-------- MANTEX NEWSLETTER -------- Number 95 - August 2004 - ISSN 1470-1863 Fun stuff + Writing + Grammar + eTexts 0----- 'Quite Literally' - new book Do you know the difference between 'blatant' and 'flagrant'? Do you know the plural of 'cul-de-sac'? This is one of those books which is designed as a source of language reference, but which is so entertaining you can't put it down. It's a new style guide to all those niggling problems with English language - such as words which seem similar, but are not. Is it 'mitigate' or 'militate'? 'Lightening' or 'lightning'? Readable, useful, and fun. Full review at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/hicks-3.htm 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #1 What is the pupa of a butterfly called? 0----- Weird facts #1 A polar bear's skin is black, and its fur is colourless. 0----- Literary Studies - a Hyper-Concordance Say you know that the term 'slave-trade' occurs in Jane Austen's 'Mansfield Park' - but you can't remember where. This online concordance lets you search for the term and shows you exactly where. All instances of the search term are shown, plus a complete electronic version of the text, with line numbers and a word count. It covers hundreds of texts by British and Irish writers, American writers, and texts such as the Bible, all Shakespeare, and even essayists such as Francis Bacon and Thomas de Quincey. http://victorian.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/concordance/ 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #2 What is the third planet from the sun? 0----- Weird Facts #2 The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they begin with. 0----- 'Modern English Writing' Would you like some suggestions for good quality holiday reading? Or are you about to start a course in modern literature? Have a look at this survey of all the major and some of the minor names to have emerged in the last fifty years. It includes Nobel prizewinners such as Samuel Beckett, V.S.Naipaul, and Seamus Heaney, but it also includes younger writers such as Vikram Seth, Tony Harrison, and Martin Amis. The writers are placed in the political and social context of the period 1960-2003, and there are lots of useful lists of prizewinners and suggestions for further reading. Review at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/mcrae.htm And if you would like a shortcut to a truly great modern writer, have a look at the new guidance notes on Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer which we have added to our Great Writers pages. Satisfaction guarranteed. http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/gordimer.htm 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #3 Who was the Greek muse of history? 0----- Weird Facts #3 A snail can sleep for three years. 0----- Saul Bass at the Design Museum There's a retrospective exhibition of the work of graphics designer Saul Bass, running at the Design Museum, London - July 17 to October 10 The Design Museum site is worth a look too. It features a permanent exhibition on designers such as Alvar Alto (architect) Flamino Bertoni (cars) Manolo Blahnik (shoes), Charles and Ray Eames (furniture) Solange Azagury (jewellery) Stefan Sagmeister (graphics) Robert Wilson (theatre) Choose the HTML version of the site. And be patient: it's not the easiest to navigate. http://www.designmuseum.org If you need a reminder of Saul Bass' work for title sequences to films such as 'Vertigo' and 'Psycho', have trip to Brendan Dawes' online exhibition at - http://www.saulbass.net/ 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #4 Who directed 'Touch of Evil'? 0----- Weird Facts #4 Offered a new pen to write with, 97% of all people will write their own name. 0----- F-r-e-e Famous Fonts Site offering f-r-e-e downloadable fonts taken from TV shows, movies, music, cars, and sports. They're all zipped True Type. It's not immediately apparent where to click, so look for the list of categories at the top and bottom of the page. http://smackbomb.com/famousfonts/index.html 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #5 In which year did the English civil war begin? 0----- Weird Facts #5 'Rhythms' is the longest English word without vowels. 0----- Read "Ulysses" on line For those who like their literary classics in small digestible doses, you can now read James Joyce's "Ulysses" at one page a day. It began on Bloomsday 16 June 2004 - and will go on until 14 June 2006. http://www.botheration.org If you get impatient, you can download the whole of the novel in electronic format from Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/4300 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #6 Who wrote the novel "Wide Sargasso Sea"? 0----- Weird Facts #6 The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica. 0----- Pixel Comix Trawling around in my search for visual novelties, I came across an amusing graphics site Funny four-panel comic featuring robot Clango who dates a teenage girl. You need to read it starting from issue #1 to get the gist of the jokes. Go to - http://www.dieselsweeties.com 0----- Pub Quiz Question #7 Who wrote the opera "Dido and Aeneas"? 0----- Weird Facts #7 A sneeze can exceed speeds of 100 mph. 0----- Where to stick the Grocer's Apostrophe Misuse of the apostrophe is no longer the the most common grammatical mistake in the UK, according to experts quoted in the Guardian. http://guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1256380,00.html Evidence comes from the new edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary that has just been released. It contains over 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions, including 900 new words, and offers appendices on currencies, alphabets, electronic English, formal/informal language, a Guide to Good English, and more. New to this edition is a Word Histories feature that examines the origins and development of hundreds of words. Details at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/oxf-con.htm 0----- Pub Quiz Question #8 What sort of creature is a Palomino? 0----- Weird Facts #8 The hash symbol on a keyboard (#) is called an octothorpe. 0----- English Handwriting 1500-1700 Fascinating online course which shows you how to decipher Renaissance English handwriting - with beautiful graphics of real scripts. Most of them are from Cambridge University - including the handwriting of John Donne, John Milton, John Dryden, and the Queen of Scots. Site navigation is not up to much, but this project is a stunning work of scholarship. http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/ 0----- Pub Quiz Question #9 What is the capital of Zambia? 0----- Weird Facts #9 The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called 'aglets'. 0----- Understanding Marcel Duchamp Very stylish site which offers an exhibition of Duchamp's paintings and sculptures. Complete with working animated explanations of the larger works such as 'The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors'. It's also a rare case of horizontal scrolling which works. have a look at - http://www.understandingduchamp.com 0----- Pub Quiz Question #10 What do these two songs have in common? "Old Devil Moon" - "How are things in Glocca Morra?" 0----- Weird facts #10 The left lung is smaller than the right lung, to make room for the heart. 0----- Fun Stuff Find out more about how Esso (Exxon) leads George Bush by the nose. http://www.stopesso.com/funstuff/nose.html 0----- Fast Texting Kimberly Yeo a 23-year-old Singaporean woman thumbed 26 words in 43.24 seconds into her phone, beating a world record of 67 seconds for the same words set by a Briton last September. The 160-character message is as follows: "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human." The message -- typed in lower and upper case -- is a Guinness World Records' standard in the relatively new category of mobile phone text messaging. [Try it!] 0----- Feedback on Orphans - first hand experience Lynne Taffe writes from Adelaide, Australia: "In my childhood I thought that an orphan was a child both of whose parents were dead. When I was 13 my father died, and my mother referred to me as an orphan, which I put down to her being melodramatic. My Collins New English Dictionary, Australian and New Zealand Edition, which was given to me one year later in 1968, gives the definition of an orphan as 'a child bereft of one or both parents'. Despite this, to me an orphan is a child bereft of both parents." 0----- PUB QUIZ - ANSWERS What is the pupa of a butterfly called? ANSWER: Chrysallis What is the third planet from the sun? ANSWER: Earth Who was the Greek muse of history? ANSWER: Clio Who directed 'Touch of Evil'? ANSWER: Orson Welles In which year did the English civil war begin? ANSWER: 1642 Who wrote the novel "Wide Sargasso Sea"? ANSWER: Jean Rhys Who wrote the opera "Dido and Aeneas"? ANSWER: Henry Purcell What sort of creature is a Palomino? ANSWER: A horse What is the capital of Zambia? ANSWER: Lusaka What do these two songs have in common? "Old Devil Moon" and "How are things in Glocca Morra?" ANSWER: They are both from "Finian's Rainbow" PS - and both recorded by Sonny Rollins 0----- COMING SOON Port Out, Starboard Home How to Make Money Scriptwriting Unwritten Rules of PhD Research The Art + Science of Screenwriting How to Survive Your Viva The Doctoral Examination Process Literacy and the Politics of Writing (c) Copyright 2004, MANTEX All Rights Reserved PO Box 100 Tel +44 0161 432 5811 Manchester Fax +44 0161 443 2766 M20 6GZ UK www.mantex.co.uk If you like this newsletter, PLEASE FORWARD IT to friends and colleagues. New subscribers should register at the following address -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/newslet.htm BACK ISSUES featuring news items, reviews, and product details at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/news/archive.htm Please retain the copyright and list-joining information. It may be posted, in its entirety or partially, to newsgroups or mailing lists, so long as the copyright and list-joining information remains. If you have any requests, observations, or items you would like to be included in our next issues, just mail us at -- news@mantex.co.uk You receive the MANTEX newsletter because you subscribed to it. If you wish to leave the list, go to -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/newslet.htm News-95-August-2004 ISSN 1470-1863 The British Library