his mother remarried when the boy was just three years old--was raised by his grandmother. (He despised his mother's new husband, and wrote in a journal that he had once threatened to burn them both "and the house over them"!)
As a young man, Newton may once have been engaged, but he never married. He studied Latin--but not mathematics--until age 17, when his now-widowed mother tried to get him to become a farmer, a job which he hated. He returned to school and became a top student, partly to compensate for bullying by another boy.
Studying at Cambridge from age 19, he soon received scholarships and was able to complete a master's degree, studying Aristotle as well as "modern" philosophers like Descartes and the astronomers Galileo and Kepler.
Among his many accomplishments, Newton is best-known today for a few ideas, such as discovering the mathematical study of change known as calculus. (This happened at about the same time as the German scholar Leibniz discovered the same ideas, independently of Newton). Newton wrote about calculus in his best-known work, the Principia Mathematica (1687).
Another field he studied was optics. Newton determined the names we use for the seven colors in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet (remembered by the mnemonic ROY G. BIV).
Interestingly, Newton was something of a mystic. He believed that, despite its natural and knowable laws, the universe was dependent on God at its root. It is ironic, then, that the mechanical view of the world came to be referred to as "the Newtonian universe," an idea that held until Einstein presented a new model in the 20th century.
Now about that apple…
It's commonly said that one day Newton was sitting under an apple tree when a piece of fruit fell and bonked him on the head. Inspired by this, he invented gravity.
But is this story true?
Well, first, gravity cannot have been "invented" by anyone, since it is a natural property of physical things and inheres in matter. Newton called it "an attractive force."
Well, then, perhaps it was "discovered"? No. People have known from time immemorial that if you step off a high place, you will fall. The old saying is, "What goes up, must come down"!
Instead, as he himself told the story, Newton saw an apple fall (it did not hit him on the head!), and asked himself, "Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground"--that is, fall straight down--"Why should it not go sideways, or upwards? But constantly to the earth's center?" [Unless, of course, it was acted on by another force, like wind, or someone hitting it with a stick.] "Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it." This observation inspired him to formulate the laws of gravity.
Something, he thought, was pulling the apple toward the very center of the earth! His exploration of this phenomenon led him to formulate what is now called "Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation." More important to his studies than an apple was the behavior of the moon, which by logic--since it is traveling at a great speed--ought to fly off into space. What is keeping it from doing so? The answer is, the attraction between the moon and the earth--that is, gravity.
His law is best expressed as a complex mathematical formula, but let's try to put it into words:
"Every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force [gravity] that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers."
Oversimplifying, the greater the mass of an object, the greater its attraction to other objects; and the farther apart two objects are, the weaker the gravitational pull between them.
Let's just leave it at that!
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PRACTICE:
Vocabulary: Match the words to their meaning. Answers below.
1. astronomers
2. attraction
3. bullying
4. designation
5. despised
6. gravity
7. inheres (in)
8. inversely
9. mass
10. mechanical
11. mystic
12. optics
13. particle
14. perpendicularly
15. square
A. like a machine; operating without intelligent choices being made
B. the study of light
C. exists permanently and inseparably in
D. hated
E. drawing power
F. a small bit of matter
G. the force that keeps us on earth
H. the quantity of matter in something
I. a name; a description
J. at right angles to; straight up and down when compared to the earth
K. people who study the stars and planets
L. being pushed around; being picked on
M. a number times itself
N. oppositely
O. a person who has unusual, unscientific experiences of the "other world"
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER
Answer the following questions in your own words. Suggested answers below.
Which type of calendar do we use today, the Julian or the Gregorian?
What did Newton's mother want him to do?
What did Newton discover at about the same time as the German scholar Leibniz?
What was one of Newton's achievements in the field of optics?
Did Newton discover gravity?
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT:
These questions do not have "right" or "wrong" answers. They only ask your opinion.
Are you surprised to learn that Newton was a mystic? Is it strange for someone to believe in unscientific experiences and scientific principles at the same time?
Why do you think people like to say that Newton got bonked on the head by an apple?
Newton seems to have had a difficult family life. How do you think this may have affected his success as a scholar?
TIDBITS: Fun with Words: Malapropisms
Question: What's wrong with these sentences?
When she was in Spain, she loved to watch the flamingo dancers.
I must illiterate that horrible sight from my memory!
The police apprehended two auspicious persons.
I think we should limit the amount of violins children see on television.
The scientists worked late in his lavatory.
In each sentence, one of the words is wrong, but sounds very much like the correct word. They are, in order:
flamingo = flamenco
illiterate = obliterate
auspicious = suspicious
violins = violence
lavatory = laboratory
This is called a malapropism, named for a character in the 1775 play The Rivals, by the English playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The speech of one of the characters, Mrs. Malaprop, was peppered with these humorous mistakes. Can you guess what she meant by these sentences? (Answers below.)
"He is the very pine-apple of politeness!"
"I have since laid Sir Anthony's preposition before her;"
"I hope you will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether illegible."
"...she's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile."
"I am sorry to say, Sir Anthony, that my affluence over my niece is very small."
Her very name suggests the problem: The word apropos can mean "appropriate" in English, but in French it means "to the purpose." Mal, of course, means "bad" or "poorly." So Mrs. Malaprop's words often do a poor job of achieving her goals!
There have been many great "Malapropists" [my word!], some doing it on purpose for comic effect, and some by mistake. One of the masters of misstatement was the baseball player and manager Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra. Here are some of his "Yogi-isms" [not my word!] See if you can catch what he meant:
Even Napoleon had his Watergate.
It ain't the heat, it's the humility.
He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious.
Take it with a grin of salt.
Texas has a lot of electrical votes.
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Here are Mrs. Malaprop's mistakes:
pine-apple = pinnacle
preposition = proposition
illegible = eligible
allegory = alligator
affluence = influence
And Yogi's:
Watergate = Waterloo
humility = humidity
amphibious = ambidextrous
a grin of salt = a grain of salt
electrical votes = electoral votes
Now try writing some of your own!
MYTHOLOGY: The Gods, the Planets, and the Days of the Week
Listen to the audio of this article:
The Gods, the Planets, and the Days of the Week
The Chinese system of naming the days of the week is very sensible. It counts the days in order from 1-6, starting with Monday. But why isn't Sunday Number 7? It's easy to see that Sunday is Sun Day: It uses the Chinese symbol for the sun, 日, instead of a number. This tells us that the ancient Chinese seven-day week shares Babylonian roots with the western week.
Now, as for the days' names in English: just as Sunday is the Sun's Day, it's easy to see that Monday is "Moon Day" and Saturday is "Saturn's Day." But what about the other four days?
You may notice that Sun, Moon, and Saturn are things we see in the sky. In fact, the ancient Babylonians named seven visible "planets": the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. (They were a little wrong, of course; only the last five are "planets." The Sun is a star, and the Moon is a satellite of the Earth. But we'll forgive them--they didn't have telescopes!) Uranus, Neptune, and the former planet Pluto were not discovered until the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries respectively.
In fact, Sunday, Monday, and so on name not only days and planets, but also gods.
"Sun" and "Moon" are good Germanic words. The Romans called the Sun "Sol" and the Moon "Luna": these names survive in the adjectives "solar" and "lunar." But "sun" comes from the German "Sunne," the name of the Sun goddess in Germanic (or "Norse") mythology. And the German word for "Moon" actually came from the word "Mani," the name of the Norse Moon goddess. Saturn is the name of the sixth planet and its god in both English and German, and nearly the same in Latin (Saturnus).
With the other four days, we have to do some "comparative mythology."
Mars is the Roman god of war. His equivalent in German mythology was a god named Tyr. In Old English this became Tiw, so the day was Tiwes' Day--Tuesday. Notice that in Latin-derived languages, the name reveals its connection to Mars: in French, it's Mardi (think of "Mardi Gras"--Fat Tuesday!), and in Spanish, Martes.
Mercury was a messenger god. Unfortunately, things get a little confused here for English speakers. Wednesday is "Woden's Day," but the god Wodin (or Odin) is not a messenger: he's the king of the gods. Perhaps the confusion came because stories of Odin often include birds used as messengers. The French say Mercredi, and the Spanish Miercoles: both sound like "Mercury."
Thursday is more straightforward: Thor of the Germanic peoples is a thunder god with a bad temper, much like the hotheaded Roman Jupiter or Greek Zeus. (Though, in Greco-Roman mythology, he is the king of the gods.) The French call this Jeudi, and the Spanish say Jueves, both keeping the ju- sound of Jupiter.
Finally, everybody loves Friday! And that's fitting, because the Germanic goddess Frigg (also called Freya) is the goddess of love and fertility, like the Roman Venus. Friday is Frigg's Day. (Incidentally, she was the wife of Odin.) In French, this is Vendredi, and in Spanish, Viernes.
And so the Norse gods are hiding in the names of most of our days in English!
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PRACTICE:
Which of the seven days: (Answers below.)
doesn't have a number in Chinese?
is named for a god of war?
would be Number 4 in Chinese?
is named for the Norse king of gods?
has a name in other languages related to the word "lunar"?
is named for a Norse god parallel to Jupiter (Zeus)?
is named for Odin's wife?
is named for a god with virtually the same name in three languages?
is named for a guy who used birds as messengers?
is named for a star, not a planet?
is named for someone named "Tyr"?
is named for the love goddess?
is named for a goddess named "Mani"?
is named for a guy with a hammer?
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER
Answer the following questions in your own words. Suggested answers below.
What system do the modern Chinese mostly use to name the days of the week?
What culture gave us (and the ancient Chinese) the system of naming the seven weekdays for planets?
What are the so-called "Seven Visible Planets" after which the days of the week are named?
Which modern languages (among others) use names for the weekdays that are very near those of the Roman gods?
Aside from the Greco-Roman gods' names, what culture's mythology contributed names to the English days of the week?
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT:
These questions do not have "right" or "wrong" answers. They only ask your opinion.
Why do you think the modern week has exactly seven days (even when just numbers are used)?
Why do you think people named planets (and weekdays) for gods?
Four (or five) cultures are mentioned in this article: the Babylonians, the Chinese, the Romans (and the Greeks), and the Norse. What other connections do you know of between these cultures?
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TIDBITS: Truly Trivial
Did you know?
What's your name again?: Daisy is a corruption of the words "day's eye" (Chaucer called the flower the "eye of the day"), as some species close at night and reopen in the morning. Some types of daisies are called marguerite in French; the woman's name "Daisy" can be a nickname for Margaret. But Marguerite/Margaret itself comes from a Greek or Persian or Sanskrit word for Pearl--another nickname for Margaret, as is Peggy, from Meggy, from Margaret. Recapping: Margaret/Marguerite may be called Meggy, Peggy, Pearl, or Daisy. Huh.
A little loud for ya?: The word noise came into English from the French nausea, which has the same meaning as in English: sickness to one's stomach. That word, however, comes from Greek naus meaning "ship" (as in nautical and, eventually, navy). There's another word, noisome, that can mean offensive (like a smell), or bad for the health.
Ew!: Take a look at an avocado. Does it remind you of anything? It would if you were an Aztec: they thought it looked like a testicle, called in the Nahuatl language ahuacatl (which came through Spanish as aguacate). Maybe that's why folks in the old days preferred to call it an alligator pear.
FOR YOUNG READERS: “Rabbit Tricks Coyote”
Listen to the audio of this article:
"Rabbit Tricks Coyote"
This article is designed for younger readers, with activities more suitable for children. It is from Native American stories.
A coyote is a kind of small wolf or wild dog that lives in the western United States. In Native American stories, Coyote is a kind of "trickster" who tries to play jokes on others. But he's not very good at it and often, Rabbit tricks him instead!
Here's a story about them.
One day Coyote saw Rabbit eating some grass and said, "I'm hungry! I'm going to eat you!"
"Oh," Rabbit said, "you don't want to eat me! I'm too skinny! But some people over at that ranch are cooking a juicy chicken. Let me bring you some!"
So Coyote waited as Rabbit ran toward the hills. But when Rabbit didn't come back, Coyote followed Rabbit's tracks. When Coyote found him, Rabbit was standing by the wall of a cliff, leaning on it with his front feet.
"What are you doing?" Coyote asked.
"I am holding up this cliff," Rabbit replied. "Come help me and hold it up while I go get the food I told you about." So, Coyote pushed his paws against the cliff as Rabbit ran off. After a while he grew tired, and he was still hungry. Finally, he let go of the cliff and jumped back--but of course nothing happened! Once again, he followed Rabbit's tracks.
When he caught him, Coyote said, "This time I really am going to eat you!"
But again Rabbit promised him that he would bring the food, and again he ran off. Coyote waited.
Instead of bringing the food, Rabbit started a fire that burned all the brush around Coyote. He ran back and said, "The party's a lot of fun! Do you hear the fireworks, and smell them burning? The food will just be a few more minutes!" And he ran off again.
Coyote danced and sang as he waited, until at last the fire came to him and burned him up.
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Some words to talk about:
cliff: like a wall made of rock
fireworks: something that explodes, usually in the sky, with bright colors for people to watch
leaning: resting one's body against
paws: an animal's feet
ranch: a place where cows or horses are raised
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QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:
Choose the best answer. Answers below.
1. What did Rabbit promise Coyote at the beginning of the story?
A. Rabbit promised he would bring Coyote some fireworks.
B. Rabbit promised he would let Coyote eat him.
C. Rabbit promised he would bring Coyote some chicken to eat.
2. Why was Rabbit leaning on the cliff?
A. Rabbit wanted Coyote to bring him some fireworks.
B. Rabbit wanted Coyote to think the cliff was falling.
C. Rabbit wanted Coyote to bring him some chicken.
3. What did Coyote do when he got tired of pushing on the cliff?
A. Coyote let Rabbit help him hold up the cliff.
B. Coyote let the cliff fall on him.
C. Coyote let go of the cliff and jumped back.
4. When Rabbit lit the brush on fire, what did he tell Coyote?
A. Rabbit told Coyote there were fireworks.
B. Rabbit told Coyote he smelled chicken.
C. Rabbit told Coyote to go back to the cliff.
5. What happened to Coyote at the end of the story?
A. At the end of the story, Coyote went back to the cliff.
B. At the end of the story, Coyote burned up and died.
C. At the end of the story, Coyote ate some chicken.
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT:
These questions do not have "right" or "wrong" answers. They only ask your opinion.
Why does Coyote keep telling Rabbit he's going to eat him, instead of sneaking up on him and tricking him?
Why do you think Coyote keeps trying to catch Rabbit, even when Rabbit is clearly smarter than he is?
Do you think it's right for Rabbit to kill Coyote?
READ-ALOUD-RHYMES: “The House That Jack Built”
Listen to the audio of this article:
"The House That Jack Built"
Parents and teachers can read these rhymes aloud, and encourage little ones to repeat and even memorize them (I did when I was a kid!)
Okay, this one is long, but so much fun! It's what we call a cumulative or progressive tale: one that starts with a simple scene, then builds scene upon scene.
See the "Activities" below for some ways to have fun with this.
This is the house that Jack built.
This is the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the cat,
That caught the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the dog,
That barked at the cat,
That caught the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the cow with the crumpled horn,
That chased the dog,
That barked at the cat,
That caught the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That chased the dog,
That barked at the cat,
That caught the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That chased the dog,
That barked at the cat,
That caught the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That chased the dog,
That barked at the cat,
That caught the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That chased the dog,
That barked at the cat,
That caught the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.This is the farmer sowing the corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That chased the dog,
That barked at the cat,
That caught the rat,
That ate the cheese
That sat in the house that Jack built.
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Some words to talk about:
cock: rooster; male chicken
crowed: went "cock-a-doodle-dooo!"
crumpled: bent; wrinkled up
forlorn: sad
maiden: girl; young woman
morn: morning
shaven and shorn: smooth-faced and with a haircut
sowing: planting in the ground
tattered: in pieces; torn up
ACTIVITIES
To start with, look at the last verse, and be sure your kid understands the connections from one step to the next. Start with new words; then actions; then the "link" between lines ("How is the farmer connected to the rooster?" etc.)
Now you're ready to start memorizing from the top. Start with the house and the cheese, and have your kid "pretend" like we did with "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe": "sit" like the cheese, "eat" like the rat, and so on. With each verse, add another action until you've learned them all.
If there is more than one kid available, have them take different parts: one kid (the cow holding fingers up like horns, and one is "crumpled") chases the dog, and so on.
When your kid (and you!) get good at reciting it, speed it up.
Discussion: This would be a good rhyme to use for a discussion of connections between people, animals, plants, the earth, and so on--Beginning Ecology. You could also trace the "chain" of everyday things in your house: Where does cheese come from? Start with milk, then cows, then grain, farmers, the soil, and all the way up to rain!
Words to the Wise: "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost"
Proverb: "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost"
This is actually a summation of a longer "poem":
"For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
"For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
"For want of a horse the rider was lost.
"For want of a rider the battle was lost.
"For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
"And all for the want of a nail."
Meaning: Seemingly-small events--or even mistakes--can have big consequences.
"Want" here means "lack" or "absence"; that is, the named thing (nail, shoe, horse, etc.) is missing.
This is something like the modern idea known as the "Butterfly Effect," where the small air motion made when a butterfly flaps its wing contributes to the formation of a hurricane.
Dialogue: Josh looks upset; Sarah asks why.
Sarah: Hey, Josh. What's wrong?
Josh: Well, I was supposed to have a big meeting with my adviser today, to file my graduation papers. I've missed the meeting a couple of times before, and today was the last chance before the deadline. But I missed the appointment!
Sarah: How did that happen?
Josh: Well, to get here on time, I have to catch a 7:40 bus.
Sarah: Yeah...
Josh: My sister was supposed to wake me up, and she didn't.
Sarah: Why not?
Josh: Because she was so tired when she went to bed last night that she forgot to set her alarm.
Sarah: Why was she so tired?
Josh: She was up late working on a big project for school.
Sarah: Why didn't she do it earlier in the evening?
Josh: Because she had to fix dinner. My mom couldn't do that because she got home too late.
Sarah: OK, why was your mom so late?
Josh: Because she had a flat tire. She ran over a nail. And because of that, I might not graduate on time, and I might not get the college of my choice, and I might be a total failure in life!
Sarah: And all because of a nail? Hmmm... That reminds me of a poem...
QUESTION:
In which situation would you use the proverb, "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost"? The correct answer is in the first comment below.
A. Michelle forgot to get a flu shot, but fortunately she never caught the flu from anyone.
B. Bob couldn't find his keys; was late to work; lost his job; and so on; and now he's homeless.
C. Terry took the wrong exit and ended up in a strange neighborhood, but finally returned to the freeway and reached his destination.
Vocabulary Builder: method
method (noun)
Meaning: a procedure, technique, or way of doing something, usually by following a definite plan
Some methods--such as the Stanislavsky Method of acting--might be referred to in context as "the Method."
Plural: methods
Verb Forms: methodize, methodizes, methodized, methodizing
Meaning: create a method for doing something
Noun Forms:
methodology (plural: methodologies): a system of methods, as used in the arts or sciences, or the study of such methods: "the specific methodology for repairing ecosystems"
antimethod (rare) (plural: antimethods): a method that goes against the one usually used: "When western medicine didn't cure her, she turned to the antimethod of Chinese herbalism." OR an approach that avoids using a method entirely: "Despite his use of antimethod, he still managed to arrive at solution."
antimethodology (rare) (plural: antimethodologies): a system of antimethods.
Adjective Forms:
methodical: systematic; orderly; carefully following a method
methodological: related to a methodology: "a methodological foundation for repairing ecosystems"
methodless: without a method; random. "A methodless approach seldom gets the desired results."
Adverb Forms:
methodically: carefully following a method: "He cleaned the windows methodically, left to right, top to bottom."
methodologically: in a methodological way: "Her research project was methodologically sound."
BONUS: In the 18th century, Church of England minister John Wesley developed a "method" of spiritual practice that evolved into the Methodist Church. Adherents are called "Methodists" (singular: Methodist); the theology is called "Methodism."
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PRACTICE:
Place the correct form of "method" in each sentence. Answers below.
1. antimethod
2. method
3. methodical
4. methodically
5. Methodist
6. methodize
7. methodized
8. methodizing
9. methodless
10. methodological
11. methodologically
12. methodologies
13. methodology
14. methods
A. Thinking ________ is the key to success.
B. Various ________ have been tried in accounting, but the profession has settled on a few surefire systems.
C. If you need to perform a task numerous times, it's best to ________ your work flow.
D. You might not see it, but there's ________ in his madness.
E. ________ your work may take a few minutes time, but you'll save hours in the long run.
F. Working ________ improves a team's efficiency.
G. His ________ work habits cost his company hundreds of dollars a month.
H. Her team worked faster after they ________ their system.
I. When the usual way of doing things failed to work, Reggie used an ________ that did the trick.
J. Modern ________ of sanitation are improving public health worldwide.
K. My mother never goes to church, but she still considers herself a ________.
L. ________ studies of efficiency can help your company increase its profits.
M. If you're going to work with chemicals in a laboratory, you need to be ________.
N. I think your hypothesis is sound, but your ________ is preventing you from getting the best results.
THIS WEEK'S BIRTHDAYS: Dec. 20-26
The following "Great Minds" were born this week:
December 20
George Roy Hill (1922-2002) American film director of such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (nominated: Best Director Oscar) and The Sting (won: Best Director Oscar), both with Paul Newman and Robert Redford; as well as Slaughterhouse-Five, The World According to Garp, and others.
Sandra Cisneros (1954 - ) American author and poet best known for her first novel, a coming-of-age story called The House on Mango Street, and her short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories.
Alain de Botton (1969 - ) Swiss-born British philosopher and author who explores philosophy's relevance to everyday life in books like Essays in Love, How Proust Can Change Your Life, etc. Founder of The School of Life.
December 21
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English lawyer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who wrote over 15 novels--some of them while in office--as well as poetry, a drama, and non-fiction books.
Albert Payson Terhune (1872-1942) American author, dog breeder, and journalist who wrote around 70 books, many of them about dogs, specifically his collies, including Lad: A Dog.
Rebecca West, pen name of Cicily Isabel Fairfield (1892-1983) English journalist and novelist called by Time Magazine in 1947, "indisputably the world's number one woman writer."
Anthony Powell (1905-2000) English novelist best known for his 12-volume A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975), an examination of mid-20th century English politics, culture, and military, and one of the longest novels ever written in English.
Jeffrey Katzenberg (1950 - ) American movie exec, chairman of Walt Disney Studios for a decade (during which Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King were produced), and co-founder and CEO of DreamWorks Animation (overseeing Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda).
December 22
Jean Racine (1639-1699) French writer of elegant, hard-edged plays; Phèdre; Andromaque; Athalie
Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915) French scientist who wrote lively works on insects, especially for younger readers; try Fabre's Book of Insects.
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) Italian composer of operas; La Boheme; Manon Lescaut; Tosca; Madama Butterfly; Turandot
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) American poet; three Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry in one decade: Collected Poems (1922); The Man Who Died Twice (1925); Tristram (1928). He was also nominated four times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
December 23
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) French literary critic widely translated into English; "What Is a Classic?" (the answer may surprise you!); "Montaigne."
December 24
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) English poet and critic, as well as school inspector; "Dover Beach"; "The Scholar-Gipsy"; "Thyrsis"; Culture and Anarchy; Literature and Dogma
Michael Curtiz (1886-1962) Hungarian-American filmmaker of some of the best:; Casablanca (Best Director Oscar); Angels with Dirty Faces; Yankee Doodle Dandy; Mildred Pierce; White Christmas
Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) amusing American fantasy and science fiction writer, most famous for stories starring his characters Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
December 25
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English natural philosopher (scientist), and something of a mystic to boot; Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy)
William Collins (1721-1759) English poet second in influence in his time only to Thomas Gray (see December 26); Persian Eclogues
Cab Calloway (1907-1994) larger-than-life American performer and bandleader; "Minnie the Moocher"; "Saint James Infirmary"; "Kicking the Gong Around"; "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea"; Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2008)
December 26
Thomas Gray (1716-1771) English poet; "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"; "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes"
Jean Toomer (1894-1967) American poet and novelist who resisted being classified as a "Negro writer," best known for the novel Cane. He was later a follower spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff.
Henry Miller (1891-1980) American writer of notoriously naughty books; Tropic of Cancer; Black Spring; Tropic of Capricorn; The Colossus of Maroussi; The Rosy Crucifixion (Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus)
Audio from this issue:
ANSWERS
A Christmas Carol
Vocabulary: 1. N; 2. B; 3. F; 4. O; 5. D; 6. L; 7. K; 8. J; 9. G; 10. M; 11. C; 12. H; 13. E; 14. I; 15. A
Questions to Answer (suggested answers; yours may be written slightly differently)
A Christmas Carol teaches that we should be kinder and take better care of the people around us.
The "three spirits" that visit Scrooge are the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come.
Marley's ghost is wearing chains and heavy money boxes, representing the burden he bears for being greedy all his life.
The children under the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present are "Ignorance" and "Want." They are the things people ignore while they enjoy their own Christmas celebrations.
We know that Scrooge has really had a "change of heart" because he shows it in his actions, not just in words.
Questions to Think About do not have any single correct answer. However, any answers you give should be supported by what you read or by things you know ("I think... because...").
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Mr. Newton's Universe
Vocabulary: 1. K; 2. E; 3. L; 4. I; 5. D; 6. G; 7. C; 8. N; 9. H; 10. A; 11. O; 12. B; 13. F; 14. J; 15. M
Questions to Answer (suggested answers; yours may be written slightly differently)
We use the Gregorian calendar.
Newton's mother wanted him to be a farmer (like his father).
Newton discovered calculus at about the same time as Leibniz.
Newton determined the names we use for the seven colors in the rainbow.
No, Newton didn't discover gravity. But he formulated a law that describes how gravity works.
Questions to Think About do not have any single correct answer. However, any answers you give should be supported by what you read or by things you know ("I think... because...").
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The Gods, the Planets, and the Days of the Week
Practice: 1. Sunday; 2. Tuesday; 3. Saturday; 4. Wednesday; 5. Monday; 6. Thursday; 7. Friday; 8. Saturday; 9. Wednesday; 10. Sunday; 11. Tuesday; 12. Friday; 13. Monday; 14. Thursday
Questions to Answer (suggested answers; yours may be written slightly differently)
The modern Chinese mostly name the days of the week using numbers.
The Babylonians gave us (and the ancient Chinese) the system of naming the seven weekdays for planets.
The "Seven Visible Planets" are: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.
French and Spanish (among others) use names for the weekdays that are very near those of the Roman gods.
Some of the names of weekdays in English come from the Norse culture.
Questions to Think About do not have any single correct answer. However, any answers you give should be supported by what you read or by things you know ("I think... because...").
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"Rabbit Tricks Coyote"
Questions to Answer: 1. C; 2. B; 3. C; 4. A; 5. B
Questions to Think About do not have any single correct answer. However, any answers you give should be supported by what you read or by things you know ("I think... because...").
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"For want of a nail the kingdom was lost"
Question: 1. B
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Vocabulary Builder: method
Practice: 1. I; 2. D; 3. M; 4. F; 5. K; 6. C; 7. H; 8. E; 9. G; 10. L; 11. A; 12. B; 13. N; 14. J