The Coffee House

[bribrius]

I don't think it was meant to fill a semantic hole. It was a silly conversation amongst tired language teachers and the result was us cackling like loons at the word horrend and it's variant, horrended. I think it started when my friend was musing about how it's 'horrify' and 'horrified' but then 'horrendous' instead of something like 'horrifous'. Or, if -ify is a verbal suffix, shouldn't it be 'horrous'? Was the root horr- or horrif-? If the root is horr- then where did the -endous come from instead of just the -ous? Maybe the root is horrend?

And so on.

oh no, what did i walk in to. grammar, vocabulary? The things i fear the most ?

 

[limr33 3]

Yes. There will be a quiz.

 

[bribrius]

Yes. There will be a quiz.

 

[limr33 3]

Don't worry, I'll make it open-book.

 

[bribrius]

Don't worry, I'll make it open-book.

great. i pick the teacher edition..

 

[sm4him]

Don't worry, I'll make it open-book.

great. i pick the teacher edition..

Sure, you can have it. But when we start conjugating words like combobulate and horrend, somehow I don't think that teacher's edition is gonna help you much.

 

[Gary A.]

I seriously do not need this ... I just spend the afternoon writing speeches and debate reports.

 

[Designer]

i am wondering why she didn't just bake one.

That's why God gave us bakeries.

 

[limr33 3]

Teacher's edition wouldn't do much good anyway. When I do take questions from the book, I don't put them in the same order. Or even from the same quiz.

I give quizzes in my lower level writing class - usually about 4 per semester. I always give them a chance to retake any or all quizzes at the end of the semester. I tell them that it will be the same exact quiz, just with rearranged questions, so they can study their old quizzes but just don't bother memorizing the order of the answers because they will be different. Some students still failed the retake.

Frankly, I would let them take the quiz over and over again until they get 100%. It's not about the grade - it's about them learning something. If it takes them 5 times, it doesn't matter - it means they've learned the material on that quiz and some of the sentences might very well be burned into their brains. This is good. It gives them context and a reference point for the next time they are struggling with writing a sentence that requires that grammatical structure.

For example, I still remember this sentence from high school French: J'espere que je ne me suis pas casse la jambe! (Sorry, no accent marks easily available on my keyboard.) And it will always remind me that when using a reflexive verb in French, use the definite article, not the possessive pronoun (la jambe, not ma jambe.)

But then again, I'm a language geek

 

[minicoop1985]

I see Leonore as a stereotypical Catholic nun teaching, minus the whole headdress thing. Whipping kids with rulers, throwing things at them, YOU WILL LEARN THIS OR YOU'LL GET BEATEN AGAIN kinda deal.

 

[limr33 3]

I see Leonore as a stereotypical Catholic nun teaching, minus the whole headdress thing. Whipping kids with rulers, throwing things at them, YOU WILL LEARN THIS OR YOU'LL GET BEATEN AGAIN kinda deal.

Not exactly, but I do have a scary teacher voice when I choose to deploy it

 

[snerd]

...... But when we start conjugating.....

Wait! I thought you were both married?! Did you mean that for a PM?!!



.....................................

 

[pgriz]

Snerd, conjugation is like copulation only for bacteria. For more complex living things, the conjugation thing takes more effort.

 

[snerd]

Wasn't going for copulation lol

 

[snerd]

I seem to be off form tonight. It's the cold I tell ya!!