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| "Smiley was pretty
surprised when Dan'l couldn't jump!" (Gutenberg) |
Note: The story of Dan'l Webster, Mark Twain's "Celebrated Jumping Frog," is one of this humorist's funniest. Have a good laugh at the duping of Jim Smiley in this lesson.
Get Ready: Have you ever bet on anything? Did you win?
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| Dante with scenes from The Divine Comedy (Wikipedia) |
Note: England has Shakespeare. Spain has Cervantes. Italy has Dante Alighieri, best known by just his first name, Dante, but in Italy known as "the Supreme Poet." His works raised the status of vernacular Italian, and his home dialect became the base of the modern national language.
Get Ready: Do you believe in Heaven and Hell? How about Purgatory? What are those places like (real or imagined)?
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| A Jack Sparrow imitator (Wikipedia) |
Note: Another ship, another pile o' plunder, as we continue learnin' the tongue o' Long John Silver and his mates!
Get Ready: Have you ever watched a pirated movie, listened to pirated music, and so on?
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| The founders of International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Wikipedia) |
Note: Ahoy, there, me hearties! Be ye able to talk like a pirate, ye lubber? Ye'd do well to lend an ear!
Get Ready: Have you ever noticed the way pirates talk in movies? What's unusual about it?
Note: The great Irish writer George Bernard Shaw wrote, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language." What do you think he meant by that?
Get Ready: Which do you find easier to understand, spoken English or written English? Why do you think this is?
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| Edgar A. Guest (Wikipedia) |
Note: Some great writers--notably Mark Twain--write in English dialects that make their works difficult to read. Here are some tips on understanding their works.
Get Ready: In your language, is the spoken language different from the written language? Do people ever try to write as they speak, like English "wanna" for "want to" or "doin'" for "doing"?
