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English Grammar through Stories
by Alan Townend
Photocopiable
© www.english-test.net
100
interrupt a conversation and make your remark. If you chip away at
a problem, you keep on trying to find a solution to the difficulty. One
more phrasal verb - chip in - that's what people do when they make
a financial contribution to show their appreciation for the coach
driver when they've come to the end of a tour.
But then we mustn't forget THE chip. That's the one that enables me
to write to you and for you to read what I've written - the electronic
chip inside our computers and I quote courtesy of St Google:
Improvements in electronic chip manufacturing techniques have seen
the number of components per electronic chip double on average
every two years for the past thirty years. This has meant that the
computing power of chips has grown enormously, and has been
principally responsible for the huge improvements we have been
enjoying in consumer items such as computers, game boxes, mobile
phones and TVs, and also services such as Internet and telephone.
Well, I started with a puzzle and now I'll end with a pun and an
apology: What do you say to the shop that has sold you a piece of
furniture which when it's been delivered to your home and you've
unpacked it, you discover has been badly chipped down one side?
Now look here, you say, "you know I'm on a diet and I don't take
chips with anything!"
English Grammar through Stories
by Alan Townend
Photocopiable
© www.english-test.net
101
45.
Usage of the word learn or «Learning to learn?»
I'm going to go all academic on you in this newsletter and kick off
with a dash of religion. So be warned! I'll start the ball rolling with a
quotation from the Church of England Book Of Common Prayer,
which first saw the light of day in 1662. In this book there are so-
called collects or prayers and they are called that because people
collected together and listened to the prayer for a particular day.
Bear with me and I'll come to the point very soon. I am about to tell
you the collect for the second Sunday in Advent. Advent means
arrival and refers to the coming of Christ starting with the first
Sunday nearest to 30th November and lasts until Christmas Day. On
this second Sunday the priest tells the congregation to pay attention
to the words in the Bible – the exact words are: Read, mark, learn
and inwardly digest. Not a bad slogan for our readers really. So at
last we've got there and I do hope you're still with me and have seen
the connection with the title and that word in the quotation – learn.
Keep that in mind then as we go on about 25 years to 1688, which
saw the birth of the poet, Alexander Pope. Now little Alex had a very
tough time as a child and was ill for most of his childhood. As a result
the poor chap was deformed and dwarfed. But by all accounts he had
a lovely face. Our Alex packed a lot in before he died in1744
becoming a poet, satirist, letter writer, and essayist and not only did
he design gardens but he had a go at designing grottos as well. In
1709 he wrote his essay on Criticism. It is in this essay that we find
the much quoted (and also frequently misquoted but I won't confuse
you with the wrong bits now) lines: A little learning is a dangerous
thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow
draughts intoxicate the brain and drinking largely sobers us again.
Let me explain what he's on about. The Pierian spring (in Macedonia)
is where you went to drink if you needed knowledge in ancient times.
Alexander is telling us to take large gulps of the water because if you
only take little sips, you won't think straight and he comes up with
that winning line that a little learning is a dangerous thing'. You know
who he's referring to, don't you? It's those people, mentioning no
names of course, who think they know the answer to everything but
really they only know half the thing and that's why they can be
dangerous. As you have gathered, I'm homing in on the words 'learn'
and 'learning'. And it's surprising how often this word and all its
relatives crop up in text and conversation.
An expression that comes from working at sea where ropes and the
tying of them played an important part in the life of a sailor in the
days of sailing ships as you had to know which rope to pull to raise
the sails is learn the ropes. Today we use that to mean start to learn
about a new job. If we then have to learn new tasks very quickly to
keep up with everyone else we say: We are on a steep learning
curve. There is also a slight difference between learn to and learn
how to. We learn to speak a foreign language (we acquire the
knowledge of the words) and we learn how to drive a car (we acquire
the knowledge of how to use the pedals and the steering wheel). In
the UK people learning how to drive a car have a plate on the back
and front of the car displaying a large red letter 'L' on a white
background. This is a warning to the rest of us not to get too near.
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