Yammer

In case you didn’t know, I’m fascinated with words. The English language is amazing as the myriad of possible adjectives are beyond enumeration. (Exaggeration? Likely, I’ll bet someone, somewhere, has a count on how many adjectives are proper in our English.)
#WritersBrain #Write #Author #AuthorBrain #ILoveWriting #TheEnglishLanguageIsBeautiful #HowManyWordsMeanLove #OldMovie #Adjective #Noun #ILoveWords #WordsAreWonderful #PerfectWord #Yammer #IGetTooExcitedReadingTheDictionary

November 4, 2022

Yammer


In case you didn’t know, I’m fascinated with words.  The English language is amazing as the myriad of possible adjectives are beyond enumeration.  (Exaggeration? Likely, I’ll bet someone, somewhere, has a count on how many adjectives are proper in our English.

Nevertheless: Let’s dive into this rather funny anecdote.  

I’ve finished a project I’ve been working on for over ten years.  I started it with a cool dream and just wrote the outline in my head and fleshed out my main characters.  I let it sit for a while until my dad asked one day if I was working on any long projects.  Yes!  Always – I have this one and about fifteen others I choose to pick at depending on what mood.  Two more are close to completion now.  But at that time, for whatever reason, I highlighted this one.  

He kept asking how work was doing in it.  He wanted to know what this or that character was doing.  When was I going to introduce this or that concept.  Because of his research that parallelled mine, I kept working on this project.  I paused for almost three years after Daddy died because I’d cry just thinking about this project.  A few months ago, though, I started on what I call a “stint” – my brain just ran with connecting each of the parts and filling in all the gaps.  I ended up finishing a few days ago and proofing and finalizing.  

So, my craziness?  I was looking for a chapter name – in this project, all the chapter names are alliterative.  I needed a “y” word that meant something like dismay, cry of pain, whining, etc.  So I opened my old creaky dictionary and started reading the “y” section.  

Yammering jumped out at me! 

I was so stinking excited!  I asked myself, “how in the Earth am I so excited over finding one word?” 

Seriously!  But “yammer” means to whine or complain, to make an outcry or clamor, to talk loudly and persistently.  It was perfect!  I love the complexity and beauty of the English language!  I love how I can find just the right word for exactly what I need.  It’s like in “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935) movie I watched over and over as a child; this guy writing a dictionary says, “how is it your language has so many words that mean love?” 

I used to answer with, “and English doesn’t?” (of course, the Byam couldn’t hear me). 

And that is why I love writing!  I love words, I love painting pictures with words, I love finding things that are super cool to say and mean simple things but make people give you the “huh?” face… Like ameliorate – it means “to make better.” 

My brother repeated it in sentences so often that my daughters at 2 and 4 years old used it! 

Anyway, I’m getting back to finding more perfect adjectives to match my nouns in all 40 of my chapter titles!  

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

A Peek At Textbooks: Autumn 2022

A Peek At Textbooks: Autumn 2022

October 19, 2022

Our textbooks are usually a medley of what works best. 

This year Christina and Becky have college books only.  Christina still digs into our American Government high school textbook this semester because it “makes it easy to understand” as she’s taking a law course. 

Kimberly is officially 10th grade.  She has A Beka Book (consumer finance) and Teaching Textbooks (geometry) for arithmetic, Apologia Science, Literature Coursework from A Beka Book, a typing and writing class that uses A Beka Book Grammar & Composition as a textbook requiring paragraphs or essays on daily science and history work, and A Beka Book as her main history text.  She’s already done geometry previously, but this is a new way of looking at it that helps her understand it better.  Our educational philosophy is totally for repeating subject matter that allows for better understanding.

Jaquline is officially 7th grade.  Her textbooks include: A Beka Book Arithmetic 6 (yes, this is completing a repeat; she has done both the 5th and 6th grade books twice), A Beka Book Creative Writing, A Beka Book Language C, Apologia Science, Military History of the United States (it’s an children’s encyclopedia set and they write a report after each letter study), A Beka Book History Coursework, and Money Management Skills (a middle-school version of “Personal Finance” that incorporates their personal savings account, teaches them to set goals, observation of household finances, budgeting, etc.).  Her textbooks are officially scattered grade levels from 6th to 8th and she reads books voraciously – her reading level is far higher than her scholastic level is supposed to be. 

Jillian is officially 5th grade.  She is almost done with A Beka Book’s Basic Mathematics (rebranded a couple years ago as “Intermediate Mathematics” but we bought one textbook for each of the girls on our second order so we could use the same tests; Lucas and Thea will have the new book unless I can snag an unused Basic Mathematics edition) and will move into Pre-Algebra with either or both Teaching Textbooks and A Beka Book next month, she just completed A Beka Book’s Investigating God’s World last week and started Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Anatomy and Physiology and Health for the Glory of God (because her goal now is Sports Medicine or Physical Therapy), History is reading and writing reports on biographies of U.S. Presidents along with Bauer’s The Story of the World, A Beka’s Book’s Language C, A Beka Book’s Cursive Writing Skillbook (that one gets repeated until they master cursive writing), Business and Money Management Skills (in addition to our normal course, Jillian has started a business with her friends and that has been incorporated into our regular coursework on finances), and she is studying art mechanics, various mediums, and art history.  Jillian’s textbooks range from 3rd grade to 8th grade depending on subject.

Lucas is officially 2nd grade.  His textbooks are any book he wants to read at the moment, A Beka Book’s Handbook For Reading, A Beka Book’s Writing With Phonics, A Beka Book’s Arithmetic 1, Practical Money Math, A Beka Book’s Language 1, A Beka Book’s Letters and Sounds 1, Life of Fred Fractions, Life of Fred Decimals, Phonics and Language 2, and his Manuscript Writing Tablet which makes for amazing work-on-the-go.  I have him copy stuff wherever he is and try to read it.  My Daddy used to have be copy my favorite dinosaur books when I was learning to write.  Lucas is still what I consider a “pre-reader” (meaning when he does “read” it is choppy and he gets frustrated with not remembering the first part of the sentence).  I tend to not move into more complicated textbooks until my student is a fluid reader.  Lucas understands Mathematical concepts very well but gets frustrated very easily with words.  He thinks math.  Once he sees the patterns in English letters, he’ll be a fluid reader.

Theadora thinks she’s in school.  She does WGV Gymnastics Gym-N-Learn on Fridays (it happens Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, but she only listens on Fridays right now) and calls that “my real school.”  She is obsessed with writing “T”s lately.  She can write T and t in cursive and “like Coach Michelle” (that means very beautiful manuscript like calligraphy because she heard me mention once about how beautiful Coach Michelle’s handwriting is – Thea calls it “coloring letters”).  Thea has to have a “school book” because the others do.  It’s in her “school box,” because everyone else has a school box.  Hers is a writing textbook with three lines and occasional letters along it.  Grandma Tina gave her a color-by-number book and a numbers workbook which she calls “her school books” too.   I don’t do anything formal with her yet.

Just a tiny peek at what we have this semester.  We just move from one book to another as they complete the first (like from Language 1 to Phonics and Language 2) and repeat some books or portions of books occasionally.  I want them to understand it is perfectly okay to go back and reread something to better understand a subject.  (Have you ever had to go back and look up a grammar rule or algebraic formula?)  Learning is our family lifestyle.  Textbooks are tools to reach the next step. 

Thank you for reading,

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Two Cadet Homecoming

January 7, 2020

Two Cadet Homecoming!

On January 4th, a beautiful day with misty rainshowers threatening the gorgeous parade ground at Camp Blanding, I watched both of my cadets march in their pass and review (ceremony parade at the end of the 2019-2020 winter encampment).  I almost cried two years ago when it was just Christina.  As I watched this day, I was overwhelmed with pride and a bit of anxiety.

Kimberly is twelve.  My spunky little fireball has taken her future by the horns the last two semesters and spent her twelfth birthday, as she’d planned it for almost two years, attending her first Civil Air Patrol meeting as a cadet.  I’m not sure Mom (me!) is ready for her to take on so much independence just yet.  I’m missing my snuggly, grinning, dog-wrestling toddler who used Sheba as a pillow-pet before we knew those toys existed.

Christina was OIC of food services. (In English, your know, civie-speak, please?)  That means she was the basically the kitchen manager for encampment.  I’m sure it was far more detailed and with at least some oversight, but that’s the break-down bare-bones version of her staff role this time.  I’m sure, based on these pictures, that she is fairly comfortable giving orders.

Moments like this both amaze me and, honestly, almost scare me. 

How can my babies be so mature already?

How did 16 and 12 years flash by?

Life goes by so quickly.  I’ve learned to just release and enjoy.  Watch them grow and smile as they fly.  I love learning the young women they are becoming!  Thank you, Jesus, for the opportunity to be a mom.  Thank you for Christina and Kimberly and for the time I’ve had with them.  I pray for them daily.

I pray as they soar.  I pray they keep their eyes on you, Jesus, reach for the stars, determine to achieve what appears impossible, and reach down to help others on their climb. 

I’m sure that’s just the misty rain in my face… or are those bits of joyful tears? 

Parade is done, rain begins to fall, and we wait in the van for the cadets to change into civies for the trip home.

Now I get to hear their challenges, thrills, new experiences, friends, and new goals they’ve faced and discovered on the long ride home.  Homecomings.  I am beginning to understand my parents’ tears on our Christmas surprise (when almost all of us showed up together!)…

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Word Origins : Diaper

April 2, 2019

Word Origins: Diaper

The girls and I read the “Princess Diaries” series (a series of children’s books written in diary-form about real life events as known in the lives of historical princesses and female leaders).  In there, they discovered the English word for the bits of cloth covering a baby’s bottom is “nappy” or “napkin.”

This made perfect sense as the girls are quite familiar with cloth diapering and the cloth parts of a folded diaper is actually the size and shape of a dinner napkin.

This started some conversation which lead to (always, in my house!) some research.  Why do Americans call baby napkins “diapers?”

Well, here’s what we found:

It seems that in the early 1800s people were beginning to commercialize the production of clothing.  “Ready-made” as it was called.  Cloth was already mass produced.  One of the most popular patterns in cheap cotton cloth was a white color with a blocky pattern on it.  When cloth napkins were first commercially (by a woman with one sewing machine!) produced, they were made with this pattern of cotton cloth because it was absorbent yet cheap.  The pattern’s name?  Ready?  Diaper.

This was first used to describe a cloth pattern in a Shakespeare play ages before the 1800s.

So using these napkins became known as “diapering” your baby.  Early advertisements between rival napkin producers used that term.  Hence, within only a few years, the term “diaper” was used as the name of the article covering a baby’s bottom.

By now, over 150 years later, we still refer to napkins as “diapers,” but my children being the way they are, Thea will learn it’s called a “diaper,” “nappy,” “panal,” or whatever word they choose from our myriad of language courses they’re doing. (NO, they didn’t all choose just one!)

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Lost in Translation: Awesome

Awesome: journey of a word.

August 30, 2017

Lost in Translation: Awesome

One of my favorite words is “awesome.”  This is because the prefix of this word “awe” first meant “terror.”  The root word in its original form has one meaning – “pain” (Greek achos) which translated into “terror, dread” (old English ege, eige, aege) When this translated into the Middle English spelling, “awe,” it still meant “terror, dread.”

Around the 1600s, “awe” began to mean “reverence” as well.

So during the majority of Elizabethan Literature, the word “awesome” meant “inspiring terror, dread, or reverence.”

In the turn of the 1900s, the additional definition of “amazement” was added to the root word “awe” thus creating a secondary definition for “awesome” that meant “inspiring amazement.”

Today, we generally think of the secondary modern definition, “excellent, exciting, remarkable,” when we hear “awesome.”

Our primary dictionary definition says “a feeling of reverence, admiration, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, or the like.” This is the most popular written meaning today, but as with many other words, the spoken secondary meaning is overtaking the written primary.

Most modern dictionaries list a “dated” or “archaic” secondary definition for “Awesome” that reads “causing awe or terror, inspiring wonder.” Some list an “obsolete” definition as “the power to inspire fear.”

When you read “the river is awesome” and the writing dates before 1900, it would have meant “the river is terrible, inspiring fear, demanding respect.”  This gives more weight than our current modern-definition thought of “the river, amazing.”

This word morphed from “pain, dread” (as in, “I’m scared to death of this power!”) to “excitement, amazement” (as in, “that is so beautiful, wonderful!”); “awe” has lost its dread.  The undercurrent of danger and respect has been washed out.

Just a little bit about our dynamic language of English.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Lost in Translation: replenish

August 20, 2017

Lost in Translation: replenish

I like translating old English into what I call “literal today-English” because 15th century England in which “old English” belonged was like another world.  Many words have changed meanings in small or big ways in 500 years!  It is really another language.

Consider this one word in study: replenish.

If you look up “replenish” in any dictionary today, you see “to fill again” – some huge ones may list a 2nd definition meaning as “to fill.”

In dictionaries printed before 1800, you will see only one definition for “replenish” and that will read “to fill.”

Usually, the prefix “re” means to do something again: refill, remarry, rekindle.  Fill again.  Marry again. Kindle again.  But you can’t do that with replenish because there isn’t a plenish.  Plenish again?  The “re” in this word isn’t a prefix at all, it’s like record, remnant, relax.  (I wonder about relax, though.  Could lax have been something like “rest” so relax could be rest again?  Subject for another word research report!)  (And, kindle doesn’t always mean start a fire today, does it?)

So words have changed meanings in 500 years!  Understanding that makes it easier to translate Shakespeare!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

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