Word: commoner
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Although these teachers are separated by thousands of miles, their methods of trying to encourage children to write spring from a common source: the Bread Loaf School of English. There, near Vermont's Middlebury College, grade school and high school teachers give up part of their vacations each summer to spend six weeks brainstorming, studying and trading experiences as they try to devise new methods of getting their pupils to write. Says Dixie Goswami, a Clemson University English professor who heads Bread Loaf's program in writing: "We have nothing against 'skill-and-drill' writing curricula, except they...
...normal, common-sense reaction, certainly, but one with uncertain and morally perplexing consequences. Koch has just announced that on Oct. 1 the city will begin the involuntary institutionalization of the homeless mentally ill who are incapable of caring for themselves. The new "self-neglect" rule, as one city official calls it, will loosen the current requirement that the potential patient be an immediate danger to himself or others. This tough standard is common around the U.S. To be accepted in crowded mental health facilities nowadays, says Jill Halverson, a Los Angeles activist, "a homeless person has to be either killing...
...students, ages 4 to 12, were sporting spiffy uniforms: for boys, navy blue slacks and dress shirts with ties, for girls navy blue jumpers and blouses. The $30 uniforms -- aimed at cooling peer appearance pressure -- are not mandatory, but officials expect almost 100% compliance. The idea, long common only in private and Roman Catholic parochial schools, may even catch on. This week a public school in Washington is following suit. Parents in the experimenting schools are behind the move. "All I have to do is buy two uniforms this year," reports a relieved Baltimore mother. "Last year I spent...
...Wednesday afternoons when school is not in session, French children can tune in a popular TV game show that has no American parallel. The program confronts young contestants with invidious English expressions that have infiltrated common parlance and invites them to concoct substitutes in their own language. Some of the prizewinning neologisms: for milkshake, mouslait (literally, milk foam); for hot dog, saucipain (sausage bread); for fast- food outlet, restapouce (quick-bite restaurant). Outsiders often dismiss such exercises as evidence of France's obsession with maintaining the purity of its beloved tongue, especially against the encroachments of Franglais. But lately...
Worldwide, French is the first language of some 109 million people, fewer than those who primarily speak English (403 million), Spanish (266 million) or even Portuguese (154 million). Fifty years ago, British Writer W. Somerset Maugham correctly called French "the common language of educated men." Today that distinction incontestably goes to English in the fields of science, technology, economics and finance, not to mention movies, rock music and air travel. As French President Francois Mitterrand said last year, "France is engaged in a 'war' with Anglo-Saxon...