Jude Connection

From Ancora Imparo

Today is both the Feast Day of Saint Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, and it is also the date on which the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886. What's the connection? For starters, the efforts to find the funds to pay for the construction of the pedestal took close to a decade and came close to failing. In March of 1885, the project needed a final 100,000 dollars, and Joseph Pulitzer threw his newspaper, The New York World, into high gear. Over the next seven months, his committee collected 101,000 dollars from 121,000 contributors. 80% of those contributions were less than a dollar each.

Regardless of whether you believe Saint Jude intervened, the pedestal was completed, the statue put in place, and countless dignitaries attended the unveiling of the 151 foot tall statue on this day 122 years ago.

And although Emma Lazarus's poem The New Colossus had yet to be engraved in bronze and placed inside the immense structure on that date, we will close by commenting on the poet's choice of words. The original Colossus was a statue of the Greek god Helios. Originally, the word colossus named "a statue of gigantic size and proportions." It wasn't until the early 1600s that colossus came to name "a person or thing of immense size or power."

Can and May

From Ancora Imparo

As we remember Nicolas Appert, who was born on 23 October year 1752. Appert is honored as the father (or pere) of canning. He answered Napoleon's challenge to devise a method for preserving food for troops far afield; and, after more than a dozen years of work, took home the 12,000 franc prize.

We could talk about canning and its place in English language but we'd prefer to limit our can discussion to a candid look at where can fits into the continuum of power, possibility, and permission.

Schoolchildren learn the rule that can is used for ability (can I complete the homework assignment in less time than you?) while may is used to request permission (may I use the calculator to answer the question?). But language watchers know this rule is frequently left at the schoolhouse gate.

Why? Probably because can and may are frequently interchangeable in senses denoting possibility. Possibility, of course, plays into both ability (or power) and permission. Because the possibility of a person's doing something may (or can) depend upon another's acquiescence, both can and may are used—since at least as long ago as the 19th century—to denote permission. And although some commentators advise may for more formal contexts, you're in good company whichever word you choose.

The world's top 100 universities listed

From Ancora Imparo

Oxford University has slipped in the ­international league table of the world's top universities. I on the other hand should be happy and smile and happy, as my Alma Mater(Cambridge) has WON over time and switching for a better position from being no 3 to no 2; Top Best Varsity of the World. Praise to my hubby! for his Alma Mater has never change from being No 1, for i-dunno-for-how-many consecutive years!

In a study which shows the advance of academia in Asia that will soon pose a challenge to the Ivy League and Oxbridge.

The study, from Times Higher Education and QS Top Universities shows that overall the UK still punches above its weight, second only to the US. The UK has four out of the top 10 slots and 18 in the top 100. But there has been a significant fall in the number of North American universities in the top 100, from 42 in 2008 to 36 in 2009.

However, the number of Asian universities in the top 100 increased from 14 to 16. The University of Tokyo, at 22, is the highest ranked Asian university, ahead of the University of Hong Kong at 24.

The THES has given us permission to reproduce the table - and we want you to see what you can do to visualise it for us. DOWNLOAD HERE

Cheers up Columbian! we will take a lead for the next year ranked. finger cross babe!

Ululate, keen & hanker

A fellow who mused that this must be the days of whine and roses admitted to hankering after the story behind the words ululate and keen, and also, he said, behind the verb hanker too.

While folks who ululate and keen may well count on hankies to staunch their tears, we've been unable to tie these terms together; they are all over the linguistic map.

Ululate first appeared in the early 17th century. Meaning "to wail" or "howl," it traces back to Latin, and was coined in imitation of the vocalizations it denotes.

Keen comes from Old Irish "I lament, weep." The noun keen, naming a lamentation for the dead uttered in a loud wailing voice or sometimes in a wordless cry, first appeared in English print in 1830. 15 years later, the verb keen followed.

Are you wondering whether folks weren't lamenting, keening, and bewailing well before the 1600s? They were indeed. Wail came in around the 14th century. While wail hails back to Old Norse, its Middle English kin is suspected of being influenced by the now-archaic weilawai, an interjection used to express sorrow or lamentation.

As for hanker, that term meaning "have a strong or persistent desire for"; "yearn (after)," dates back to the early 1600s. Hanker is believed to come from the Dutch dialect hankeren, a verb whose original meaning was "to hang repeatedly."

Several fresh faces join Columbia Uni Admin

Administrative resignations and hires became a recurring feature of the 2008-2009 academic year, signaling a substantial turnover of Columbia’s leadership. By September, the University will see fresh faces in many administrative posts. Eight years after becoming president, Lee Bollinger has set himself up to lead an institution run by deans he has appointed—most deans are selected after a search committee presents several finalists to Bollinger. Which remained me on my recruitment as part of several team for Graduate School- which i may say very much complicated process!

After previous hires in the Medical Center, the School of International and Public Affairs, the School of the Arts, the Columbia Journalism School, and others, the selection of this year’s newcomers capped off a series of key appointments. In fact, Bollinger joked in a recent interview, “I think we’ll come to a point here where I will not have any more appointments to make.” But that will only apply once he announces who the new provost will be. We welcome the new provost (whoever is this person going to be!) and many more philanthropies to put in thier endowment in our trust.

Homemade Bread Day

Today is Homemade Bread Day, a time to look at breads from around the world. Not surprisingly, something that's been consumed by humans for so very long in so very many places goes by a variety of names. The Latin word for bread, panis, gave English both the noun paneity, meaning "the quality or state of being bread" and the adjective panary meaning "of or related to bread or breadmaking."

Now let's look at five varieties of bread. The flat Italian bread typically seasoned with herbs and olive oil is called foccacia(i practically can eat this and only this forever) after the Latin word for hearth.

Pan dulce entered English from American Spanish (where it literally means "sweet bread"). But the Americanized pan dulce names not the edible organs of an animal but such sweetened breads as raisin buns.

Then there's pumpernickel, whose German ancestors translate roughly as "goblin who breaks wind" and which may have gotten its name from its indigestible.

If that's too coarse for you, try some Sally Lunn, slightly sweetened raised bread baked as a thin loaf or muffins and eaten hot with butter. The original Sally Lunn was an 18th century baker.

Finally, there's naan, flat leavened bread associated with the Indian subcontinent. The word naan comes from the Persian, Hindi and Urdu word for bread.

DICTIONARY DAY

October 16, the birthday of Noah Webster, is Dictionary Day in America, born on this date in 1758. Lovers of big words know the 250th anniversary has a number of proposed names—semiquincentennial and bicenquinquagenary come to mind. Students of dictionaries know those terms aren't assured a place in the record books because they are not firmly established in the lexicon. And we know we'd rather talk about dictionaries and Noah Webster than about sesquipedalian words.

Old Noah was a bit of a visionary when it came to creating his dictionaries. He believed people living in the young United States had their own lexicon worth honoring, and he believed in simplifying pesky spelling issues. Some, but not all, of his spelling reforms caught on with the public. He argued that wimmen was the "old and true spelling" of women and the spelling that best indicates its pronunciation. That change didn't take, although his efforts to eliminate the u from mould and honour did succeed.

250 years after Noah Webster's birth, and 202 years after his first dictionary was published, the American lexicon continues to change and grow. Noah Webster's 1828 magnum opus, An American Dictionary of the English Language, defined 70,000 words. The most recent edition of the Collegiate Dictionary has more than 225,000 definitions . . . and the lexicon shows no signs of stopping its growth.

Watergate & terms of 1973

Back on this date in October 1973, then-president Richard Nixon arranged to have Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox Junior fired. The story, for those too young to remember, unfolded like this:

After Cox, who was investigating the White House tapes, refused Nixon's offer to compromise on a subpoena, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus to do the deed. Ruckelshaus likewise refused and resigned. Finally, President Nixon prevailed upon Solicitor General Robert Bork to pull the trigger. Cox lost his job; eventually, so did Nixon. The loss of so many solicitors so quickly on a weekend inspired the sobriquet Saturday Night Massacre.

That phrase suggests "an act of complete destruction," and in fact, the U.S. Justice Department was seriously damaged by the weekend's events. However, the linguistic legacy of that era isn't limited to the phrase Saturday Night Massacre.

Republican or Democrat, believer in executive power or advocate of democratic rule, word coiners can find a term born in 1973 to suit their political fancy. 1973 welcomed the verb fact check into print and it also saw the first print appearance of the noun feeding frenzy. Most memorably, 1973 was the year the term Watergate first appeared in print with the sense "a scandal usually involving abuses of office, skullduggery, and a coverup."

MATHEMATICS AND LOGIC

A few years ago I had occasion to set forth certain ideas about the logic of infinity, on the role of infinity in mathematics, and the use made of it since Cantor's time. I explained why I did not consider as legitimate certain methods of reasoning which various eminent mathematicians had believed they could employ.

Naturally I drew some sharp replies. These mathematicians did not believe they had erred; they believed they had the right to do what they had done. The discussion dragged on, not because new arguments arose ceaselessly, but because we kept going around in the same circle, each one repeating what he had just said, seemingly not having heard what the opponent had said. On each occasion, I was sent a new proof of the principle under contention in order, it was said, to be safe from all objection; but this proof was always the same, hardly revised. No conclusion consequently was reached.

If I should say that I was surprised, I would convey a false impression of my psychological acumen. Under these conditions, it hardly seems advisable to repeat once more the same arguments to which I could probably give a new form but which I could not change fundamentally, since it seems to me that my opponents have not even tried to refute them. It seems preferable to seek what can be the origin of this difference of mentality which engenders such divergent views. I have just said that these irreducible divergences had not astonished me, that I had foreseen them from the very beginning. But this does not exempt us from seeking the explanation; it is possible to foresee a fact after repeated experiences, and yet be very hard pressed to explain it.

How bizarre- Too bz to write...

C'est une vie bizarre... ...mais qu'avons nous d'avons nous d'autre?

Famous Cuckoo clock

Remember my September trip to Antwerp,Belgium for a conference? I have bought myself a decent Cuckoo Clock, small type rather and at reasonable price (Euro 85).What is so special about this famous clock?.

A cuckoo clock is a clock, typically pendulum-driven, that strikes the hours using small bellows and pipes that imitate the call of the Common Cuckoo in addition to striking a wire gong. The mechanism to produce the cuckoo call was installed in almost every kind of cuckoo clock since the middle of the eighteenth century and has remained almost without variation until the present.

Originally the design of Cuckoo clock is from German in county called black forest (as told), and later made famous in the entire Europe country. Friedrich Eisenlohr, who as an architect had been responsible for creating the buildings along the then new and first Badenian Rhine valley railroad (Munich to Amsterdam), submitted the most far-reaching design or rather larger Cuckoo clock.

How am i doing in Palestine/Israel - I

Holy snub, no wonder everybody put in their claim over these Country. It's fucking beautiful. If you wanna call heaven in the earth, or Eden or whatsoever, i reckon you to live and life once in these country. (Uhmm! No wonder Tel Aviv has became the top ten country must visited! not for the WAR but for VACATION)

My-weekend-day-out has never been so awesome. From floating over the dead sea, to walking along the Gordon Beach (see this for the real golden beach).The Gordon Beach at Tel Aviv is one of the most popular beach in Israel. The beach is nice and clean, and with plenty of amenities you can choose to relax in a lounger under the umbrella or just find a clear patch of sand and sun or if you prefer serene beach, Haifa bay is all yours. Despite the rumors on pollution and so.
The Sea of Galilee has some heavy spiritual influence, but part of the draw to this region of the world is the breathtaking scenery.Beyond the beaches, the area is full of historical sights, nature reserves, and walks along babbling brooks and streams full with loaded weapons 24/7 aiming the enemy on target.All not to be seen from ur berry eyes. No pictures is allowed from Golan Hill backward! how funny.

The truth picture of the 3rd highly celebrated or holy mosque for the Muslim was looking rather slummed. Covered there, plastered here, how i wish i could bring more cash money to gives to the poor or organized a free feast for everyone, after all this is the month of Syawal, the month we celebrate Eid-Fitr.

I am feeling rather reluctant, with what i could do to ease their burden. Remember! i am under their eyes! I am allowed to bring cash which is less than 2k USD. and require to provide all receipts during check out. Credit card purchases will be monitored closely. Item in and out need to be declared and to get authorization from the highest authority.

So, if you think that i have a lovely field trip!. Lets rephrase it. It is more like living in the Golden Cage.

I hope my research will be fruitful. They have everything i need.

p.s : I have lots of pic to share here, but since bloody blogspot is fuking ful of shit in asshole for infinity. i will put it in my facebook. my facebook is sufian steve. regards

ImPOssible Mission II

An imperative video...

I Love You For The Sentimental Reason

Luv!!Pls come to me as soon as possible. I have already missing you and I need you.