Word: context
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Looking for something to keep the police of Washington, D. C, busy in the summer, someone exhumed last week an old order forbidding "indecent music" (from the context evidently referring to music without words). There was some diversity of opinion as to what sort of music the police were supposed to suppress...
...fiery poetry are often encountered, drooping through their allotted space a syllable at a time, like the languid descending streamers of bored rockets. They are the lines of Poet Cummings. Words, he realizes, have four dimensions?contour, connotation, color, sound. In ordinary poetry, the dray work of supporting the context and of conforming to the conventionalities of a pattern maim these values, render words absurd as a medium of meticulous art. Therefore, he arranges them in bizarre groups, droops them across a page, lets their meaning depend largely upon their effect as psychological images. That words can ever be used...
...receive your letter of the 17th instant with your frank and friendly explanation of the intent of your recent note in relation to the pending immigration bill. It gives me pleasure to be able to assure you that, reading the words "grave consequences" in the light of their context, and knowing the spirit of friendship and understanding you have always manifested in our long association, I had no doubt that these words were to be taken in the sense you have stated, and I was quite sure that it was far from your thought to express or imply any threat...
...into trouble. The intent of the book is not considered; if from the purest and most moral motives it used an obscene word it comes under the law. The book is not to be judged as a whole but shall be condemned for a single passage out of its context. In one fell stroke this clause would outlaw the Bible, Shakespeare, the Greek and Roman classics, Swift, Chaucer, the whole of Restoration comedy, Milton, Fielding, Voltaire, Flaubert, Goethe, Balzac, the writings of the early Christian fathers, Martin Luther, the Encyclopedia Britannica and the dictionary...
...most effective way to master the subject matter of a course undoubtedly consists in conscientious study of lecture notes shortly after each meeting. In this way the student acquires a working knowledge of the context and is led to ruminate upon its meaning. The average undergraduate, however, sits stupidly through his lectures, mechanically jots a few incoherent notes, and goes away without a thought as to what has just been said. It is not altogether his fault; some lectures are extremely monotonous and uninteresting. In vain do professors encourage outside discussion among students, or announce voluntary consultation hours. The modern...