VIP Class Notes (Nicholas)(S/R)
Pronunciation
extinction – ICK-STINK-SHIN
curator – CURE-RATE-ER
intriguingly – IN-TREEG-ING-LEE
fundamentally – FUN-DUH-MENT-ALLY
Vocabulary
oral tradition – oral = speak / passing down your traditions or stories or history through spoken word or stories
written tradition – passing down stories and history through writing
impact – to change – ē¢°ę
e.g. The great English teacher had a very good positive impact on my English skills!
e.g. When new diseases spread to North America it has a very bad impact on the native people ā they all died!
printing press – å°å·ęŗ
e.g. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century.
emojis – č”Øę ē¬¦å·ēčøĀ
e.g. On the iPhone they have many new emojis! These are the smiling faces.
extinction / extinct – ēē»
e.g. The dinosaursĀ went extinct after a bigĀ comet hit the earth.
system – ē³»ē»
e.g. There are many differentĀ systems of writing all of the word. Some systems use pictures, other systems use letters, some systems use emojis!
Grammar
If the situation is not real (“What if situation”)
Can’t = wouldn’t be able to
Can = would be able to
What if I gave you $1M USD right now? What would you do? = WHAT IF SITUATION
I will Ā = I would
I won’t = I wouldn’t
Speaking exercise
What would my life look like if there was no written language?
Original
We can’t write down our past and remember – and we can’t write letters or write email to each other we must communicate face to face. We can’t learn language in school, and we don’t have book to read.Ā Writing can help us communicate more easily and writing can help us to learn the things easily – writing also can help us to write down the past and to remember it.
Corrected
If there was no writtenĀ languageĀ thenĀ we can’t / wouldn’t be able toĀ write down our past and remember itĀ – and we wouldn’t be able to write letters or write emails to each other we must communicate face to face. We wouldn’t be able to learn language in school, and we wouldn’tĀ have books to read.Ā Writing can help us communicate more easily and writing can help us to learn the things easily – writing also can help us to write down the past and to remember it.
Would you drive in a car with no driver?
Original
No I will not drive a car with no driver because I think now AI is not so strong and sometimes it can’t find something is in front of the car, and it will be many accident. And sometimes there is very in front of the car, the AI can’t no it and maybe they will drive a car into the river.
Corrected
No IĀ would not driveĀ inĀ a car with no driver because I think now AI is not so strong /Ā [AI is not strong currently], Ā and sometimes it can’t / [isn’t able to]Ā find somethingĀ that is in front of the car, andĀ there will be manyĀ accidents.Ā And sometimes thereĀ may be a river in front of the car,Ā but the AIĀ doesn’t know and maybeĀ it will driveĀ the car into the river.
Reading
LONDON ā The writingās on the wall, weāre told. Whether it was Johannes Gutenbergās printing press in the 15th century, the invention of the typewriter 300 years later, or the emoji of todayās smartphones, the act of writing seems to be forever on the precipice of extinction, without quite falling off.
āWriting has never been static,ā said Adrian Edwards, a curator at the British Library who put together the exhibition āWriting: Making Your Mark,ā which runs through Aug. 27. āThe marks we make on the page have always changed and developed in ways in tune with our needs,ā he added.
āI think writingās going to be around for quite some time to come,ā Mr. Edwards said.
With 120 objects that represent 44 different systems of writing from the past 5,000 years, āWriting: Making Your Markā examines the intriguingly similar past, present and future of writing, showcasing a Mesopotamian tablet that has an early form of cuneiform worked into its clay, an ancient Egyptian monument covered with hieroglyphs and the ink-stained, slightly damaged quill of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
The sheer breadth of the show suggests that writing will most likely never go away, even as new technologies change the definition of what it means to write.
āThe marks we make on the page have always changed and developed in ways in tune with our needs,ā said the exhibitionās curator, Adrian Edwards.CreditTom Jamieson for The New York Times
And what does it mean to write, exactly? For one, writing is fundamentally an act of thinking. It would be wrong to define writing exclusively as the act of putting words onto a page, because it is ultimately about the conception and transmission of thought.
Surely, John Milton, who wrote āParadise Lostā after going blind ā he dictated it to his daughters ā was still a writer, even though it was not his own quill touching the page. The same goes for Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered from locked-in syndrome, but managed to write āThe Diving Bell and the Butterflyā by blinking when an assistant read out letters from the alphabet.
Comments are closed.