30 November 2007

Keeping in Touch

Greetings,

Are you planning on sending out a Christmas letter with your cards this year? (If you are, here are some tips on how to go about writing your Christmas letter.)

However, I imagine you're like many of us these days and will just be scrawling your name on the card and then following up with a phone call or email ... 

Yes, I thought so.

I used to bemoan the passing of the fine old art of penmanship and letter-writing and just hand-writing in general. We don't do a lot of it any more, do we? It must be a symptom of the Modern Age, when there is so much to read, to watch, to listen to, so much to just do.

Perhaps it's due to the fact that the world is spinning faster and there are no longer 24 hours in a day, but only 20. Bet you didn't know that, did you? 

Sometimes I wonder how people did all the things they did in the past. F'r instance, you already know that I have a bit of a soft spot for the old Romans, blood-thirsty war-mongers that they were. 

I can still vividly recall my Latin teacher, Mrs Jenkins, leading us through Caesar's Gallic Campaigns, and my over-wrought teen brain boggling that this bloke, after all his forced marches and close encounters with Vercingetorix's Arverni, the Helvetii and other Gallic tribes who were a tad upset at having a few Roman legions grabbing their women, their livestock and their homeland, had been able to sit down at night and then calmly record the day's activities in his Commentary notes. 

I mean, I spend the day in town shopping, and I'm nearly nodding off on the bus home ... How did they do it?

To see just what I'm rabbiting on about, read a brief outline of his campaigns in Gaul   and the full Commentaries, then think how long it would have taken to dictate all that to the scribes. Just keeping all the details straight in his head is a major feat.

Now imagine what Julius Caesar would have done had he had all our modern technology! Instead of having to wait for scouts to wriggle their way into enemy camps to suss out the opposition, he could have flipped open his laptop, hacked into a satellite and been able to read the Gaul's plans over their shoulders as they sat around the campfire.

A quick call on his mobile to his legati and centurions, and they'd have all been in place and ready to go. A scroll through his Address Book and he could send a message to Pompey and Crassus to keep the Triumvirs in line while he was fluffing about in Gaul. A casual search on Google and he could check his horoscope in detail before he set off for the forum ... 

The world could have been a very different place then it is now!

Aha! Yes, no flies on you.

You know full well that 'then' is (usually) an adverb indicating time or consequence (e.g. He conquered the Gauls then he went home.) whereas 'than' is a conjunction or preposition. And in the example above, it's joining two clauses: The world could have been a very different place + (than) it is now.

'Than' can also be a preposition used with unequal comparisons e.g. He is taller than she is.

NB And neither are ever (ever) used with the word 'different,' as in: "That car is different than/then your old one." 

Aargh!

It can only be: "That car is different from your old one."

And a story from Philogelos illustrating the fact that there's nothing new under the sun:

A witty young egghead sold his books when short of money. He then wrote to his father, "Congratulate me, father. I am already making money from my studies.”

And do you know why the Romans didn't find algebra very challenging? It's because X was always 10.

Q. Do you know how the Roman Empire was cut in half?

A. With a pair of Caesars!

This week's quiz:

Let's try some curly ones this week ... get those little grey cells working!

Match 'em up:

congeries, pabulum, galumph, platitudinarian, sansculotte, polyhistor, rident, prink, fatidic, bombinate

1. to buzz, hum or drone; make a buzzing sound 

2. (in the French Revolution) a revolutionary of the poorer class; originally a term of contempt applied by the aristocrats but later adopted as a popular name by the revolutionaries; any extreme republican or revolutionary 

3. something that nourishes an animal or vegetable organism; food; nutriment; material for intellectual nourishment 

4. laughing; smiling; cheerful 

5. collection of items or parts in one mass; assemblage; aggregation; heap 

6. of, relating to, or characterised by prophecy; prophetic 

7. dress very carefully and in a finicky manner; put on special clothes to appear particularly appealing and attractive 

8. a bore who makes excessive use of trite remarks 

9. move around heavily and clumsily; to move with a heavy tread 

10. a person of great and varied learning 

And some thoughts about public speaking  ...

Our speaker needs no introduction. What he needs is a conclusion.

Our speaker will not bore you with a long speech ... he can do it with a short one.

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Never-Ending Story

An Ape that wants to play Hamlet after being type-cast as King Kong, a talking anvil and that rottweiller ... Dr Morgenes is still caught in the nightmare that is the casting couch. Help him find a plot!  Just click on the Comments button at the end of the entry to add your contribution. If you have friends who fancy themselves as writers, invite them to contribute (just forward this newsletter in its entirety to them).

Map of the World

I often trawl this for comments to post on my site ... so if you say something about the newsletter or site, be warned, you may end up being read by one of the 2,000+ unique visitors who visit Write101 every day! Make your Mark on the World. Then stop by our Map of the World and read the messages. (Just click List) and add your mark.

Last week's quiz:

species, protists, allotype, holotype, neotype, taxon, monera, genus, phylum, ontology 

1. the primary subdivision of a taxonomic kingdom, grouping together all classes of organisms that have the same body plan - PHYLUM

2. specimen chosen as the standard bearer of a species or subspecies name for which none of the original type specimens exist - NEOTYPE

3. the usual major subdivision of a family or subfamily in the classification of organisms, usually consisting of more than one species - GENUS

4. a taxonomic kingdom of prokaryotic organisms that typically reproduce by asexual budding or fission and have a nutritional mode of absorption, photosynthesis, or chemosynthesis, comprising the bacteria, blue-green algae and various primitive pathogens - MONERA

5. a group of living organisms that can breed and reproduce offspring - SPECIES

6. a type specimen of the sex opposite to that of the holotype - ALLOTYPE

7. an explicit formal specification of how to represent the objects, concepts and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them; a rigorous and exhaustive organisation of some knowledge domain that is usually hierarchical and contains all the relevant entities and their relations; systematic account of Existence - ONTOLOGY

8. one or more organisms that belong to the same taxonomic unit - TAXON

9. specimen that serves as the standard bearer of a species or subspecies name - HOLOTYPE

10. a taxonomic kingdom consisting of any of a group of eukaryotic organisms; include a variety of unicellular, coenocytic, colonial and multicellular organisms, such as the protozoans, slime molds, brown algae and red algae - PROTISTS

A Little Something Extra

We've been looking at how to keep in touch this week, and one way that strikes terror into many a heart is speaking ... in front of an audience. Communication consultant, Felicia Slattery writes,

"Where do you begin? And how do you choose and narrow your topic?

"Recently I attended a local networking event and witnessed first hand the disastrous results of a speaker who neglected to choose and narrow a specific a topic within everything she offers. The speech was unbearably overtime - going 30 minutes overtime for what was only supposed to be a 20-minute presentation. The speaker ended up having to rush through her planned comments, skipped many of her slides, was basically pulled from the stage, and obviously could not take any questions at the end. Not that anyone wanted to ask anything-- a large portion of the audience walked out during her presentation because she was still speaking 15 minutes after the planned end of the luncheon meeting. People had to get back to work.

"Unfortunately, this was sad because this speaker was an otherwise talented and credible speaker. She had excellent stage presence, was clearly knowledgeable, and had a few funny comments sprinkled throughout her presentation. Her main problem: lack of focus on one topic. Here's what you can do to avoid that problem when selecting and narrowing your topic:..."

Read Felicia Slattery's 6 steps to choosing the right topic. 

Word of the week: Rebarbative (adj) serving or tending to repel; causing annoyance, irritation or aversion; repellent

This extremely useful word comes from the Latin word barba meaning 'beard.' (And don't tell me you don't know some rebarbative characters!) Other words also derived from the same root are barb, barbed (as in wire) and barber.

Interestingly, Julius Caesar is said to have been super-fastidious about being beard-free, even going so far as to have his beard (and some say other parts of his body) plucked free of hair ... Since he was also balding, and adopted one of the original comb-overs, it may be that he had a 'thing' about hair. 

Suetonius writes of Caesar, "He was so nice in the care of his person, that he not only kept the hair of his head closely cut and had his face smoothly shaved, but  even caused the hair on other parts of the body to be plucked out by the roots, a practice for which some persons rallied him. 

"His baldness gave him much uneasiness, having often found himself upon that account exposed to the jibes of his enemies. He therefore used to bring forward the hair from the crown of his head; and of all the honours conferred upon him by the senate and people, there was none which he either accepted or used with greater pleasure, than the right of wearing constantly a laurel crown. 

"It is said that he was particular in his dress. For he used the Latus Clavus  with fringes about the wrists, and always had it girded about him, but rather loosely. This circumstance gave origin to the expression of Sulla, who often advised the nobles to beware of "the ill-girt boy." 

Read the complete Life of Julius Caesar by Suetonius. 

Oxymoron of the week: simple technology

And a Latin phrase for any who desire to emulate Caesar ...

Si post fata venit gloria non propero

[SEE POHST FAH-tah WAY-neet GLOH-ree-ah NOHN proh-PAY-roh]

(If glory comes after death, I'm not in a hurry.)