69 thoughts on “Beetleypete’s Classroom: Lesson One”

  4. English is indeed HARD! I was raised in a bilingual household — Spanish & English. Spanish is by far my preference, for each letter has one sound, the accent is always on the last syllable unless the word ends in a vowel or ‘n’ or ‘s’, in which case it’s on the next to last syllable, and there are few, if any, exceptions. English is a language of many sounds for each letter, no logic whatsoever, and more words/sentences that are the exception than follow the rule! Needless to say, I loved the first one on this post, but the others were great as well!

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    1. Thanks, Jill. This post turned out to be quite controversial! I would say you are still bi-lingual, as you speak both Spanish and American. In my opinion, American is very different to English. 😁

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      1. Controversial, eh? I’ll have to go back and check out the rest of the comments! Yes, I am still bi-lingual but unfortunately don’t get much opportunity to use my Spanish these days. My neighbors are trying to teach me Arabic … I’m not sure you can teach an old horse new tricks, but I know how to say “bezuna” which means cat! And you are very right … American “English” is very different from the King’s English! I’m learning, though, from years of listening to my blogging family from across the pond! I now know the difference between a cookie and a biscuit!

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  5. (1) English is hard. Eh oui, cette langue-là, elle est effectivement très dure !
    (2) I’m a proponent of the Oxford comma, Oxford shoes, and Oxford educational contributions.
    (3) Don’t know. Don’t care. Don’t ask!
    (4) Keith is weird. I can attest to that.
    (5) “Poppycock!” exclaims an old lady passing by. (Last line of Chapter 17, Pope on the Dole)
    (6) I’d lower the boom on that kid!
    (7) Albert Einstein: “It is true that he did not earn top grades in every subject, but he excelled at math and science, even though he skipped classes and had to cram for exams.” (Source: American Museum of Natural History)
    (8) Desperation – A Rope Ends It (Hopefully, I’ll never feel that level of despair!)
    (9) Back then, T-Rexes ate people. Today, people eat chicken. #justdesserts

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  8. A misunderstood rule of “i before e except after the soft c sound” for most people is this only applies to words that make the long e sound.

    Examples: brief, relief, grief, receive, deceive.

    When the sound is not long e, then the pattern is usually ei.

    Examples: weigh, sleigh, neighbor, feisty, heist.

    Like most things in English, there are always exceptions.

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  9. Your chicken info reminded me of those conceited eggheads who insist that animals can’t discern color; if so, why do fawns have white spots, to blend in with the forest floor, why do certain caterpillars have bright color markings as a warning to birds that they’re poisonous, as well as blending in with their surroundings, and some mice are grey for dusk when they are most active? (If animals were colorblind, mice could afford to be pink!)

    Animal spot (https://www.animalspot.net/camouflage-animals has a list of some twenty-four animals and insects that use camouflage.

    Proverbs 26:12 “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.”

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    1. There are many examples in the world of animals and insects where colour and scents are important, I agree. Also the hearing and eyesight of predators in nature far exceeds human levels.

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  10. Thanks Einstein . . . . & Pete, I feel better now. I annoy a lot of people by using the &&& & also using the dash in sentences. The reason is, I give speeches a lot & the less writing on the page the better. Dashes I use to pause in a speech. And (never start a sentence with an and) I write as I speak.

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    1. Polysyndeton can be annoying – like that improper dash. I tend to drop the ‘and’ for another comma particularly in a series of actions or a list that goes on beyond the rule of three. For the simple reason that the repetition of the same conjunction or ‘glue word’ is most often used to imitate a frantic or a childlike speech pattern. And the starting a sentence with And rule went out the window years ago. Having been a public speaker for (ever) the main components of communication are clarity and engagement, not rules.

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  14. The Oxford comma is a pathetic crutch for unclear sentence structure. Working on the assumption that a comma will eliminate a literal perception is absurd. If it sounds stupid, rewrite. The I before E rule is “I before E – except after C or when sounded as A as in neighbor and weigh.” And as long as we’re here the apostrophe rule for multiples is don’t. Zs. Not Z’s. Apostrophes for possession and contractions only. Really difficult to pull off in an all caps font. 🤣This is my curse. I see these sorts of things and cringe. The Einstein quote is big wisdom about expectations from both sides. In there with “Never try to teach a pig to sing.” My favorite Einstein – “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

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      1. Being English even more important you should see the point. I advocate abandoning the crappy sentence, not the serial comma. We invited Washington, Lincoln(,) and the rhinoceri. Theoretically “proper” punctuation won’t help a crippled sentence. The ongoing debate shouldn’t be about the device, but about content😎

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      2. Unfortunately, we’re likely the few who cares about “proper” English. The vagarities in English (in England the the preferred term is vagaries) are many. 

        Long ago, I corrected an otherwise articulate post because it had no punctuation or paragraphing; submitting it with corrected punctuation, resulted in the author’s response being a bitter, vitriolic, denunciation.

        Many (even our so-called peers) seem ignorant of third grade possessives (there, their, they’re) and resent being corrected.

        In the movie Patton, (don’t know whether he really said it) it was jokingly stated that “we were separated by a common language”. 

        Now, very pertinent words have disappeared due to lack of use, while absurd, idiotic ones become established merely because they are used frequently; mental midgets think it is cute to abandon correct spelling for phonetic versions of words. Way beyond the old use of “nite” instead of “night”

        By the way; I liked the anagrams.

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        1. Thanks, PWE. Many years ago now, ( well over twenty years) a man stopped me outside a tourist spot in London. He was intending to ask for directions, I presume. He said, “Excuse me sir, do you speak American?” I replied that I only spoke English, and he walked away muttering under his breath.

          Best wishes, Pete.

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    2. What beautiful quotes–only Einstein would dare to say that and get away with it 😀 I agree with him. I have seen it in my child. I told her fairytales since she was two and she started telling me stories when she was three. Fairytales let you imagine. They teach you that it is possible for such things to exist that have not been seen yet. They let you aspire…

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