Ramble - a bit of this and that

Ramble just sounds like a cool word, and it really is; it’s both verb and noun. Additionally, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is of unknown etymological origin. Isn’t that neat? How many words do we really have that don’t have a known origin? My guess would be not many. The definition is that ramble as a verb means to wander or digress. It can also mean to randomly think about things in no fixed manner. The other way it can be used is a bit more frequent I think: roaming about, usually in company. This makes me think a bit of a little puppy just going merrily around a field of flowers, possibly being followed by a small child. As a noun, its meaning is quite similar in that it means “an act of rambling” (oed.com) or “a wandering progress” or a diversion.

Something really cool that OED shows is that there is an obsolete or very rare usage meaning “rambling in thought or speech, incoherence”.  It’s interesting to me that this is considered rare and/or obsolete, because this is the first meaning that comes to mind when I think of the word “ramble”. I’ve said on any number of occasions when I start talking a lot, “Ah, I don’t know why I’m rambling”. Bear in mind I’m usually stationary while doing this, so it’s not as if I’m running about the countryside.

What really constitutes a rare and/or obsolete classification of a word entry? Keep checking back, as this could be a future topic on the blog!

(260 words)

Impervious

While impervious may seem like a weird word, it’s actually a really great little bugger. For example, you’re looking for a raincoat at Coats R Us, you would want to tell the salesgirl that you’re looking for something impervious. You also want to have an impervious roof to your house, your shoes, and anything else which might let water in if not impervious. If a class has a reputation for a very high fail rate, one could call the class impervious. While not used as much in that way, it still technically works.

Another way to use impervious would be if talking to someone with a very well thought-out argument, you could say that the argument itself is impervious, because even though the argument itself is intangible, the ideas presented in it would create a sort of block.

(138 words)

Mimesis

Mimesis is a really cool word. If at first it looks like “mime”, you have a good eye. Mimesis is the imitation of another thing, be it people, disease, or animals. In the TV show The Big Bang Theory in the episode called “The Cornhusker Vortex”, Sheldon tries to communicate with Leonard using this fancy but nifty word. (Leonard is at Penny’s watching a football game with her and her friends.) When Leonard doesn’t understand him, he attempts to use other metaphors that the rest of the people in the room don’t understand. Being that they’re all (attempting) to watch a football game (American football), Sheldon needn’t have bothered, but the thought is there. In that thought, however, we learn a cool new word that might not have otherwise ever been heard.

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Sheldon: So Leonard, how goes the mimesis?

Leonard: Mimesis?

Sheldon: You know. Mimesis. An action in which the mimic takes on the properties of a specific object or organism. Mimesis.

Leonard: What the hell are you talking about?

Sheldon: I’m attempting to communicate with you without my meaning becoming apparent to those around you. Let me try again. Have the indigenous fauna accepted you as one of their own? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

( https://bigbangtrans.wordpress.com/series-3-episode-06-the-cornhusker-vortex/ )

Why I Chose TEFL

One of the questions I’m asked all the time is what my major is. It’s TEFL. What’s that? It’s teaching English as a foreign language, something that I had no idea existed until last year. I owe my current happiness with my major to one of my really good friends. I met her through her former roommate, whom I had met at the orientation for freshman university students. Like all other stories, this one must start at the beginning.

I’m a senior in high school, and I’m trying to decide what I really want to do with my life. Fashion sounds fun, I enjoyed watching Project Runway, and I really want to travel, but I’m not super adventurous, so I pick fashion merchandising as my major. A little while later, I get my acceptance letter to Kent State, and I change my mind about my major, and decide that merchandising isn’t wild enough, and it won’t let me travel, so I change to fashion design. All is going well, until I do the orientation for freshmen. I meet some really cool people, but something just doesn’t feel right. Over the next week, I get more and more stressed until I drive to Kent and talk with an advisor. We agree that the best thing for me to do is drop the major altogether and become undecided. Leaving the office I feel much better. After the school year starts, I still hang out with one of the girls I met at the fashion orientation, but I hang out with her roommate too. After finding out that she reads a lot, loves language, and drinks about as much tea as I do, we become best friends. One of the best things? She’s exploratory as well. Then, I hear that she declared a major of “tassel”? No, it’s actually TESL: teaching English as a second language. That exists? THAT’S SO COOL! At this point, it’s already October or so, and half the semester is gone. I end up following this friend into the major, and I finally felt like I belonged somewhere.

I’ve been a TEFL/TESL major for about a year now, and it’s the best decision I’ve made in my life. This is such a cool thing: getting to share knowledge of your own language and culture while living in another! I know it’s a lot harder than it seems now, but that’s why I have a couple more years of classes. When I get my diploma, I’d most like to teach in Europe (or northern Africa) in a Francophone country.  Of course I would like to teach all over the world, and be able to see a bunch of different things, but I only have so much time.

(458 words)

Even though these people probably will never see this, I’d like to give a shout out to the following:

Mr. Petersen, my 9^th grade English teacher, who made us laugh with his jokes, while still being highly informative and energetic. You made me enjoy English so very much, and I’m glad I had the chance to have you as a teacher.

Mrs. Mankamyer, you always made the class super fun. History of Mystery still gives me nightmares, but I just know to never watch Sixth Sense ever again.

Madame Wilhelm and Madame Brett, you both were extraordinary French teachers that inspired me to do better with my studies.

Señor Edler, you taught me Spanish, but what you taught me more about was that humor is a very memorable way of learning reflexive verbs.

Mrs. Korman, you got me interested in reading the old ballads, and “Edward, Edward” is one of my favorite things to listen to.

Mrs. Luce, your fashion class is what mainly got me interested in fashion as a career, and without it I have no idea where I would be now, or what I would be studying.

Dr. Deb, you were always there when I needed something, whether it was just a little chat, or the shove to realize I wasn’t doing okay.

Mrs. Tittle (although you will always be Miss Sawyer to me), even though I was backstage in Drama Club, I still learned a lot about expression. This now helps me immensely while I’m talking with my ESL students and friends, when I need to explain things.

Miss Fales, although math has nothing to do with English, I thank you for taking math, always my least favorite subject, and making it painless. You also gave me a place to hang out when I went to my classes on “senior skip day”.

Mrs. Christy, you let me spend my lunches in the library when I didn’t want to be in the cafeteria, you gave me a place to go when I skipped the senior skip day, and you always either knew the answer or how to find the right one. This has given me the will to always find the answer I need, regardless of whether it is easy or not.

Mlle Clavé, you were my first French instructor who also is a native speaker of French. It made learning a lot easier, and also more enjoyable, because you could add little things here and there that only a native speaker could know.

Mlle Graff, you took a book several hundred years old and made it entertaining. That takes some serious skill. There were also the times where we would sit and try to pronounce les virelangues, and that was always funny.

M le prof. Berrong, although you can seem quite sarcastic, that’s just your sense of humor shining through. You have made my classmates and myself able to understand French as it is normally spoken by native speakers. You may have been the bourreau who guided us through, but all our progress is due to you and your international friends.

Tammy, you give me someone to talk to every day, and a place to hang out during the day that’s quiet and has power outlets and free tea. I love being able to talk to you about anything and hear your stories as well.
Dr. Howard, you have taken a class that is very difficult with the potential to be very dry, and you've made it wonderfully interesting. Yes, it's still super hard, but otherwise would we really learn much?

And lastly to Carly, without you I’d probably be slowly working through my core classes, which while not a bad thing, leads me nowhere certain in life. Hearing about TESL from you gave me a major, which I’m now realizing is more than just a major: you have led me to find my niche, something for which I have been searching for since I realized I was missing it.

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Whether I named you directly or not, you have had an impact on my life. So I just want to take a quick second and say thanks to you, the reader, classmate, teacher, or friend. You have made my life better, and I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life. Thanks for being you, and for being here. J

Irregardless

When people use the non-word “irregardless” it makes my skin crawl. This word doesn’t exist, and if you look at the actual base word, adding ir– and –less just negate each other. Even without the –less, “irregard” isn’t a word. “Disregard” is, but then “disregardless” is not.

Abuse of this word is so common, that it is shocking how many people don’t realize that it’s wrong. I understand that some people just don’t care at all how they sound to others, but the people who do care: why have you let your grammar be tainted by this? Cull it from your vocabulary (while you can still call it a vocabulary) and simply use “regardless”. After all, it’s one of the two ways to negate the word “regard” with an affix, so MAKE SURE YOU USE IT RIGHT!

(138 words)

Interrobang ‽

The interrobang is a wonderful invention! It allows us to express shock, excitement, or other emotions that need more than standard punctuation. It is just as it looks: a combination of the question mark and exclamation mark. While not widely supported as a form of punctuation, that is to say, many fonts don’t accept it, and there is no designated interrobang key, for those willing to copy and paste it all the time and keep changing fonts. For those people who aren’t quite as in love with the interrobang as I am, it might not be worth it to know how to type it, but regardless of whether you’re smitten with non-standard punctuation or not, you should always be able to recognize some marks, especially this one.

(127 words)