Beautiful English

[gnappi]

I'm currently reading the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe, specifically the "Tales" and while I consider myself reasonably well rounded in the usage of our English language I've been humbled in just the first two pages reading Poe's tales. We were compelled to read some of the works from Poe, Twain, Tolstoy, Kipling and Vonnegut among other writers and write book reports on them while I was in PUBLIC high school. I suspect lofty reading like this is gone from schools in favor of simplified and boiled down news snippets, such a shame.

Anyway, Poe was not without his detractors and his overall style was disdained by many but he had a command of the language that is just wonderful to read... again.

Bob Wright, I know you're a fan of the English language where are you?

 

[41Dude]

I'm currently reading the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe, specifically the "Tales" and while I consider myself reasonably well rounded in the usage of our English language I've been humbled in just the first two pages reading Poe's tales. We were compelled to read some of the works from Poe, Twain, Tolstoy, Kipling and Vonnegut among other writers and write book reports on them while I was in PUBLIC high school. I suspect lofty reading like this is gone from schools in favor of simplified and boiled down news snippets, such a shame.

Anyway, Poe was not without his detractors and his overall style was disdained by many but he had a command of the language that is just wonderful to read... again.

Bob Wright, I know you're a fan of the English language where are you?

I love books. All kinds. I am not up to the level you are but enjoy digging into new subjects.
I agree with you about current schooling.
The best quote I have read was about student current attention spans.
Comparing their attention spans to goldfish :cry:

 

[Johnnu2]

I love books. All kinds. I am not up to the level you are but enjoy digging into new subjects.
I agree with you about current schooling.
The best quote I have read was about student current attention spans.
Comparing their attention spans to goldfish :cry:

I know some goldfish that would be highly insulted by that last comment :)
J.

 

[gnappi]

41, unless it's a reloading manual, American Rifleman or the Bible I read infrequently nowadays.

 

[Bullthrower338]

I love reading old sporting literature, when proper sentence structure was not uncommon!

 

[Ride1949]

I love books. All kinds. I am not up to the level you are but enjoy digging into new subjects.
I agree with you about current schooling.
The best quote I have read was about student current attention spans.
Comparing their attention spans to goldfish :cry:

We have a big, new public library. I read ~ 3-4 books a week on many different subjects.
This book got my love of reading started in the summer of 1960 when I was 11 yrs old.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...oks-thunderhead-by-mary-o-hara-1943-1.3356184

 

[turd]

I read many subjects. Currently near the end of Twilight of the Gods by Ian Toll, last in the series recommended by 41Dude. Unbelievable. I am humbled by how much I did not know about the whole Pacific region and about WWII in the Pacific. The distances alone are incredible, wayfinding and warfare hard to comprehend.

 

[Jim Walsh]

Poe has always been a favorite of mine. I have a leather bound volume of “The Complete Tales and Poems” of Poe which also includes in excess of 150 pages of his “critical writings”. Some fascinating critiques of his contemporaries.

 

[Jeepnik]

If you like Poe, you should check out Celestial Navigations " Annie ".

 

[41Dude]

:):):)

 

[XUSNORDIE]

Too many Baltimore Ravens fans have no idea why their mascots are named Edgar, Allan and Poe:

The more educated B'more fans can to tell you who Poe was, but can only name one of his writings, of course "The Raven"......some B'more fans can even walk you to the very area/gutter where he was found dead. Of course it's marked as such.

NOTE: I am not a NFL fan in any way. But I'm surrounded by them at work and it is hilarious most have no clue as to why their team is named Ravens and mascots are named Edgar, Allan and Poe. :oops:

 

[blume357]

I have to admit that I find Poe a little too wordy, I think a lot of his stories were for publication in newspapers and he was getting paid by the word. Now his poetry is probably at the very top if looked at by someone in the know. Of course we were given Annabelle Lee and The Raven in school to 'study' but check out his ElDorado, which is my favorite. (Especially since back in 2019 I actually looked down into that valley he speaks of in it.

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the mountains
Of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

 

[gnappi]

Blume, For sure Poe was a bit wordy describing things in such minute detail, I think gun writers follow his style...

"I went afield to test the Remblaster bolt rifle stoked with the new Fear Spark platinum tip ammo in my orange camo Wool Best vest and Rugged brand mountain boots.

From 120 yards I spied an 8 pointer through my Bushy 8x100 coated lens binoculars, verified the distance with my SuperSnot zoom rangefinder and took aim through the clear glass of the Empire rifle scope with sharp glow in the dark triple reticle. The shot rang out but the Whisper brand ear protectors made the bark of the shot a true whisper in my ear. Arriving at the downed deer I removed my Glove Love fingerless shooter's gloves and used my Sharpie hunter's knife with gut hook to open him up" :)

Gads, gunwriters tick me off!

 

[41Dude]

Blume, For sure Poe was a bit wordy describing things in such minute detail, I think gun writers follow his style...

"I went afield to test the Remblaster bolt rifle stoked with the new Fear Spark platinum tip ammo in my orange camo Wool Best vest and Rugged brand mountain boots.

From 120 yards I spied an 8 pointer through my Bushy 8x100 coated lens binoculars, verified the distance with my SuperSnot zoom rangefinder and took aim through the clear glass of the Empire rifle scope with sharp glow in the dark triple reticle. The shot rang out but the Whisper brand ear protectors made the bark of the shot a true whisper in my ear. Arriving at the downed deer I removed my Glove Love fingerless shooter's gloves and used my Sharpie hunter's knife with gut hook to open him up" :)

Gads, gunwriters tick me off!

Do not forget the trend (that I hate)
where the gun writers take up half of the article posing for selfies with their firearms. I read the articles to learn about the firearm, not to see author posing badass trying to look like special forces.

 

[MaxMan]

I know some goldfish that would be highly insulted by that last comment :)
J.

Here comes PETA

 

[MaxMan]

I notice that when watching older TV shows and even Brit Box shows.

 

[Yaworski]

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

Alan Bourdillion Traherne

 

[KIR]

I use to get indifferent grades in school due to my straight forward writing. A whole new world opened up to me after I read Ian Flemings James Bond books. He was not just popular because of his character's antics, but made him so describing in detail what he was doing. I discovered the meaning of a word that I did not learn at an early age...adjectives. I began putting in more adjectives in my writings, describing my surroundings, feelings and emotions. I was told my writing improved because I made the reader feel like they were really there. So, I went from "I bought a bike" to "I purchased a green, 10 speed, Varsity, Schwinn bicycle". It helped my reader to better understand why I liked/bought it.
"A mind is a terrible thing to waste", written by somebody smarter than me.

 

[Kevin]

I'm currently reading the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe, specifically the "Tales" and while I consider myself reasonably well rounded in the usage of our English language I've been humbled in just the first two pages reading Poe's tales. We were compelled to read some of the works from Poe, Twain, Tolstoy, Kipling and Vonnegut among other writers and write book reports on them while I was in PUBLIC high school. I suspect lofty reading like this is gone from schools in favor of simplified and boiled down news snippets, such a shame.

Anyway, Poe was not without his detractors and his overall style was disdained by many but he had a command of the language that is just wonderful to read... again.

Bob Wright, I know you're a fan of the English language where are you?

The one thing that really gets me about this forum is you guys love to dig on current high school students and claim it was so much tougher back in your generation. I beg to differ. I see the books my daughter has to read for school. Each summer they are assigned two books by their teacher for the following year. This year one was something like an English textbook, "You Say, I Say." It was sort of like a documentary of some kind. The other was "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Or in 8th Grade they read "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. Those are the required summer books. During the year they read others.

Don't even get me started on the math these days. She is in Algebra II Honors, and her friend who is a math wizzard, is in Calculus II Honors.

Anyway, I'm actually surprised you read Vonnegut in high school, these days Slaughter House 5 is a banned book.

Enjoy Poe.

 

[Yaworski]

Don't even get me started on the math these days. She is in Algebra II Honors, and her friend who is a math wizzard, is in Calculus II Honors.

Meh. Math hasn't changed.

Anyway, I'm actually surprised you read Vonnegut in high school, these days Slaughter House 5 is a banned book.

I read Vonnegut, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Homer, Joyce, Dostoyevsky, and many others in high school.

"Required" work during summer vacation should be illegal. We old farts did well without needing "summer work".

My kids' school would never tell me what the penalty was if the "required summer work" wasn't done.

 

[turd]

^^^No penalty other than that you will be way behind and playing catch-up all year.

 

[Yaworski]

^^^No penalty other than that you will be way behind and playing catch-up all year.

Only if you're an idiot and don't remember what you learned last year. At worst, you'd be about two weeks behind and, if you aren't the aforementioned idiot, you'll be up to speed in short order.

 

[Yaworski]

I was a Scout leader for many years. On camp outs, we'd have field exercises for the scouts.

I'll preface this story with the fact that these kids were students in one of the best school districts in the country.

On one campout one of the exercises was measuring things without a measuring tape. I'm working with a patrol of 8th graders and trying to explain the math to them. If you pace off a known distance and know how many paces for that distance, figuring out an unknown distance is simply pacing it and doing some simple arithmetic.

First I'm told that they need calculators. No, this is all simple arithmetic that can be done in your head.

Then I discover that they can't estimate. How many times does 6 go into 20? About three? Nooooooo. We don't know.

Finally, I ask "What's ten percent of 100?" No one knew.

I was later told by a mom, "These boys are all in honors math. They don't need to know percentages." WTF? I have a degree in math and I still know percentages.

 

[blume357]

What I remember reading in high school was Cool Hand Luke and Serpico but neither were suggested let alone required... as many of you may have suspected... I pretty much gave up on my ejumincation in about the 11th grade... at least for the next 3 years then I started trying to learn again.

 

[larry8]

I was a C-D student till the 11th grade. In the 12th grade I became smarter and passed with an A- average. Then went to college and got a degree in mechanical engineering after 2 years, going to school the full 12 months and from 8 am to 9 pm. Like someone just flipped a switch in my brain in the 12 grade.

 

[protoolman]

I have to admit that I find Poe a little too wordy, I think a lot of his stories were for publication in newspapers and he was getting paid by the word. Now his poetry is probably at the very top if looked at by someone in the know. Of course we were given Annabelle Lee and The Raven in school to 'study' but check out his ElDorado, which is my favorite. (Especially since back in 2019 I actually looked down into that valley he speaks of in it.

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the mountains
Of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

I remember this poem well. I can still recite it from memory. I had to memorize it for school in 5th grade.

 

[Fox Mike]

I have to admit that I find Poe a little too wordy, I think a lot of his stories were for publication in newspapers and he was getting paid by the word. Now his poetry is probably at the very top if looked at by someone in the know. Of course we were given Annabelle Lee and The Raven in school to 'study' but check out his ElDorado, which is my favorite. (Especially since back in 2019 I actually looked down into that valley he speaks of in it.

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the mountains
Of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

And it was used a number of times in the John Wayne movie Eldorado. "Ride, boldly ride."

 

[eveled]

I was a Scout leader for many years. On camp outs, we'd have field exercises for the scouts.

I'll preface this story with the fact that these kids were students in one of the best school districts in the country.

On one campout one of the exercises was measuring things without a measuring tape. I'm working with a patrol of 8th graders and trying to explain the math to them. If you pace off a known distance and know how many paces for that distance, figuring out an unknown distance is simply pacing it and doing some simple arithmetic.

First I'm told that they need calculators. No, this is all simple arithmetic that can be done in your head.

Then I discover that they can't estimate. How many times does 6 go into 20? About three? Nooooooo. We don't know.

Finally, I ask "What's ten percent of 100?" No one knew.

I was later told by a mom, "These boys are all in honors math. They don't need to know percentages." WTF? I have a degree in math and I still know percentages.

So you’re against school work in the summer but want to talk about percentages and estimating on a camping trip?

Sounds to me like they played you. Pretending to not understand so you’d stop.

 

[Yaworski]

So you're against school work in the summer but want to talk about percentages and estimating on a camping trip?

I'm getting two things from this. You need your phone to calculate tips and you're not very familiar with Scouting.

Camp outs should always have a purpose and measuring distance has been a basic scout skill since the days of Baden Powell and Dan Beard.

If they were trying to "play me", they accomplished nothing other than set themselves up for ridicule by the other patrols.

 

[WanderLust]

I read this lead-in sentence a few days ago and it stopped me completely. Maybe I learned this so long ago that I’ve just done it for years, but it was a lesson on the proper order for adjectives. Here’s the sentence, “Every Sunday, my grandma makes an Italian big meal," said no one ever.”
I wanted to argue with the article but they made sense with their examples. Here is what’s known as the ‘Royal order’:
Opinion, Size, Age, Shape, Color, Origin, Material, Purpose.
Of course, being a Southern boy means that I can butcher the language as I see fit!