I’m continually amazed at the evolution of our language, which seems to happen much more rapidly than our own evolution. And as such we’re forced to relearn English every couple of decades. Take, for instance, the changes that have happened in English just since the late ’80’s. Case in point. But internationalization has only amplified the problem. The entertainment industries overseas, I’ve noticed, try to keep up with the fast-paced evolution of English, but sometimes the results are less-than astounding.
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January 17th, 2007 · Permalink · Back to Top · Comments (2) · Tagged: Articles, Brazil, Humor, Linguistics, Missions, Studies
For my first BlogDay 2006 post I’ve decided to showcase a Blog on WordPress.com called “Writing English.” I found a link to this site yesterday on Matt’s site, and was pleasantly surprised with what I found. Most people struggle to use the English language correctly, and I’ve found that this is true even among native speakers. The problem with English is we tend to make it up as we go along. If we have an expression to voice but no word to do it justice, we simply make one up. Or we borrow one from another language.
With this continual evolution of our language, it is easy to see how people could get mixed up. One of the greatest shortcomings among English speakers is not in speaking, but in writing. The reason for this is because we practice communicating verbally every day, but we pay little attention to the quality of our writing. We shoot off E-Mails with disregard for the consequences that could arise should the other person misinterpret our words. And, sadly, the same is true in letters, publications, and even advertisements. I’m glad to see a site dedicated to helping all of us climb over our grammatical hurdles. I will be visiting this site often.
~Jonathan
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August 31st, 2006 · Permalink · Back to Top · Comments (0) · Tagged: Linguistics, Review, Studies, Websites, Writing, blogday2006
I’ve been waiting to write this post until I could get the right words. Katrina was nothing special, and yet she was everything. On the one hand, I’m tired of hearing about her. It was a storm. It happened; move on. But on the other hand, I’ve never seen a storm so affect this many lives. In times past hurricanes have simply been a part of life on the Gulf Coast. They blow in, they blow away, and people rebuild. But it was like Katrina did more than destroy homes; she ripped apart people’s dreams.
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August 29th, 2006 · Permalink · Back to Top · Comments (0) · Tagged: Articles, Studies
There is a tug of war between two very powerful forces going on right now in our atmosphere. On the one hand, greenhouse gasses gases [Applies elsewhere in this document. -Ed.] are trapping the sun’s energy in our atmosphere, causing a gradual heating trend which could prove devastating to the planet. On the other hand, particle pollution, such as water vapors emitted from Nuclear power plants and exhaust fumes from jets, are increasing the atmosphere’s ability to shield us from the sun’s heat. Scientists have noticed a warming of the earth’s average temperatures for some decades. And we’ve known that it is partially due to the increased amount of greenhouse gasses being released into the atmosphere. However, what we’re seeing now is that it’s being thwarted by another very powerful force called Sun Dimming. The most significant find? Greenhouse gasses are much more powerful than we first anticipated.
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April 18th, 2006 · Permalink · Back to Top · Comments (0) · Tagged: Articles, Studies
This discussion is about the electromagnetic occurrences known as the Schumann Resonances. These are pulsations in the earth’s atmosphere between its crust and ionosphere, and they are responsible for keeping our biological clock on time, among other things. The Resonances were originally predicted by the German physicist W. O. Schumann between 1952 and 1957, and were first detected by Schumann and Herbert Koenig in 1954. The Schumann Resonances are formed by lightning storms, hurricanes, and even the 11-year sunspot cycle, along with other electromagnetic anomalies. Typically, their amplitude (size of the wave) is highest and frequency (how often the wave occurs) is lowest starting at about 1:00 AM and lasting until about 3:30 AM, with the peak occurring at about 2:30 AM.
As amplitude increases, frequency decreases. We can see this in ocean waves. If you count how long it takes for a wave cycle to complete itself—one trough or one peak to the next—you can determine the frequency of the wave. This is what the term cycles per second means: it is the number of completed wave cycles that occur in one second. With a given amount of force—or energy—applied to the wave, frequency decreases as amplitude increases. This is because larger waves take more effort to produce, so a consistent amount of force cannot produce the same number of waves. Likewise, if a consistent amount of force is applied and amplitude decreases, frequency will increase. This is cause and effect. When you change only one property of the wave, only one effect will occur. If energy remains the same, frequency decreases as amplitude increases in a linear curve. If frequency remains the same, amplitude increases as energy increases in a linear curve. In the case of the Schumann Resonances, frequency is changing throughout the day; from the fundamental—or, lowest frequency—early in the morning to the peak early in the afternoon, and then the cycle starts over. The amplitude is also changing in direct correlation to the changing frequency. However, energy input is changing, as well, due to the fluctuating causes of the Resonances. This accounts for the variations in the exact frequencies of the harmonics—or, multiples—of the fundamental. The harmonics of the fundamental are all the frequencies at which the Schumann Resonances occur above the lowest frequency. I have stated all of this so you can have a basic understanding of what the Resonances are. Now we can take a look at what they do.
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December 27th, 2005 · Permalink · Back to Top · Comments (0) · Tagged: Studies
Burn this feed.
