2015-02-13 Communication: English trivia

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk
---
old English = English that is ol
Old English = Anglo-Saxon = the German-sounding language that modern English comes from
---
When that April with his showers sooth(ing)/(sweet?)
The drought of March has pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such liqueur
Of which virtue engendered is the flower;
When Zephyr also with his sweet breath
Inspired has in every holt and heath
The tender crops, and the young sun
Has in the Ram his half course run
And small fowls make melody,
That sleep all the night with open eye
(So pricks them Nature in their hearts),
Then long folk to go on pilgrimmages,
...
---
On the other handout, p. 27, answer questions 1-9 with the words at the top of the page.
1 NOON
2 live, tear, wind, close, minute, row, lead [homographs]
3 brunch (breakfast + lunch), motel (motor + hotel) [portmanteaux]
4 radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging)
  laser (Light Amplification through Stimulated Emission of Radiation)
5 casanova, boycott, saxophone
6 rhythm (cheating, because 'y' is a vowel, just like in "why", "gym", "fly", etc.)
7 redivider (palindrome)
8 Was it a car or a cat I saw?
  A man a plan a canal - Panama.
9 party, boot
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/02/demetri-martins-palindrome-poem.html
---
10 It uses every letter of the alphabet. (pangram)
11 the of and to a in that I it was is he for you on with as be had but they at his have not - top 25 words in writing
12 I
15 Typical large dictionaries have about 200,000 entries in them.
   The largest English dictionary has 615,000, but that includes many words we don't use any more, and scientific words.
16 Typical educated adult - 30-40,000
http://testyourvocab.com
---
Optional homework: check your vocabulary size estimate at that website
		   Also: add punctuation to the sentence in number 17 so that it is grammatically correct.
James where John had had had had had had had had had had had the examiner's approval.