Bill Bryson †“Notes from a small Island” Essay

What features make it amusing? â€Å"Notes From A Small Island† is Bill Bryson’s accounts from travelling around Britain. He writes in a very distinctive style. He compared this journey to a similar one that he took in 1973. He begins the book by recalling his first sight of England â€Å"on a foggy March night in 1973.† This is in the prologue. He begins chapter one by comparing Britain in 1973 to the time when he revisited it. The humour in this passage is how he complains about England. Through out Bryson’s accounts of his trip he portrays a lot of Irony. The Irony is that it is over twenty years since his last visit Britain has actually changed surprisingly little. In his accounts of Dover he has noticed that there are a lot of similarities to Dover in 1973, â€Å"†¦found myself square in front of Mrs Smegma’s establishment. It was still a hotel and looked substantially unchanged, as far as I could remember†¦Ã¢â‚¬  It is the Ironic features that makes parts of â€Å"Notes from a small island† amusing. The reason that Bryson’s books are so funny is because they are so true and honest. I especially find the chapters about London funny because I have been there so many times my self. I love the part where he talks about multi – story car parks, â€Å"You drive around for ages, and then spend a small eternity shunting into a space exactly two inches wider than the average car.† Another reason why we laugh at Bryson’s books is because it is a common instinct to laugh at other’s misfortunes. This especially occurs when we have been in a similar situation, in the past, our selves. â€Å"Notes from a small island† is written in first person. Bryson uses Elision and Ellipsis in his writing. This makes his writing seem more personal and it also seems like he is actually telling his stories to the reader themselves. He also uses similes and many adjectives to create images in the reader’s mind. The use of modifiers is included in his writing. He has included dialect into his writing as well. Bryson has used both compound and complex sentences. He also uses â€Å"Tongue in Cheek Tone,† â€Å"†¦a sprig of artificial lilies instantly informed me that the food would be mediocre but present with a certain well – practiced flourish.† The use of â€Å"Tongue in cheek† creates more humour in Bryson’s writing. The potential audience for this book is people whom whish to travel or generally people who like reading comedy. It is a travel book merged with humour. The purpose of â€Å"Notes from a small island† is to inform the readers about the different places but also entertain and amuse them. His lexical field is effective. Through out the book Bryson makes many observations, â€Å"†¦between them consumed the last of the profiteroles and the black forest gateau from the sweet trolley. The boy, I noticed, had a double heap of both, the greedy fat pig.† In this quotation Bryson has basically written about what the majority of us think but do not actually say. Bryson’s ability to put into words his travelling experiences so they can be read and enjoyed are not achieved all that often by others. He appears to have an open mind and as a result gives extensive reviews of his experiences. In these reviews provide entertainment for the reader, as they are very funny.

A Dirty Job Chapter 3

3 BENEATH THE NUMBER FORTY-ONE BUS It was two weeks before Charlie left the apartment and walked down to the auto-teller on Columbus Avenue where he first killed a guy. His weapon of choice was the number forty-one bus, on its way from the Trans Bay station, by the Bay Bridge, to the Presidio, by the Golden Gate Bridge. If you're going to get hit by a bus in San Francisco, you want to go with the forty-one, because you can pretty much figure on there being a nice bridge view. Charlie hadn't really counted on killing a guy that morning. He had hoped to get some twenties for the register at the thrift store, check his balance, and maybe pick up some yellow mustard at the deli. (Charlie was not a brown mustard kind of guy. Brown mustard was the condiment equivalent of skydiving – it was okay for race-car drivers and serial killers, but for Charlie, a fine line of French's yellow was all the spice that life required.) After the funeral, friends and relatives had left a mountain of cold cuts in Charlie's fridge, which was all he'd eaten for the past two weeks, but now he was down to ham, dark rye, and premixed Enfamil formula, none of which was tolerable without yellow mustard. He'd secured the yellow squeeze bottle and felt safer now with it in his jacket pocket, but when the bus hit the guy, mustard completely slipped Charlie's mind. It was a warm day in October, the light had gone autumn soft over the city, the summer fog had ceased its relentless crawl out of the Bay each morning, and there was just enough breeze that the few sailboats that dotted the Bay looked like they might have been posing for an Impressionist painter. In the split second that Charlie's victim realized that he was being run over, he might not have been happy about the event, but he couldn't have picked a nicer day for it. The guy's name was William Creek. He was thirty-two and worked as a market analyst in the financial district, where he had been headed that morning when he decided to stop at the auto-teller. He was wearing a light wool suit and running shoes, his work shoes were tucked into a leather satchel under his arm. The handle of a compact umbrella protruded from the side pocket of the satchel, and it was this that caught Charlie's attention, for while the handle of the umbrella appeared to be made of faux walnut burl, it was glowing a dull red as if it had been heated in a forge. Charlie stood in the ATM line trying not to notice, trying to appear uninterested, but he couldn't help but stare. It was glowing, for fuck's sake, didn't anyone see it? William Creek glanced over his shoulder as he slid his card into the machine, saw Charlie looking at him, then tried to will his suit coat to expand into great manta-ray wings to block Charlie's view as he keyed in his PIN number. Creek snatched his card and the expectorated cash from the machine, turned, and headed away quickly toward the corner. Charlie couldn't stand it any longer. The umbrella handle had begun to pulsate red, like a beating heart. As Creek reached the curb, Charlie said, â€Å"Excuse me. Excuse me, sir!† When Creek turned, Charlie said, â€Å"Your umbrella – â€Å" At that point, the number forty-one bus was coming through the intersection at Columbus and Vallejo at about thirty-five miles per hour, angling toward the curb for its next stop. Creek looked down at the satchel under his arm where Charlie was pointing, and the heel of his running shoe caught the slight rise of the curb. He started to lose his balance, the sort of thing we all might do on any given day while walking through the city, trip on a crack in the sidewalk and take a couple of quick steps to regain equilibrium, but William Creek took only one step. Back. Off the curb. You can't really sugarcoat it at this point, can you? The number forty-one bus creamed him. He flew a good fifty feet through the air before he hit the back window of a SAAB like a great gabardine sack of meat, then bounced back to the pavement and commenced to ooze fluids. His belongings – the satchel, the umbrella, a gold tie bar, a Tag Heuer watch – skittered on down the street, ricocheting off tires, shoes, manhole covers, some coming to rest nearly a block away. Charlie stood at the curb trying to breathe. He could hear a tooting sound, like someone was blowing a toy train whistle – it was all he could hear, then someone ran into him and he realized it was the sound of his own rhythmic whimpering. The guy – the guy with the umbrella – had just been wiped out of the world. People rushed, crowded around, a dozen were barking into cell phones, the bus driver nearly flattened Charlie as he rushed down the sidewalk toward the carnage. Charlie staggered after him. â€Å"I was just going to ask him – â€Å" No one looked at Charlie. It had taken all of his will, as well as a pep talk from his sister, to leave the apartment, and now this? â€Å"I was just going to tell him that his umbrella was on fire,† Charlie said, as if he was explaining to his accusers. But no one accused him, really. They ran by him, some headed toward the body, some away from it – they batted him around and looked back, baffled, like they'd collided with a rough air current or a ghost instead of a man. â€Å"The umbrella,† Charlie said, looking for the evidence. Then he spotted it, almost down at the next corner, lying in the gutter, still glowing red, pulsating like failing neon. â€Å"There! See!† But people were gathered around the dead man in a wide semicircle, their hands to their mouths, and no one was paying any attention to the frightened thin man spouting nonsense behind them. He threaded his way through the crowd toward the umbrella, determined now to confirm his conviction, too far in shock to be afraid. When he was only ten feet away from it he looked up the street to make sure another bus wasn't coming before he ventured off the curb. He looked back just as a delicate, tar-black hand snaked out of the storm drain and snatched the compact umbrella off the street. Charlie backed away, looking around to see if anyone had seen what he had seen, but no one had. No one even made eye contact. A policeman trotted by and Charlie grabbed his sleeve as he passed, but when the cop spun around and his eyes went wide with confusion, then what appeared to be real terror, Charlie let him go. â€Å"Sorry,† he said. â€Å"Sorry. I can see you've got work to do – sorry.† The cop shuddered and pushed through the crowd of onlookers toward the battered body of William Creek. Charlie started running, across Columbus and up Vallejo, until his breath and heartbeat in his ears drowned all the sounds of the street. When he was a block away from his shop a great shadow moved over him, like a low-flying aircraft or a huge bird, and with it Charlie felt a chill vibrate up his back. He lowered his head, pumped his arms, and rounded the corner of Mason just as the cable car was passing, full of smiling tourists who looked right through him. He glanced up, just for a second, and he thought he saw something above, disappearing over the roof of the six-story Victorian across the street, then he bolted through the front door of his shop. â€Å"Hey, boss,† Lily said. She was sixteen, pale, and a little bottom heavy – her grown-woman form still in flux between baby fat and baby bearing. Today her hair happened to be lavender: fifties-housewife helmet hair in Easter-basket cellophane pastel. Charlie was bent over, leaning against a case full of curios by the door, sucking in deep raspy gulps of secondhand store mustiness. â€Å"I – think – I – just – killed – a – guy,† he gasped. â€Å"Excellent,† Lily said, ignoring equally his message and his demeanor. â€Å"We're going to need change for the register.† â€Å"With a bus,† Charlie said. â€Å"Ray called in,† she said. Ray Macy was Charlie's other employee, a thirty-nine-year-old bachelor with an unhealthy lack of boundaries between the Internet and reality. â€Å"He's flying to Manila to meet the love of his life. A Ms. LoveYouLongTime. Ray's convinced that they are soul mates.† â€Å"There was something in the sewer,† Charlie said. Lily examined a chip in her black nail polish. â€Å"So I cut school to cover. I've been doing that since you've been, uh, gone. I'm going to need a note.† Charlie stood up and made his way to the counter. â€Å"Lily, did you hear what I said?† He grabbed her by the shoulders, but she spun out of his grasp. â€Å"Ouch! Fuck. Back off, Asher, you sado freak, that's a new tattoo.† She punched him in the arm, hard, and backed away, rubbing her own shoulder. â€Å"I heard, you. Cease your trippin', s'il vous plaà ®t.† Lately, since discovering Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal in a stack of used books in the back room, Lily had been peppering her speech with French phrases. â€Å"French better expresses the profound noirness of my existence,† she had said. Charlie put both hands on the counter to keep them from shaking, then spoke slowly and deliberately, like he was speaking to someone for whom English was a second language: â€Å"Lily, I'm having kind of a bad month, and I appreciate that you are throwing away your education so you can come here and alienate customers for me, but if you don't sit down and show me a little fucking human decency, then I'm going to have to let you go.† Lily sat down on the chrome-and-vinyl diner stool behind the register and pulled her long lavender bangs out of her eyes. â€Å"So you want me to pay close attention to your confession to murder? Take notes, maybe get an old cassette recorder off the shelf and get everything down on tape? You're saying that by trying to ignore your obvious distress, which I would have to later recall to the police, so I can be personally responsible for sending you to the gas chamber, that I'm being inconsiderate?† Charlie shuddered. â€Å"Jeez, Lily.† He was continually surprised at the speed and accuracy of her creepiness. She was like some creepiness child prodigy. But on the bright side, her extreme darkness made him realize that he probably wasn't going to go to the gas chamber. â€Å"It wasn't that kind of killing. There was something following me, and – â€Å" â€Å"Silence!† Lily put her hand up, â€Å"I'd rather not show my employee spirit by committing every detail of your heinous crime to my photographic memory to be recalled in court later. I'll just say that I saw you but you seemed normal for someone without a clue.† â€Å"You don't have a photographic memory.† â€Å"I do, too, and it's a curse. I can never forget the futility of – â€Å" â€Å"You forgot to take out the trash at least eight times last month.† â€Å"I didn't forget.† Charlie took a deep breath, the familiarity of arguing with Lily was actually calming him down. â€Å"Okay then, without looking, what color shirt are you wearing?† He raised an eyebrow like he had her there. Lily smiled and for a second he could see that she was just a kid, kind of cute and goofy under the fierce makeup and attitude. â€Å"Black.† â€Å"Lucky guess.† â€Å"You know I only own black.† She grinned. â€Å"Glad you didn't ask hair color, I just changed this morning.† â€Å"That's not good for you, you know. That dye has toxins.† Lily lifted the lavender wig to reveal her close-cut maroon locks underneath, then dropped it again. â€Å"I'm all natural.† She stood and patted the bar stool. â€Å"Sit, Asher. Confess. Bore me.† Lily leaned back against the counter, and tilted her head to look attentive, but with her dark eye makeup and lavender hair it came off more like a marionette with a broken string. Charlie came around the counter and sat on the stool. â€Å"I was just in line behind this William Creek guy, and I saw his umbrella glowing†¦Ã¢â‚¬  And Charlie went through the whole story to her, the umbrella, the bus, the hand from the storm sewer, the bolt for home with the giant dark shadow above the rooftops, and when he was finished, Lily asked, â€Å"So how do you know his name?† â€Å"Huh?† Charlie said. Of all of the horrible, fantastic things she might have asked about, why that? â€Å"How do you know the guy's name?† Lily repeated. â€Å"You barely spoke to the guy before he bit it. You see it on his receipt or something?† â€Å"No, I†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He didn't have any idea how he knew the man's name, but suddenly there was a picture in his head of it written out in big, block letters. He leapt off the stool. â€Å"I gotta go, Lily.† He ran through the door into the stockroom and up the steps. â€Å"I still need a note for school,† Lily shouted from below, but Charlie was dashing through the kitchen, past a large Russian woman who was bouncing his baby daughter in her arms, and into the bedroom, where he snatched up the notepad he kept on his nightstand by the phone. There, in his own blocky handwriting, was written the name William Creek and, under it, the number 12. He sat down hard on the bed, holding the notepad like it was a vial of explosives. Behind him came the heavy steps of Mrs. Korjev as she followed him into the bedroom. â€Å"Mr. Asher, what is wrong? You run by like burning bear.† And Charlie, because he was a Beta Male, and there had evolved over millions of years a standard Beta response to things inexplicable, said, â€Å"Someone is fucking with me.† Lily was touching up her nail polish with a black Magic Marker when Stephan, the mailman, came through the shop door. â€Å"‘Sup, Darque?† Stephan said, sorting a stack of mail out of his bag. He was forty, short, muscular, and black. He wore wraparound sunglasses, which were almost always pushed back on his head over hair braided in tight cornrows. Lily had mixed feelings about him. She liked him because he called her Darque, short for Darquewillow Elventhing, the name under which she received mail at the shop, but because he was cheerful and seemed to like people, she deeply mistrusted him. â€Å"Need you to sign,† Stephan said, offering her an electronic pad, on which she scribbled Charles Baudelaire with great flourish and without even looking. Stephan plopped the mail on the counter. â€Å"Working alone again? So where is everyone?† â€Å"Ray's in the Philippines, Charlie's traumatized.† She sighed. â€Å"Weight of the world falls on me – â€Å" â€Å"Poor Charlie,† Stephan said. â€Å"They say that's the worst thing you can go through, losing a spouse.† â€Å"Yeah, there's that, too. Today he's traumatized because he saw a guy get hit by a bus up on Columbus.† â€Å"Heard about that. He gonna be okay?† â€Å"Well, fuck no, Stephan, he got hit by a bus.† Lily looked up from her nails for the first time. â€Å"I meant Charlie.† Stephan winked, despite her harsh tone. â€Å"Oh, he's Charlie.† â€Å"How's the baby?† â€Å"Evidently she leaks noxious substances.† Lily waved the Magic Marker under her nose as if it might mask the smell of ripened baby. â€Å"All good, then,† Stephan smiled. â€Å"That's it for today. You got anything for me?† â€Å"I took in some red vinyl platforms yesterday. Men's size ten.† Stephan collected vintage seventies pimp wear. Lily was to be on the lookout for anything that came through the shop. â€Å"How tall?† â€Å"Four inches.† â€Å"Low altitude,† Stephan said, as if that explained everything. â€Å"Take care, Darque.† Lily waved her Magic Marker at him as he left, and started sorting through the mail. There were mostly bills, a couple of flyers, but one thick black envelope that felt like a book or catalog. It was addressed to Charlie Asher â€Å"in care of† Asher's Secondhand and had a postmark from Night's Plutonian Shore, which evidently was in whatever state started with a U. (Lily found geography not only mind-numbingly boring, but also, in the age of the Internet, irrelevant.) Was it not addressed to the care of Asher's Secondhand? Lily reasoned. And was she, Lily Darquewillow Elventhing, not manning the counter, the sole employee – nay – the de facto manager, of said secondhand store? And wasn't it her right – nay – her responsibility to open this envelope and spare Charlie the irritation of the task? Onward, Elventhing! Your destiny is set, and if it be not destiny, then surely there is plausible deniability, which in the parlance of politics is the same thing. She drew a jewel-encrusted dagger from under the counter (the stones valued at over seventy-three cents) and slit the envelope, pulled out the book, and fell in love. The cover was shiny, like a children's picture book, with a colorful illustration of a grinning skeleton with tiny people impaled on his fingertips, and all of them appeared to be having the time of their lives, as if they were enjoying a carnival ride that just happened to involve having a gaping hole being punched through the chest. It was festive – lots of flowers and candy in primary colors, done in the style of Mexican folk art. The Great Big Book of Death, was the title, spelled out across the top of the cover in cheerful, human femur font letters. Lily opened the book to the first page, where a note was paper-clipped. This should explain everything. I'm sorry. – MF Lily removed the note and opened the book to the first chapter: â€Å"So Now You're Death: Here's What You'll Need.† And it was all she needed. This was, very possibly, the coolest book she had ever seen. And certainly not anything Charlie would be able to appreciate, especially in his current state of heightened neurosis. She slipped the book into her backpack, then tore the note and the envelope into tiny pieces and buried them at the bottom of the wastebasket.

Imperialism in America essays

Imperialism in America essays It has been proven time and again throughout history that in order to survive, a nation must expand its borders and become more powerful. This is shown by the European countries' power at the beginning of the 20th century. They were the strongest countries in the world, and between them they controlled almost the entire globe. Soon after, America also became imperialistic. Three reasons America became imperialistic was to acquire naval bases and refueling stations for their ships, to control new markets in which to sell American products, and to get more raw materials and resources to help feed the growing American industries. The first reason Americans turned imperialistic was to control naval bases at sea in order to strengthen their military power outside of their boundaries. In 1885, America's navy was described as a "fleet of washtubs", and their army wasn't much better. It was obvious that if America wanted to protect its interests in foreign countries, it would need a stronger military force. The first step was to be able to defend itself should any foreign countries encroach on its territory. Naval bases were the key to this. So, after the Civil War, America looked to the Pacific islands of Midway, Samoa, and Guam, among others, to serve as bases and refueling stations for their navy. All three of these islands held very strategic positions. Midway was in the more northern Pacific Ocean, Samoa protected the southern Pacific, and Guam was the closest pacific island to the Philippines and China. Another reason America became imperialistic was to get more raw materials and resources. Like any industrial nation at the time, America was pumping out their manufactured products faster than the raw materials could keep up with. In order to keep producing at the rate it was, America needed to find another source from which to acquire their raw materials. An example is West Africa, where America used its Open Door...

Free Essays on Negative Effects Of Drinking In College

I have decided to talk about the negative effects of drinking while going to college. It’s hard to manage schoolwork responsibilities while still getting out and partying. It has many repercussions on ones school work. I found that drinking has many negative effects on college life; I’ll try to explain some of those effects that I have noticed from drinking and partying. Binge drinking is a major problem on most college campuses. Many people may not think that this is a major problem, but in fact it is. The Harvard School of Public Health did a survey of students from 119 colleges and found some shocking results. 44% of U.S. college students engaged in binge drinking during the two weeks before the survey. Students more likely to binge drink are white, age 23 or younger, and are residents of a fraternity or sorority. If they were binge drinkers in high school, they were three times more likely to binge in college. Over half the binge drinkers, almost one in four students, were frequent binge drinkers, that is, they binged three or more times in a two-week period. While one in five students reported abstaining from drinking alcohol. You may ask why college students do this? The survey found four reasons why students binge drink. They were: Drinking to get drunk (cited by 47% of students who consumed alcohol), status associated with drinking, culture of alcohol consumption on campus, and peer pressure and academic stress. Drinking in college has many different drawbacks, not just affecting the person drinking; it can also affect friends and other people. One bad thing about drinking is that drinking and partying seems to make most people lazy. This is by far the worst effect that drinking has on someone; it is the worst because laziness can affect so many things pertaining to school. Being lazy can cause a person to miss classes, this will in a short while catch up to that person, getting behind in schoolwork is an incred... Free Essays on Negative Effects Of Drinking In College Free Essays on Negative Effects Of Drinking In College I have decided to talk about the negative effects of drinking while going to college. It’s hard to manage schoolwork responsibilities while still getting out and partying. It has many repercussions on ones school work. I found that drinking has many negative effects on college life; I’ll try to explain some of those effects that I have noticed from drinking and partying. Binge drinking is a major problem on most college campuses. Many people may not think that this is a major problem, but in fact it is. The Harvard School of Public Health did a survey of students from 119 colleges and found some shocking results. 44% of U.S. college students engaged in binge drinking during the two weeks before the survey. Students more likely to binge drink are white, age 23 or younger, and are residents of a fraternity or sorority. If they were binge drinkers in high school, they were three times more likely to binge in college. Over half the binge drinkers, almost one in four students, were frequent binge drinkers, that is, they binged three or more times in a two-week period. While one in five students reported abstaining from drinking alcohol. You may ask why college students do this? The survey found four reasons why students binge drink. They were: Drinking to get drunk (cited by 47% of students who consumed alcohol), status associated with drinking, culture of alcohol consumption on campus, and peer pressure and academic stress. Drinking in college has many different drawbacks, not just affecting the person drinking; it can also affect friends and other people. One bad thing about drinking is that drinking and partying seems to make most people lazy. This is by far the worst effect that drinking has on someone; it is the worst because laziness can affect so many things pertaining to school. Being lazy can cause a person to miss classes, this will in a short while catch up to that person, getting behind in schoolwork is an incred...

Amplification Definition and Examples in Rhetoric

Amplification Definition and Examples in Rhetoric Amplification is a rhetorical term for all the ways that an argument, explanation, or description can be expanded and enriched. Also called rhetorical amplification. A natural virtue in an oral culture, amplification provides redundancy of information, ceremonial amplitude, and scope for a memorable syntax and diction (Richard Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, 1991). In The Arte of Rhetorique  (1553), Thomas Wilson (who regarded amplification as a method of the invention) emphasized the value of this strategy: Among all the figures of rhetoric, there is no one that helpeth forward an oration and beautifieth the same with such delightful ornaments as doth amplification. In both speech and writing, amplification tends to accentuate the importance of a topic and  induce an emotional response (pathos) in the  audience. Examples and Observations In amplification, writers repeat something theyve just said while adding more details and information to the original description. . .The main purpose of amplification is to focus the readers attention on an idea he or she might otherwise miss.(Brendan McGuigan, Rhetorical Devices: A Handbook and Activities for Student Writers. Prestwick House, 2007) One of the Biggest Trees in Pittsburgh A massive tree centuries old holds out against the odds here across from my mothers house, one of the biggest trees in Pittsburgh, anchored in a green tangle of weeds and bushes, trunk thick as a Buick, black as night after rain soaks its striated hide. Huge spread of its branches canopies the foot of the hill where the streets come together. Certain times of day in summer it shades my mothers front porch. If it ever tore loose from its moorings, it would crush her house like a sledgehammer. . . . (John Edgar Wideman, All Stories Are True. The Stories of John Edgar Wideman. Random House, 1996) Bill Bryson on Britain's Landscapes In terms of natural wonders, you know, Britain is a pretty unspectacular place. It has no alpine peaks or broad rift valleys, no mighty gorges or thundering cataracts. It is built to really quite a modest scale. And yet with a few unassuming natural endowments, a great deal of time and an unfailing instinct for improvement, the makers of Britain created the most superlatively park-like landscapes, the most orderly cities, the handsomest provincial towns, the jauntiest seaside resorts, the stateliest homes, the most dreamily spired, cathedral-rich, castle-strewn, abbey-bedecked, folly-scattered, green-wooded, winding-laned, sheep-dotted, plumply hedgerowed, well-tended, sublimely decorated 50,318 square miles the world has ever knownalmost none of it undertaken with aesthetics in mind, but all of it adding up to something that is, quite often, perfect. What an achievement that is. (Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From a Small Island. Doubleday, 2015)   Dickens on Newness Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their place was new, . . . their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly-married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby, and if they had set up a great-grandfather, he would have come home in matting from Pantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French-polished to the crown of his head. (Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, 1864-65) "More Light!" Goethes final words: More light. Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, thats been our unifying cry: More light. Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon. Incandescent. Lights that banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldiers field. Little tiny flashlight for those books we read under the covers when were supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from homeLead Thou me on! Arise, shine, for thy light has come. Light is knowledge. Light is life. Light is light. (Chris Stevens, Northern Exposure, 1992) Henry Peacham on Amplification In The Garden of Eloquence  (1593), Henry  Peacham describes [the] effects [of amplification] in the following manner: It is full of light, plenty and variety causing the orator to teach and tell things plainly, to amplify largely, and to prove and conclude mightily. The very wording of this passage demonstrates the procedure of amplifying one term, amplification itself, and that with the purpose of catching the readers attention.(Thomas O. Sloane,  Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Oxford University Press, 2001) Selective Amplification Judgment is to be exercised in deciding what thoughts require amplification and what do not. A greater degree of expansion is necessary in oral than in written discourse; and in popular works than in purely scientific. A brief exposition may be sufficient for those who have some acquaintance with the subject, while in addressing those of less intelligence a greater fullness of details is necessary. It is always a most serious fault to dwell on what is unimportant, trivial, or what can be supplied by the reader; it indicates a want of the power of just discrimination on the part of the writer. (Andrew D. Hepburn, Manual of English Rhetoric, 1875) The Lighter Side of Amplification: Blackadder's Crisis This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if youve got a moment, its a twelve-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying This Is a Large Crisis. A large crisis requires a large plan. Get me two pencils and a pair of underpants. (Rowan Atkinson as Captain Blackadder in Goodbyeee. Blackadder Goes Forth, 1989) Pronunciation: am-pli-fi-KAY-shun Etymology: From the Latin enlargement

War Occurs Because There Is Nothing to Prevent It Essay

War Occurs Because There Is Nothing to Prevent It - Essay Example According to the realist theory, the international system operates on checks and balances method that is flawed to a certain extent given the ethnic and cultural dissimilarities between the peoples of the world. Samuel Huntington’s â€Å"The Clash of Civilizations† argues that the fault lines between civilizations lead to war. This has proved in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks against the US. Other commentators like Robert Kagan have pointed to the resurgence of Russia and the recent conflict in the Caucasus between Russia and Georgia as an example of how â€Å"history returns† whenever certain nations fall from pre-eminence and then assert themselves to regain the lost glory. In his recent work, â€Å"The Return of History and the End of dreams†, Keegan forcefully makes the point about how the 21st century might look like when it comes to international relations. The realist perspective seems a good prism to look at the complex dynamics shaping war. Thi s can be seen from the fact that in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Collapse of Communism, the then US president George Bush Sr. made a case for a â€Å"New World Order† and proclaimed that â€Å"we are at the threshold of a new era that has been dreamed by generations of men but has always eluded them†. However, the euphoria was short lived as Iraq, under Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait and subsequently this led to American intervention and the first Gulf war. Thus, we have history repeating itself in 2008 when Russia asserted itself in South Ossetia.

Concept of culture shock and reflective diary Essay

Concept of culture shock and reflective diary - Essay Example 16 Reisinger, Y. &, Turner, L. 2003. Cross cultural behaviour in tourism. London: British Library 16 Concept of ‘Culture Shock’ Culture shock is the feeling of dissociation that one feels upon travelling to a foreign country and experiencing a sudden change in their way of life. It is experienced due to a sudden change in food, clothing, manner of communication and even the roles of men and women in the community as. It results from one being unable to read the cultural cues as they differ from the ones, which an individual was familiar with at home. Culture shock has been identified to occur in five different phases Euphoria, disintegration, reintegration, adjustment and re-entry, each one has its own challenges and should be handled in a different manner from the other. Before Travel Before preparing to travel to a new destination, the individual should read as much as they can about their new location. Background knowledge will result in the traveller being prepared t o see some of the things that differ from their culture, which will mean lower shock, and less confrontation between the traveller and the indigenous people (Greensboro, n.d). Upon arrival, the traveller should also talk to his embassy about the local culture there, this is imperative to add on the learning in order to get a first-hand detailed description of the differences they will experience from those from their own country. While China is trying to improve its international image, its public toilets have been of very low hygiene standards (Bailie and Jeff, 2013) and most foreigners are generally advised by their own fellow citizens to not use the public ones but rather wait to use the ones at their hotel. This is information that can only be got from first-hand experience and not from any average travel website. Initial Euphoria Upon arrival, the newcomer to the society is usually excited by the experience of going to a new culture. The new way of life seems extremely appealin g and is usually experienced by those who have stayed there for at most a month. Many tourists on holiday experience this and travel back home without progressing to the other stages. People in the euphoric stage use words such as enchanting, magical, mystical, beautiful and exotic to describe the places they have travelled to as they are experiencing the new country for the first time even when the new country has high levels of poverty and a low development level (Pedersen, 1995). The reason for this is that the locals of the destination country recognize that you are a foreigner and therefore exempt you from the social expectations and cultural norms that the rest of the country is governed by. The locals therefore dismiss the foreigner as just been ignorant instead of confronting them as they would a local (Pedersen, 1995). Police also realize that the national image is at stake when a foreigner lodges a complaint and will do their best to ensure that their problems are resolved quickly in order to avoid complaints being lodged by the embassy resulting in their supervisors coming to scrutinise their work. Locals also try their best to ensure that foreigners will leave with a good report of the country and therefore see to it they explain to them the dangers of doing certain things that would be criticised in the destination c