In the Name of the ...MOVIES!!!!

I reccommend two Sheridan's movies: In the Name of the Father and My Left Foot!

On learning idioms

I’ve come across some very useful vocabulary in the past few weeks. Well, it should be useful; the only problem is that I can't find any use for some of it. I guess this is due to the fact that I do not really understand the meaning of, or the idea behind, certain phrases, words or idioms; otherwise I am sure I would be deliriously happy about the fact that I am enriching my vocabulary as well as my imagination.

It is not easy to speak a foreign language well. Every nation has shaped its language psyche according to their specific customs and distinct cultures, and sometimes, these customs were and still are extremely different from nation to nation. I guess that’s why, being a non-native speaker of English, I sometimes can’t find a logical explanation to English idioms.

I’ve always found it amusing to compare the idioms of different nations. In my language, which is Slovenian by the way, when someone is very healthy we say that they are healthy as a fish. In Spain they are healthy as bulls, in France as horses and in Germany they are not healthy as animals at all.

The first time someone told me I was pulling their leg, I thought that meant I was offending them and not that they thought I was fooling them. What does pulling a leg have to do with fooling someone? I thought that the way idioms were created was that there was some sort of an everyday thing exaggerated but that there is always at least a little bit of a literal meaning in it... Anyway, I thought they were pulling my leg when they told me what that idiom meant. What a silly idiom, I thought. But then it occurred to me that in my language we pull each other’s noses, which is even sillier!

And then there are those big differences in using nouns and prepositions in idioms. In my language I usually ‘remember things on mind’. Nobody would understand me in English if I tried to explain that they had to remember something utterly important ‘on mind’. They take things far more seriously than that. They remember things ‘by heart’, which is one of the central organs mythically, romantically and of course physically for human beings.

Some idioms can, luckily, be interpreted logically, for example, ‘to vent the spleen’. We have the verb ‘to vent’, which means ‘to release’, or ‘to give expression to’. Then we have the noun ‘spleen’, which is ‘anger’, ‘melancholy’, or ‘bad spirit’. So, basically, I do not have any spleen to vent now because this idiom is so easy to crack. It means to express the anger or bad spirits; or to get all that troubles you out of your system. Hey, that’s another idiom. This idiom business is actually duck soup for me. I am a genius. Now I am just tooting my own horn.

Anyway, there are some idioms that do not give away their meaning simply by a translation of the individual words. Rather, one has to grasp the idea behind them, for example, ‘to beat a dead horse’. We know what ‘to beat’ means, and we know what ‘a horse’ is. But why would someone beat a horse that is already dead? (Why would anyone beat any horse!?) Precisely in that question lies the answer. It is ridiculous to try to do something all over again when it is already done. Therefore, someone who is beating a dead horse is doing something, or saying something that has already been done or discussed and there is no need to say or do it again. There is no need to bore others by saying or doing it again.

However logical or easy some idioms are to interpret, there are more complex ones that are not so easy to crack. Sometimes they are impossible to understand, and in a lot of cases, one cannot find an alternative for them in one's own language or culture. One example is ‘to have an axe to grind’. On first glance you might think it means ’to sharpen the axe’. An axe is a tool which is used for chopping or cutting and is sharp. If we need to sharpen a tool, symbolically, this would mean that we need to be more decisive or sharp in our actions or decisions. But that is not what this idiom means at all. To be honest, I do not understand it. And I feel now as if my ‘idiomatic’ communication in English will never progress. I have surely reached the end of my tether.

Blog entry about trying to become friends with JWI

I've already discovered that reading JWI is not one of those books you can read lying down on the sofa or being spread out in a shade under a tree somewhere. It's the sort of book that requires a lot of reading-breaks during which dictionaries need to be used. AND QUITE FREQUENTLY! In fact, so frequently that had JWI not been assigned for class, I'd long close it and throw it on a pile among those books I label with "Never going to read that one!"It is not just the hours of vocabulary learning that will need to be jotted down into my everyday schedule - that is the good part! What my problem with JWI is is that it just doesn't light the spark of interest in me. I guess expat literature is just not really my kind of literature, or maybe it is, but I just haven't run into an expat book I'd really like yet. Besides, there is a sea of books out there to read and an ocean of good ones. That is why I generally never force myself to read the whole book just because I should finish what I started. If I don't like the book, I endure reading it for just a little bit longer, because I might be suprised...but if I am not, I just move on to the next book I might or might not like. Thus, reading JWI will be a pain in the a**, but I have to do it, there is no other option, so why not making the best of it and just read it from a very critical point of view, as someone who doesn't like expat lit.

Maybe what I will really have to do is to go out to the woods and hug trees to get some inspiration (isn't that the latest method for getting a lot of positive energy?). Or maybe, I can just trust our professors who chose the book on there being a high level of practicality involved in reading JWI and be content with that. Whatever it is, I need to take the bull by the horns and do my best.

Who knows, I might end up making a David Monagan fan club, although I sincerely doubt it. I am the sort of reader who's got extremely high criteria when it comes to the style of writing. If I am not impressed by the style of writing itself, I hardly ever go into the story. However, that is not always the case. Hemingway, for example, has a kind of "dry" style of writing - on the surface. What I mean by claiming that is that his sentences are short; he hardly uses adjectives; and the meaning of sentences is very clear, and yet the matter of the messages he poses in his works is very complex and cunningly hidden beyond all the simplicity and this "dryness" in style of writing I am talking about.

Now, Monagan, well, he is everything that Hemingway is not. JWI seems to be an inch away from exploding with adjectives. Almost every noun has an adjective (and most of them are news to me). Sometimes, Monagan's language doesn't even sound English. I mean, what is "great clots of people thronged the main thoroughfare, yakking with a blithe animation?" From time to time, as in this case, his writing seems to be unnatural, as if he's trying too hard to be the great Irish story teller. However, I am impressed by the rich use of vocabulary, which Monagan is really the master of. I am very stimulated to learn a few words myself after reading only one chapter. I only hope I won't go berserk after reading a few more...because, I'm telling you, it piles up until you just don't know "what, where, who, when" anymore.

So, let's see how this goes as I go along.

Ciao.