Knowledge Worth Spreading

My dear students, I enjoyed seeing you all yesterday in our new classroom, and I'm happy to see that eight 1st year students have stayed in the Linguistics MA program to study with me.   Your homework this week is to continue studying chapter 1 in Meyer's  Introducing English Linguistics  and to read carefully chapter 1 in  The Little Prince.   For your 3rd writing assignment, I would like you to  write a short paper about the first chapter of  The Little Prince , giving your impressions, thoughts and opinions about it.  I am interested in what you think and feel about the story of the two drawings the author made when he was a child and the negative reaction he received from "grown-ups" (adults).  Writing about this is more important than just summarizing the chapter.  Do you think children can understand some things better than grown-ups?  Because the narrator was not taken seriously by adults, he believed his drawin...

กรุงเทพมหานคร กรุงเทพดุจเทพส้ราง เมืองศูนย์กลางการปกครอง วัด วัง งามเรืองรอง เมืองหลวงของประเทศไทย จังหวัดกาญจนบุรี • แคว้นโบราณ ด่านเจดีย์ มณีเมืองกาญจน์ สะพานข้ามแม่น้ำแคว แหล่งแร่น้ำตก • A province of ancient community, three pagodas pass, precious stones, River Kwae Bridge, Minerals and waterfall resources. จังหวัดจันทบุรี • น้ำตกลือเลื่อง เมืองผลไม้ พริกไทยพันธุ์ดี อัญมณีมากเหลือ เสื่อจันทบูร สมบูรณ์ธรรมชาติ สมเด็จพระเจ้าตากสินมหาราช รวมญาติกู้ชาติที่จันทบุรี • Magnificent Waterfalls, Fruit City, Good Breeding Peppercorns Loads of Gems, Chanthabun Mat, Fertile Nature, Gathering Place of King Taksin the Great’s Liberation Army จังหวัดฉะเชิงเทรา • แม่น้ำบางปะกงแหล่งชีวิต พระศักดิ์สิทธิ์หลวงพ่อโสธร พระยาศรีสุนทรปราชญ์ภาษาไทย อ่างฤๅไนป่าสมบูรณ์ • The Bountiful Bang Pakong River,the Sacred Buddha Image of Luangpho Sothon, Phraya Si Sunthon the Scholar of Thai Language, and the Pristine Ang Rue Nai Forest • จังหวัดชลบุรี  • ทะเลงาม ข้าวหลามอร่อย อ้อยหวาน จักสานดี ...

Are you boring? What? Where? I don't think "site" means web site Too many plurals Bride or bridge? Join or Attend? Translated from Russian? Well, yes, but... I hope not! Is this a sign for soi dogs? In what? Put it where? But I wanted to eat fried wrm! (Worm) They might do something they shouldn't! Monk's room would be fine. The picture is clear but not the word What are they selling? What do you mean by "no moon"? Impolite alcohol Totally bewildering! Who should be careful? Clean up the plants Practicing English writing might help What do they mean by "prick" (can be an impolite word in English)? Perhaps you should not take dolls when you visit Wat Arun Then where? Something's missing Good idea, but strange syntax and spelling What does "ware" mean? How often? Dayly or Daily? If you kn...

My dear students, I was happy to see 5 of you in class yesterday, and to learn that 3 other students were participating at their temple in a kathina robe ceremony to end the rains retreat. Your homework this week is to find and analyze with the tools of linguistics a word, phrase or sentence in English that you believe contains a mistake.  This will require you to look and listen very carefully as you go about your activities this week.  Examine signs you see in English, listen to English programs on the radio and television, watch movies in English with subtitles, read at least the headlines in English newspapers and magazines.  What you are looking for is something that is misspelled or mispronounced, or a phrase or sentence where the syntax (word order) is incorrect. There should be much to choose from, if you pay attention each day. For example, at the river pier in Pinklao, the sign in English says "Phrapinklao Bride."  This contains an incorrect w...

1.  electoral college   NOUN 2.  electoral register   NOUN 3.  electoral roll   NOUN  at  electoral register 4.  the Electoral College 5. president  6. presidency 7. presidential election 8. electoral votes 9.   polls 10.  Legal challenges 11.  early voting 12.  Republican election officials 13.  any polling place 14.  surrounding areas 15.  campaigning day 16.  74  electoral votes needed for Democrat win 17.  Any dissatisfaction with 18.  hard to forecast, 19.  One day before the US goes to the polls, the candidates are on a final sprint of battlegrounds. 20.  Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney make closing arguments to voters. Who will win the race to be president? In the presidential election each state is worth a number of votes, based on its population, and if the race is close it could come down to a single state. The...

US presidential rivals Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are spending the day before the election visiting key swing states and making final pitches to voters. Mr Romney went to Florida, where polls suggest he has the edge, and then to Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio. Mr Obama appeared in Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio, joined at rallies by Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z. The election will be decided in just a handful of states, with Ohio in particular seen as crucial to victory. Mr Obama and Mr Romney are running almost neck-and-neck in national polls, in a campaign that has cost more than $2bn (£1.2bn). But surveys of the nine or so battleground states that will determine the election show Mr Obama narrowly ahead. Legal challenges Continue reading the main story The race has been most intense in Ohio - no Republican has ever made it to the White House without winning there. Mr Romney would become the first Mormon president of the US if he wins on Tuesday. In Fair...