text:
And Stylistic Characteristics
Of Words at All Interrelated?
Is it possible to establish regular associations between any of the groups of etymological classification (see p. 52) and the stylistic classification of English vocabulary (Ch. 2)? The answer must be in the affirmative.
It is quite natural to expect to find a considerable number of native words in the basic vocabulary, if we remember that the latter comprises words denoting essential objects and phenomena. Yet, one should keep in mind that among basic vocabulary words there are also rather numerous Latin and French borrowings.
In general, we should not be misled into thinking that all short common words are native, and that only three- and four-syllable words came from foreign sources. Words like very, air, hour, cry, oil, cat, pay, box, face, poor, dress are of foreign origin despite their native appearance and common use. So it would be correct to state that, though native words prevail in the basic vocabulary, this stratum also comprises a considerable number of old borrowings which have become so fully adapted to the English language system that they are practically indistinguishable from the native stock.
The centre of gravity of borrowed words in the stylistic classification is represented by two groups: learned words and terminology. In these strata the foreign element dominates the native. It also seems that the whole opposition of "formal versus informal" is based on the deeper underlying opposition of "borrowed versus native", as the informal strata, especially slang and dialect, abound in native words even though it is possible to quote numerous exceptions.
Comparing the expressive and stylistic value of the French and the English words in such synonymic pairs as to begin — to commence, to wish — to desire, happiness — felicity, O. Jespersen remarks: "The French word is usually more formal, more refined, and has a less strong hold on the emotional side of life." [29]
The truth of this observation becomes even more obvious if we regard certain pairs within which a native word may be compared with its Latin synonym: mother ly — maternal, fatherly — paternal, childish — infan tile, daughterly — filial, etc. Motherly love seems much warmer than maternal feelings — which sounds dutiful but cold. The word childish is associated with all the wonder and vivid poetry of the earliest human age whereas infantile is quite dry. You may speak about
childish games and childish charm, but about infantile diseases, whereas infantile mind implies criticism.
It is interesting to note that a similar pair of words sunny — solar cannot even be regarded as synonyms though semantically they both pertain to the sun. Yet, if a fine day can be described as sunny, it certainly cannot be characterised by the word solar which is used in highly formal terminological senses (e. g. solar energy). The same is true about handy — manual, toothy (e. g. a toothy grin) — dental (term again), nosy (e. g. a nosy kind of person) — nasal (e. g. nasal sounds, voice)1.
I. Consider your answers to the following.
1.Which conditions stimulate the borrowing pro
2. Why are words borrowed?
3. What stages of assimilation do borrowings go
4. In what spheres of communication do international words frequently occur?
5. What do we understand by etymological doublets?
6. What are the characteristic features of translation-loans?
7. How are the etymological and stylistic characteristics of words interrelated?
II. Explain the etymology of the following words. Write them out in three columns: a) fully assimilated words; b) partially assimilated words; c) unassimilated words. Explain the reasons for your choice in each case.
Pen, hors d'oeuvre, ballet, beet, butter, skin, take, cup, police, distance, monk, garage, phenomenon,
1 Also see Supplementary Material, p.p. 276.
How English Words Are Made. Word-Building1
Before turning to the various processes of making words, it would be useful to analyse the related problem of the composition of words, i. e. of their constituent parts.
If viewed structurally, words appear to be divisible into smaller units which are called morphemes. Morphemes do not occur as free forms but only as constituents of words. Yet they possess meanings of their own.
All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: roots (or radicals) and affixes. The latter, in their turn, fall into prefixes which precede the root in the structure of the word (as in re-read, mis-pronounce, unwell) and suffixes which follow the root (as in teach-er, cur-able, diet-ate).
Words which consist of a root and an affix (or several affixes) are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word-building known as affixation (or derivation).
Derived words are extremely numerous in the English vocabulary. Successfully competing with this structural type is the so-called root word which has only a root morpheme in its structure. This type is
1 By word-building are understood processes of producing new words from the resources of this particular language. Together with borrowing, word-building provides for enlarging and enriching the vocabulary of the language.
widely represented by a great number of words belonging to the original English stock or to earlier borrowings (house, room, book, work, port, street, table, etc.), and, in Modern English, has been greatly enlarged by the type of word-building called conversion (e. g. to hand, v. formed from the noun hand; to can, v. from can, п.; to pale, v. from pale, adj.; a find, n. from to find, v.; etc.).
Another wide-spread word-structure is a compound word consisting of two or more stems1 (e. g. dining-room, bluebell, mother-in-law, good-for-nothing). Words of this structural type are produced by the word-building process called composition.
The somewhat odd-looking words like flu, pram, lab, M. P., V-day, H-bomb are called shortenings, contractions or curtailed words and are produced by the way of word-building called shortening (contraction).
The four types (root words, derived words, compounds, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition the most productive ways of word-building.
To return to the question posed by the title of this chapter, of how words are made, let us try and get a more detailed picture of each of the major types of Modern English word-building and, also, of some minor types.
The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme. The role of the affix in this procedure is very important and therefore it is necessary to consider certain facts about the main types of affixes.
1 Stem is part of the word consisting of root and affix. In English words stern and root often coincide.
From the etymological point of view affixes are classified into the same two large groups as words: native and borrowed.
Some Native Suffixes1
1 The table gives examples of especially frequent native affixes.
Borrowed affixes, especially of Romance origin are numerous in the English vocabulary (Ch. 3). It would be wrong, though, to suppose that affixes are borrowed in the same way and for the same reasons as words. An affix of foreign origin can be regarded as borrowed only after it has begun an independent and active life in the recipient language, that is, is taking part in the word-making processes of that language. This can only occur when the total of words with this affix is so great in the recipient language as to affect the native speakers' subconscious to the extent that they no longer realise its foreign flavour and accept it as their own.
* * *
Affixes can also be classified into productive and non-productive types. By productive affixes we mean the ones, which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms and so-called nonce-words, i. e. words coined and used only for this particular occasion. The latter are usually formed on the level of living speech and reflect the most productive and progressive patterns in word-building. When a literary critic writes about a certain book that it is an unputdownable thriller, we will seek in vain this strange and impressive adjective in dictionaries, for it is a nonce-word coined on the current pattern of Modern English and is evidence of the high productivity of the adjective-forming borrowed suffix -able and the native prefix un-.
Consider, for example, the following:
Professor Pringle was a thinnish, baldish, dispeptic-lookingish cove with an eye like a haddock.
(From Right-Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse) 81
The adjectives thinnish and baldish bring to mind dozens of other adjectives made with the same suffix: oldish, youngish, mannish, girlish, fattish, longish, yellowish, etc. But dispeptic-lookingish is the author's creation aimed at a humorous effect, and, at the same time, proving beyond doubt that the suffix -ish is a live and active one.
The same is well illustrated by the following popular statement: "/ don't like Sunday evenings: I feel so Mondayish". (Mondayish is certainly a nonce-word.)
One should not confuse the productivity of affixes with their frequency of occurrence. There are quite a number of high-frequency affixes which, nevertheless, are no longer used in word-derivation (e. g. the adjective-forming native suffixes -ful, -ly; the adjective-forming suffixes of Latin origin -ant, -ent, -al which are quite frequent).
Some Productive Affixes
Note. Examples are given only for the affixes which are not listed in the tables at p. 82 and p. 83.
International suffixes.
Some Non-Productive Affixes
Note. The native noun-forming suffixes -dom and -ship ceased to be productive centuries ago. Yet, Professor I. V. Arnold in The English Word gives some examples of comparatively new formations with the suffix -dom: boredom, serfdom, slavedom [15].The same is true about -ship (e. g. salesmanship). The adjective-forming -ish, which leaves no doubt as to its productivity nowadays, has comparatively recently regained it, after having been non-productive for many centuries.
Semantics of Affixes
The morpheme, and therefore affix, which is a type of morpheme, is generally defined as the smallest indivisible component of the word possessing a meaning of its own. Meanings of affixes are specific and considerably differ from those of root morphemes. Affixes have widely generalised meanings and refer the concept conveyed by the whole word to a certain category, which is vast and all-embracing. So, the noun-forming suffix -er could be roughly defined as designating persons from the object of their occupation or labour (painter — the one who paints) or from their place of origin or abode (southerner — the one living in the South). The adjective-forming suffix -ful has the meaning of "full of", "characterised by" (beautiful, careful) whereas -ish may often imply insufficiency of quality (greenish — green, but not quite; youngish — not quite young but looking it).
Such examples might lead one to the somewhat hasty conclusion that the meaning of a derived word is always
a sum of the meanings of its morphemes: un/eat/able = "not fit to eat" where not stands for un- and fit for -able.
There are numerous derived words whose meanings can really be easily deduced from the meanings of their constituent parts. Yet, such cases represent only the first and simplest stage of semantic readjustment within derived words. The constituent morphemes within derivatives do not always preserve their current meanings and are open to subtle and complicated semantic shifts.
Let us take at random some of the adjectives formed with the same productive suffix -y, and try to deduce the meaning of the suffix from their dictionary definitions:
brainy (inform.) — intelligent, intellectual, i. e. characterised by brains
catty — quietly or slyly malicious, spiteful, i. e. characterised by features ascribed to a cat
chatty — given to chat, inclined to chat
dressy (inform.) — showy in dress, i. e. inclined to dress well or to be overdressed
fishy (e. g. in a fishy story, inform.) — improbable, hard to believe (like stories told by fishermen)
foxy — foxlike, cunning or crafty, i. e. characterised by features ascribed to a fox
stagy — theatrical, unnatural, i. e. inclined to affectation, to unnatural theatrical manners
touchy — apt to take offence on slight provocation, i. e. resenting a touch or contact (not at all inclined to be touched)1
The Random-House Dictionary defines the meaning of the -y suffix as "characterised by or inclined to the substance or action of the root to which the affix is at-
1 Some of the listed adjectives have several meanings, but only one is given so as to keep the list manageable.
tached". [46] Yet, even the few given examples show that, on the one hand, there are cases, like touchy or fishy that are not covered by the definition. On the other hand, even those cases that are roughly covered, show a wide variety of subtle shades of meaning. It is not only the suffix that adds its own meaning to the meaning of the root, but the suffix is, in its turn, affected by the root and undergoes certain semantic changes, so that the mutual influence of root and affix creates a wide range of subtle nuances.
But is the suffix -y probably exceptional in this respect? It is sufficient to examine further examples to see that other affixes also offer an interesting variety of semantic shades. Compare, for instance, the meanings of adjective-forming suffixes in each of these groups of adjectives.
1.eatable (fit or good to eat)1
2. lovely (charming, beautiful, i. e. inspiring love)
friendly (characteristic of or befitting a friend) heavenly (resembling or befitting heaven; beautiful, splendid)
3. childish (resembling or befitting a child)
tallish (rather tall, but not quite, i. e. approaching the quality of big size)
girlish (like a girl, but, often, in a bad imitation of one)
bookish (1) given or devoted to reading or study; (2) more acquainted with books than with real
1 The italicised words roughly convey the meanings of the suffixes in each adjective.
life, i. e. possessing the quality of bookish learning)
The semantic distinctions of words produced from the same root by means of different affixes are also of considerable interest, both for language studies and research work. Compare: womanly — womanish, flowery — flowered — flowering, starry — starred, reddened — reddish, shortened — shortish.
The semantic difference between the members of these groups is very obvious: the meanings of the suffixes are so distinct that they colour the whole words.
Womanly is used in a complimentary manner about girls and women, whereas womanish is used to indicate an effeminate man and certainly implies criticism.
Flowery is applied to speech or a style (cf. with the R. цветистый), flowered means "decorated with a pattern of flowers" (e. g. flowered silk or chintz, cf. with the R. цветастый) and flowering is the same as blossoming (e. g. flowering bushes or shrubs, cf. with the R. цветущий).
Starry means "resembling stars" (e. g. starry eyes) and starred — "covered or decorated with stars" (e. g. starred skies).
Reddened and shortened both imply the result of an action or process, as in the eyes reddened with weeping or a shortened version of a story (i. e. a story that has been abridged) whereas shortish and reddish point to insufficiency of quality: reddish is not exactly red, but tinged with red, and a shortish man is probably a little taller than a man described as short.
When in a book-review a book is referred to as a splendid read, is read to be regarded as a verb or a noun? What part of speech is room in the sentence: I was to room with another girl called Jessie. If a char-
acter in a novel is spoken about as one who had to be satisfied with the role of a has-been, what is this odd-looking has-been, a verb or a noun? One must admit that it has quite a verbal appearance, but why, then, is it preceded by the article?
Why is the word if used in the plural form in the popular proverb: If ifs and ans were pots and pans? (an = if, dial., arch.)
This type of questions naturally arise when one deals with words produced by conversion, one of the most productive ways of modern English word-building.
Conversion is sometimes referred to as an affixless way of word-building or even affixless derivation. Saying that, however, is saying very little because there are other types of word-building in which new words are also formed without affixes (most compounds, contracted words, sound-imitation words, etc.).
Conversion consists in making a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. The new word has a meaning which differs from that of the original one though it can more or less be easily associated with it. It has also a new paradigm peculiar to its new category as a part of speech.
nurse, n.
to nurse, v
Substantive paradigm
-s, pl.
-'s, poss. c., Verbal
-s', poss. c., pl
-s, 3rd p. sg. -ed, past indef., past part.
-ing,- pres. part., gerund
The question of conversion has, for a long time, been a controversial one in several aspects. The very
essence of this process has been treated by a number of scholars (e. g. H. Sweet), not as a word-building act, but as a mere functional change. From this point of view the word hand in Hand me that book is not a verb, but a noun used in a verbal syntactical function, that is, hand (me) and hands (in She has small hands) are not two different words but one. Hence, the сазе cannot be treated as one of word-formation for no new word appears.
According to this functional approach, conversion may be regarded as a specific feature of the English categories of parts of speech, which are supposed to be able to break through the rigid borderlines dividing one category from another thus enriching the process of communication not by the creation of new words but through the sheer flexibility of the syntactic structures.
Nowadays this theory finds increasingly fewer supporters, and conversion is universally accepted as one of the major ways of enriching English vocabulary with new words. One of the major arguments for this approach to conversion is the semantic change that regularly accompanies each instance of conversion. Normally, a word changes its syntactic function without any shift in lexical meaning. E. g. both in yellow leaves and in The leaves were turning yellow the adjective denotes colour. Yet, in The leaves yellowed the converted unit no longer denotes colour, but the process of changing colour, so that there is an essential change in meaning.
The change of meaning is even more obvious in such pairs as hand > to hand, face > to face, to go > a go, to make > a make, etc.
The other argument is the regularity and completeness with which converted units develop a paradigm of their new category of part of speech. As soon as it has
crossed the category borderline, the new word automatically acquires all the properties of the new category, so that if it has entered the verb category, it is now regularly used in all the forms of tense and it also develops the forms of the participle and the gerund. Such regularity can hardly be regarded as indicating a mere functional change which might be expected to bear more occasional characteristics. The completeness of the paradigms in new conversion formations seems to be a decisive argument proving that here we are dealing with new words and not with mere functional variants. The data of the more reputable modern English dictionaries confirm this point of view: they all present converted pairs as homonyms, i. e. as two words, thus supporting the thesis that conversion is a word-building process.
Conversion is not only a highly productive but also a particularly English way of word-building. Its immense productivity is considerably encouraged by certain features of the English language in its modern stage of development. The analytical structure of Modern English greatly facilitates processes of making words of one category of parts of speech from words of another. So does the simplicity of paradigms of English parts of speech. A great number of one-syllable words is another factor in favour of conversion, for such words are naturally more mobile and flexible than polysyllables.
Conversion is a convenient and "easy" way of enriching the vocabulary with new words. It is certainly an advantage to have two (or more) words where there was one, all of them fixed on the same structural and semantic base.
The high productivity of conversion finds its reflection in speech where numerous occasional cases of conversion can be found, which are not registered by dictionaries and
which occur momentarily, through the immediate need of the situation. "If anybody oranges me again tonight, I'll knock his face off, says the annoyed hero of a story by O'Henry when a shop-assistant offers him oranges (for the tenth time in one night) instead of peaches for which he is looking ("Little Speck in Garnered Fruit"). One is not likely to find the verb to orange in any dictionary, but in this situation it answers the need for brevity, expressiveness and humour.
The very first example, which opens the section on conversion in this chapter (the book is a splendid read), though taken from a book-review, is a nonce-word, which may be used by reviewers now and then or in informal verbal communication, but has not yet found its way into the universally acknowledged English vocabulary.
Such examples as these show that conversion is a vital and developing process that penetrates contemporary speech as well. Subconsciously every English speaker realises the immense potentiality of making a word into another part of speech when the need arises.
* * *
One should guard against thinking that every case of noun and verb (verb and adjective, adjective and noun, etc.) with the same morphemic shape results from conversion. There are numerous pairs of words (e. g. love, n. — to love, v.; work, n. — to work, v.; drink, n. — to drink, v., etc.) which did, not occur due to conversion but coincided as a result of certain historical processes (dropping of endings, simplification of stems) when before that they had different forms (e. g. O. E. lufu, n. — lufian, v.). On the other hand, it is quite true that the first cases of conversion (which were registered in the 14th c.) imitated such pairs of
words as love, n. — to love, v. for they were numerous in the vocabulary and were subconsciously accepted by native speakers as one of the typical language patterns.
* * *
The two categories of parts of speech especially affected by conversion are nouns and verbs. Verbs made from nouns are the most numerous amongst the words produced by conversion: e. g. to hand, to back, to face, to eye, to mouth, to nose, to dog, to wolf, to monkey, to can, to coal, to stage, to screen, to room, to floor, to blackmail, to blacklist, to honeymoon, and very many others.
Nouns are frequently made from verbs: do (e. g. This is the queerest do I've ever come across. Do — event, incident), go (e. g. He has still plenty of go at his age. Go — energy), make, run, find, catch, cut, walk, worry, show, move, etc.
Verbs can also be made from adjectives: to pale, to yellow, to cool, to grey, to rough (e. g. We decided to rough it in the tents as the weather was warm), etc.
Other parts of speech are not entirely unsusceptible to conversion as the following examples show: to down, to out (as in a newspaper heading Diplomatist Outed from Budapest), the ups and downs, the ins and outs, like, n, (as in the like of me and the like of you).
* * *
It was mentioned at the beginning of this section that a word made by conversion has a different meaning from that of the word from which it was made though the two meanings can be associated. There are certain regularities in these associations which can be roughly classified. For instance, in the group of verbs
made from nouns some of the regular semantic associations are as indicated in the following list:
I. The noun is the name of a tool or implement, the verb denotes an action performed by the tool: to hammer, to nail, to pin, to brush, to comb, to pencil.
II. The noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes an action or aspect of behaviour considered typical of this animal: to dog, to wolf, to monkey, to ape, to fox, to rat. Yet, to fish does not mean "to behave like a fish" but "to try to catch fish". The same meaning of hunting activities is conveyed by the verb to whale and one of the meanings of to rat; the other is "to turn in former, squeal" (sl.).
III. The name of a part of the human body — an ac tion performed by it: to hand, to leg (sl.), to eye, to elbow, to shoulder, to nose, to mouth. However, to face does not imply doing something by or even with one's face but turning it in a certain direction. To back means either "to move backwards" or, in the figurative sense, "to support somebody or something".
IV. The name of a profession or occupation — an activity typical of it: to nurse, to cook, to maid, to groom.
V. The name of a place — the process of occupying
VI. The name of a container — the act of putting smth. within the container (to can, to bottle, to pocket).
VII. The name of a meal — the process of taking it (to lunch, to supper).
The suggested groups do not include all the great variety of verbs made from nouns by conversion. They just represent the most obvious cases and illustrate, convincingly enough, the great variety of semantic interrelations within so-called converted pairs and the
complex nature of the logical associations which specify them.
In actual fact, these associations are not only complex but sometimes perplexing. It would seem that if you know that the verb formed from the name of an animal denotes behaviour typical of the animal, it would be easy for you to guess the meaning of such a verb provided that you know the meaning of the noun. Yet, it is not always easy. Of course, the meaning of to fox is rather obvious being derived from the associated reputation of that animal for cunning: to fox means "to act cunningly or craftily". But what about to wolf? How is one to know which of the characteristics of the animal was picked by the speaker's subconscious when this verb was produced? Ferocity? Loud and unpleasant howling? The inclination to live in packs? Yet, as the following example shows, to wolf means "to eat greedily, voraciously": Charlie went on wolfing the chocolate. (R. Dahl)
In the same way, from numerous characteristics of the dog, only one was chosen for the verb to dog which is well illustrated by the following example:
And what of Charles? I pity any detective who would have to dog him through those twenty months.
(From The French Lieutenant's Woman by J. Fowles)
(To dog — to follow or track like a dog, especially with hostile intent.)
The two verbs to ape and to monkey, which might be expected to mean more or less the same, have shared between themselves certain typical features of the same animal:
to ape — to imitate, mimic (e. g. He had always aped the gentleman in his clothes and manners. — J. Fowles);
How English Words Are Made.
This type of word-building, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems, is one of the three most productive types in Modern English, the other two are conversion and affixation. Compounds, though certainly fewer in quantity than derived or root words, still represent one of the most typical and specific features of English word-structure.
There are at least three aspects of composition that present special interest.
The first is the structural aspect. Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Traditionally three types are distinguished: neutral, morphological and syntactic.
In neutral compounds the process of compounding is realised without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition of two stems, as in blackbird, shop-window, sunflower, bedroom, tallboy, etc. There are three subtypes of neutral compounds depending on the structure of the constituent stems.
The examples above represent the subtype which may be described as simple neutral compounds: they consist of simple affixless stems.
Compounds which have affixes in their structure are called derived or derivational compounds. E. g. absent-mindedness, blue-eyed, golden-haired, broad-shouldered, lady-killer, film-goer, music-lover, honey-moon-
er, first-nighter, late-comer, newcomer, early-riser, evildoer. The productivity of this type is confirmed by a considerable number of comparatively recent formations, such as teenager, babysitter, strap-hanger, fourseater ("car or boat with four seats"), doubledecker ("a ship or bus with two decks"). Numerous nonce-words are coined on this pattern which is another proof of its high productivity: e. g. luncher-out ("a person who habitually takes his lunch in restaurants and not at home"), goose-flesher ("murder story") or attention getter in the following fragment:
"Dad," I began ... "I'm going to lose my job." That should be an attention getter, I figured.
(From A Five-Colour Buick by P. Anderson Wood)
The third subtype of neutral compounds is called contracted compounds. These words have a shortened (contracted) stem in their structure: TV-set (-program, -show, -canal, etc.), V-day (Victory day), G-man (Government man "FBI agent"), H-bag (handbag), T-shirt, etc.
Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non-productive. It is represented by words in which two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant, e. g. Anglo-Saxon, Franko-Prussian, handiwork, handicraft, craftsmanship, spokesman, statesman (see also p. 115).
In syntactic compounds (the term is arbitrary) we once more find a feature of specifically English word-structure. These words are formed from segments of speech, preserving in their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs, as in the nouns lily-of-the-valley, Jack-of-all-trades, good-for-nothing, mother-in-law, sit-at-home. Syntactical relations and grammatical patterns current in present-day English can be clearly traced in the structures of such compound nouns as
pick-me-up, know-all, know-nothing, go-between, get-together, whodunit. The last word (meaning "a detective story") was obviously coined from the ungrammatical variant of the word-group who (has) done it.
In this group of compounds, once more, we find a great number of neologisms, and whodunit is one of them. Consider, also, the two following fragments which make rich use of modern city traffic terms.
Randy managed to weave through a maze of oneway-streets, no-left-turns, and no-stopping-zones ...
(From A Five-Colour Buick by P. Anderson Wood)
"... you go down to the Department of Motor Vehicles tomorrow and take your behind-the-wheel test."
The structure of most compounds is transparent, as it were, and clearly betrays the origin of these words from word-combinations. The fragments below illustrate admirably the very process of coining nonce-words after the productive patterns of composition.
"Is all this really true?" he asked. "Or are you pulling my leg?"
... Charlie looked slowly around at each of the four old faces... They were quite serious. There was no sign of joking or leg-pulling on any of them.
(From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by R. Dahl)
"I have decided that you are up to no good. I am well aware that that is your natural condition. But I prefer you to be up to no good in London. Which is more used to up-to-no-gooders."
(From The French Lieutenant's Woman by J. Fowles)
"What if they capture us?" said Mrs. Bucket. "What if they shoot us?" said Grandma Georgina. "What if my beard were made of green spinach?" cried Mr. Wonka. "Bunkum and tommyrot! You'll
never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. ...We want no what-iffers around, right, Charlie?"
(From Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by R. Dahl)
The first of the examples presents the nonce-word leg-pulling coined on the pattern of neutral derivational compounds. The what-iffing and what-iffers of the third extract seem to represent the same type, though there is something about the words clearly resembling syntactic compounds: their what-if-nucleus is one of frequent patterns of living speech. As to the up-to-no-gooders of the second example, it is certainly a combination of syntactic and derivational types, as it is made from a segment of speech which is held together by the -er suffix. A similar formation is represented by the nonce-word breakfast-in-the-bedder ("a person who prefers to have his breakfast in bed").
* * *
Another focus of interest is the semantic aspect of compound words, that is, the question of correlations of the separate meanings of the constituent parts and the actual meaning of the compound. Or, to put it in easier terms: can the meaning of a compound word be regarded as the sum of its constituent meanings?
To try and answer this question, let us consider the following groups of examples.
(1) Classroom, bedroom, working-man, evening-gown, dining-room, sleeping-car, reading-room, dancing-hall.
This group seems to represent compounds whose meanings can really be described as the sum of their constituent meanings. Yet, in the last four words we can distinctly detect a slight shift of meaning. The first component in these words, if taken as a free form, denotes an action or state of whatever or whoever is characterised by the word. Yet, a sleeping-car is not a car
that sleeps (cf. a sleeping child), nor is a dancing-hall actually dancing (cf. dancing pairs).
The shift of meaning becomes much more pronounced in the second group of examples.
(2) Blackboard, blackbird, football, lady-killer, pick
In these compounds one of the components (or both) has changed its meaning: a blackboard is neither a board nor necessarily black, football is not a ball but a game, a chatterbox not a box but a person, and a lady-killer kills no one but is merely a man who fascinates women. It is clear that in all these compounds the meaning of the whole word cannot be defined as the sum of the constituent meanings. The process of change of meaning in some such words has gone so far that the meaning of one or both constituents is no longer in the least associated with the current meaning of the corresponding free form, and yet the speech community quite calmly accepts such seemingly illogical word groups as a white blackbird, pink bluebells or an entirely confusing statement like: Blackberries are red when they are green.
Yet, despite a certain readjustment in the semantic structure of the word, the meanings of the constituents of the compounds of this second group are still transparent: you can see through them the meaning of the whole complex. Knowing the meanings of the constituents a student of English can get a fairly clear idea of what the whole word means even if he comes across it for the first time. At least, it is clear that a blackbird is some kind of bird and that a good-for-nothing is not meant as a compliment.
(3) In the third group of compounds the process of
bluestocking, on the contrary, is a person, whereas bluebottle may denote both a flower and an insect but never a bottle.
Similar enigmas are encoded in such words as man-of-war ("warship"), merry-to-round ("carousel"), mother-of-pearl ("irridescent substance forming the inner layer of certain shells"), horse-marine ("a person who is unsuitable for his job or position"), butter-fingers ("clumsy person; one who is apt to drop things"), wall-flower ("a girl who is not invited to dance at a party"), whodunit ("detective story"), straphanger (1. "a passenger who stands in a crowded bus or underground train and holds onto a strap or other support suspended from above"; 2. "a book of light genre, trash; the kind of book one is likely to read when travelling in buses or trains").
The compounds whose meanings do not correspond to the separate meanings of their constituent parts (2nd and 3rd group listed above) are called idiomatic compounds, in contrast to the first group known as non-idiomatic compounds.
The suggested subdivision into three groups is based on the degree of semantic cohesion of the constituent parts, the third group representing the extreme case of cohesion where the constituent meanings blend to produce an entirely new meaning.
The following joke rather vividly shows what happens if an idiomatic compound is misunderstood as non-idiomatic.
Patient: They tell me, doctor, you are a perfect lady-killer.
Doctor: Oh, no, no! I assure you, my dear madam, I make no distinction between the sexes.
In this joke, while the woman patient means to compliment the doctor on his being a handsome and irresistible man, he takes or pretends to take the word lady-killer literally, as a sum of the direct meanings of its constituents.
The structural type of compound words and the word-building type of composition have certain advantages for communication purposes.
Composition is not quite so flexible a way of coining new words as conversion but flexible enough as is convincingly shown by the examples of nonce-words given above. Among compounds are found numerous expressive and colourful words. They are also comparatively laconic, absorbing into one word an idea that otherwise would have required a whole phrase (cf. The hotel was full of week-enders and The hotel was full of people spending the week-end there).
Both the laconic and the expressive value of compounds can be well illustrated by English compound adjectives denoting colours (cf. snow-white — as white as snow).
In the following extract a family are discussing which colour to paint their new car.
"Hey," Sally yelled, "could you paint it canary yellow, Fred?"
"Turtle green," shouted my mother, quickly getting into the spirit of the thing.
"Mouse grey," Randy suggested.
"Dove white, maybe?" my mother asked.
"Rattlesnake brown," my father said with a deadpan look...
"Forget it, all of you," I announced. "My Buick is going to be peacock blue."
(From A Five-Colour Buick by P. Anderson Wood)
It is obvious that the meaning of all these "multi-coloured" adjectives is based on comparison: the second constituent of the adjective is the name of a colour used in its actual sense and the first is the name of an object (animal, flower, etc.) with which the comparison is drawn. The pattern immensely extends the possibilities of denoting all imaginable shades of each co-
lour, the more so that the pattern is productive and a great number of nonce-words are created after it. You can actually coin an adjective comparing the colour of a defined object with almost anything on earth: the pattern allows for vast creative experiments. This is well shown in the fragment given above. If canary yellow, peacock blue, dove white are quite "normal" in the language and registered by dictionaries, turtle green and rattlesnake brown1 are certainly typical nonce-words, amusing inventions of the author aimed at a humorous effect.
Sometimes it is pointed out, as a disadvantage, that the English language has only one word blue for two different colours denoted in Russian by синий and голубой.
But this seeming inadequacy is compensated by a large number of adjectives coined on the pattern of comparison such as navy blue, cornflower blue, peacock blue, chicory blue, sapphire blue, china blue, sky-blue, turquoise blue, forget-me-not blue, heliotrope blue, powder-blue. This list can be supplemented by compound adjectives which also denote different shades of blue, but are not built on comparison: dark blue, light blue, pale blue, electric blue, Oxford blue, Cambridge blue.
* * *
A further theoretical aspect of composition is the criteria for distinguishing between a compound and a word-combination.
This question has a direct bearing on the specific feature of the structure of most English compounds which has already been mentioned: with the exception
1 R. "цвета гремучей змеи". The father of the family is absolutely against the idea of buying the car, and the choice of this word reflects his mood of resentment.
of the rare morphological type, they originate directly from word-combinations and are often homonymous to them: cf. a tall boy — a tallboy.
In this case the graphic criterion of distinguishing between a word and a word-group seems to be sufficiently convincing, yet in many cases it cannot wholly be relied on. The spelling of many compounds, tallboy among them, can be varied even within the same book. In the case of tallboy the semantic criterion seems more reliable, for the striking difference in the meanings of the word and the word-group certainly points to the highest degree of semantic cohesion in the word: tallboy does not even denote a person, but a piece of furniture, a chest of drawers supported by a low stand.
Moreover, the word-group a tall boy conveys two concepts (1. a young male person; 2. big in size), whereas the word tallboy expresses one concept.
Yet the semantic criterion alone cannot prove anything as phraseological units also convey a single concept and some of them are characterised by a high degree of semantic cohesion (see Ch. 12).
The phonetic criterion for compounds may be treated as that of a single stress. The criterion is convincingly applicable to many compound nouns, yet does not work with compound adjectives:
cf. 'slowcoach, blackbird, 'tallboy,
but: blие-'eyed, 'absent-'minded, 'ill-'mannered.
Still, it is true that the morphological structure of these adjectives and their hyphenated spelling leave no doubt about their status as words and not word-groups.
Morphological and syntactic criteria can also be applied to compound words in order to distinguish them from word-groups.
In the word-group a tall boy each of the constituents is independently open to grammatical changes peculiar to its own category as a part of speech: They were the tallest boys in their form.
Between the constituent parts of the word-group other words can be inserted: a tall handsome boy.
The compound tallboy — and, in actual fact, any other compound — is not subject to such changes. The first component is grammatically invariable; the plural form ending is added to the whole unit: tallboys. No word can be inserted between the components, even with the compounds which have a traditional separate graphic form.
All this leads us to the conclusion that, in most cases, only several criteria (semantic, morphological, syntactic, phonetic, graphic) can convincingly classify a lexical unit as either a compound word or a word group.
Consider the following examples.
"... The Great Glass Elevator is shockproof, waterproof, bombproof, bulletproof, and Knidproof1 ..." (From Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by R. Dahl)
Lady Malvern tried to freeze him with a look, but you can't do that sort of thing to Jeeves. He is look-proof.
(From Carry on, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse)
Better sorts of lip-stick are frequently described in advertisements as kissproof. Some building materials may be advertised as fireproof. Certain technical devices are foolproof meaning that they are safe even in a fool's hands.
1 Knids — fantastic monsters supposed to inhabit the Cosmos and invented by the author of this book for children.
All these words, with -proof for the second component, stand between compounds and derived words in their characteristics. On the one hand, the second component seems to bear all the features of a stem and preserves certain semantic associations with the free form proof. On the other hand, the meaning of -proof in all the numerous words built on this pattern has become so generalised that it is certainly approaching that of a suffix. The high productivity of the pattern is proved, once more, by the possibility of coining nonce-words after this pattern: look-proof and Knidproof, the second produced from the non-existent stem Knid.
The component -proof, standing thus between a stem and an affix, is regarded by some scholars as a semi-affix.
Another example of semi-affix is -man in a vast group of English nouns denoting people: sportsman, gentleman, nobleman, salesman, seaman, fisherman, countryman, statesman, policeman, chairman, etc.
Semantically, the constituent -man in these words approaches the generalised meaning of such noun-forming suffixes as -er, -or, -ist (e. g. artist), -ite (e. g. hypocrite). It has moved so far in its meaning from the corresponding free form man, that such word-groups as woman policeman or Mrs. Chairman are quite usual. Nor does the statement Lady, you are no gentleman sound eccentric or illogical for the speaker uses the word gentleman in its general sense of a noble upright person, regardless of sex. It must be added though that this is only an occasional usage and that gentleman is normally applied to men.
Other examples of semi-affixes are -land (e. g. Ire land, Scotland, fatherland, wonderland), -like (e. g. ladylike, unladylike, businesslike, unbusiness like, starlike, flowerlike, etc.), -worthy (e. g. seaworthy, trustworthy, praiseworthy).
Shortening (Contraction)
This comparatively new way of word-building has achieved a high degree of productivity nowadays, especially in American English.
Shortenings (or contracted/curtailed words) are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word from a syllable (rarer, two) of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone, fence from defence), its ending (as in hols from holidays, vac from vacation, props from properties, ad from advertisement) or both the beginning and ending (as in flu from influenza, fridge from refrigerator).
The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group: U.N.O. ['ju:neu] from the United Nations Organisation, B.B.C. from the British Broadcasting Corporation, M.P. from Member of Parliament. This type is called initial shortenings. They are found not only among formal words, such as the ones above, but also among colloquialisms and slang. So, g. f. is a shortened word made from the compound girl-friend. The word, though, seems to be somewhat ambiguous as the following conversation between two undergraduates clearly shows:
— Who's the letter from?
— My g. f.
— Didn't know you had girl-friends. A nice girl?
— Idiot! It's from my grandfather!
It is commonly believed that the preference for shortenings can be explained by their brevity and is due to the ever-increasing tempo of modern life. Yet, in the conversation given above the use of an ambiguous contraction does not in the least contribute to the brevity of the communication: on the contrary, it takes the speakers some time to clarify the misunderstand-
ing. Confusion and ambiguousness are quite natural consequences of the modern overabundance of shortened words, and initial shortenings are often especially enigmatic and misleading.
Both types of shortenings are characteristic of informal speech in general and of uncultivated speech particularly. The history of the American okay seems to be rather typical. Originally this initial shortening was spelt O.K. and was supposed to stand for all correct. The purely oral manner in which sounds were recorded for letters resulted in O.K. whereas it should have been AC. or aysee. Indeed, the ways of words are full of surprises.
Here are some more examples of informal shortenings. Movie (from moving-picture), gent (from gentleman), specs (from spectacles), circs (from circumstances, e. g. under the circs), I. O. Y. (a written acknowledgement of debt, made from I owe you), lib (from liberty, as in May I take the lib of saying something to you?), cert (from certainty, as in This enterprise is a cert if you have a bit of capital), metrop (from metropoly, e. g. Paris is a gay metrop), exhibish (from exhibition), posish (from position).
Undergraduates' informal speech abounds in words of the type: exam, lab, prof, vac, hol, co-ed (a girl student at a coeducational school or college).
Some of the Minor Types of Modern Word-Building. Sound-Imitation (Onomatopoeia1)
Words coined by this interesting type of word-building are made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimate objects.
1 [onemaete'pie]. This type of word-formation is now also called echoism (the term was introduced by O. Jespersen).
It is of some interest that sounds produced by the same kind of animal are. frequently represented by quite different sound groups in different languages. For instance, English dogs bark (cf. the R. лаять) or howl (cf. the R. выть). The English cock cries cock-a-doodle-doo (cf. the R. ку-ка-ре-ку). In England ducks quack and frogs croak (cf. the R. крякать said about ducks and квакать said about frogs). It is only English and Russian cats who seem capable of mutual understanding when they meet, for English cats mew or miaow (meow). The same can be said about cows: they moo (but also low).
Some names of animals and especially of birds and insects are also produced by sound-imitation: crow, cuckoo, humming-bird, whip-poor-will, cricket.
The following desperate letter contains a great number of sound-imitation words reproducing sounds made by modern machinery:
The Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co.,
Pittsburg, Pa.
Why is it that your switch engine has to ding and fizz and spit and pant and grate and grind and puff and bump and chug and hoot and toot and whistle and wheeze and howl and clang and growl and thump and clash and boom and jolt and screech and snarl and snort and slam and throb and soar and rattle and hiss and yell and smoke and shriek all night long when I come home from a hard day at the boiler works and have to keep the dog quiet and the baby quiet so my wife can squawk at me for snoring in my sleep?
(From Language and Humour by G. G. Pocheptsov.)
There is a hypothesis that sound-imitation as a way of word-formation should be viewed as something much wider than just the production of words by the imitation of
purely acoustic phenomena. Some scholars suggest that words may imitate through their sound form certain unacoustic features and qualities of inanimate objects, actions and processes or that the meaning of the word can be regarded as the immediate relation of the sound group to the object. If a young chicken or kitten is described as fluffy there seems to be something in the sound of the adjective that conveys the softness and the downy quality of its plumage or its fur. Such verbs as to glance, to glide, to slide, to slip are supposed to convey by their very sound the nature of the smooth, easy movement over a slippery surface. The sound form of the words shimmer, glimmer, glitter seems to reproduce the wavering, tremulous nature of the faint light. The sound of the verbs to rush, to dash, to flash may be said to reflect the brevity, swiftness and energetic nature of their corresponding actions. The word thrill has something in the quality of its sound that very aptly conveys the tremulous, tingling sensation it expresses.
Some scholars have given serious consideration to this theory. However, it has not yet been properly developed.
In reduplication new words are made by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye (coll, for good-bye) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat (this second type is called gradational reduplication).
This type of word-building is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number of monosyllables. Stylistically speaking, most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang. E. g. walkie-talkie ("a portable radio"), riff-raff ("the worthless or disreputable element of society"; "the dregs of society"), chi-chi (sl. for chic as in a chi-chi girl).
In a modern novel an angry father accuses his teenager son of doing nothing but dilly-dallying all over the town.
(dilly-dallying — wasting time, doing nothing, loitering)
Another example of a word made by reduplication may be found in the following quotation from The Importance of Being Earnest by O. Wilde:
Lady Bracknell. I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd.
(shilly-shallying — irresolution, indecision)
Back-Formation (Reversion)
The earliest examples of this type of word-building are the verb to beg that was made from the French borrowing beggar, to burgle from burglar, to cobble from cobbler. In all these cases the verb was made from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with the English suffix -er. The pattern of the type to work — worker was firmly established in the subconscious of English-speaking people at the time when these formations appeared, and it was taken for granted that any noun denoting profession or occupation is certain to have a corresponding verb of the same root. So, in the case of the verbs to beg, to burgle, to cobble the process was reversed: instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation (as in painter from to paint), a verb was produced from a noun by subtraction. That is why this type of word-building received the name of back-formation or reversion.
Later examples of back-formation are to butle from butler, to baby-sit from baby-sitter, to force-land from forced landing, to blood-transfuse from blood-transfuing sorry
for everybody who isn't a girl and who can't come here, I am sure the college you attended when you were a boy couldn't have been so nice.
My room is up in a tower. There are three other girls on the same floor of the tower — a Senior who wears spectacles and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet, and two Freshmen named Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. Sallie has red hair and a turn-up nose and is quite friendly; Julia comes from one of the first families in New York and hasn't noticed me yet. They room tog


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Shelly brought this quilt to us for a simple all over computer design ..how cool is that? We did a swirly type of design to mimic steam. It turned out great!
Thanks Shelly! Looks great!
Thanks a bunch!
Robin and Shelly are friends and typically have brought me quilts at the same time. So this is Robins runner…I am totally going to copy this and make one for myself. The background woven fabrics..the cute wool flowers….just so sweet!
Thanks Robin!! It's always a pleasure working with you ladies!


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We just watched Woody Allen's latest film Midnight in Paris this night and really enjoyed it. More on the film later, today I want to share this fab piece from the film, which Allen mentions in an interview.He says he loves listening Sydney Bechet on a Sunday. I couldn't agree more. Wishing you a lovely day!
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Music for your ears {Midnight in Paris}
Posted by Isil Simsek at 07:00
Music for your ears {Midnight in Paris}
Isil Simsek
film | music |
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Random Page
Study Questions
Discuss Gatsby's character as Nick perceives him throughout the novel. What makes Gatsby "great"?
In one sense, the title of the novel is ironic; the title character is neither "great" nor named Gatsby. He is a criminal whose real name is James Gatz, and the life he has created for himself is an illusion. By the same token, the title of the novel refers to the theatrical skill with which Gatsby makes this illusion seem real: the moniker "the Great Gatsby" suggests the sort of vaudeville billing that would have been given to an acrobat, an escape artist, or a magician.
Nick is particularly taken with Gatsby and considers him a great figure. He sees both the extraordinary quality of hope that Gatsby possesses and his idealistic dream of loving Daisy in a perfect world. Though Nick recognizes Gatsby's flaws the first time he meets him, he cannot help but admire Gatsby's brilliant smile, his romantic idealization of Daisy, and his yearning for the future. The private Gatsby who stretches his arms out toward the green light on Daisy's dock seems somehow more real than the vulgar, social Gatsby who wears a pink suit to his party and calls everyone "old sport." Nick alone among the novel's characters recognizes that Gatsby's love for Daisy has less to do with Daisy's inner qualities than with Gatsby's own. That is, Gatsby makes Daisy his dream because his heart demands a dream, not because Daisy truly deserves the passion that Gatsby feels for her. Further, Gatsby impresses Nick with his power to make his dreams come true—as a child he dreamed of wealth and luxury, and he has attained them, albeit through criminal means. As a man, he dreams of Daisy, and for a while he wins her, too. In a world without a moral center, in which attempting to fulfill one's dreams is like rowing a boat against the current, Gatsby's power to dream lifts him above the meaningless and amoral pleasure-seeking of New York society. In Nick's view, Gatsby's capacity to dream makes him "great" despite his flaws and eventual undoing.
What is Nick like as a narrator? Is he a reliable storyteller, or does his version of events seem suspect? How do his qualities as a character affect his narration?
Nick's description of himself in the opening chapter holds true throughout the novel: he is tolerant and slow to judge, someone with whom people feel comfortable sharing their secrets. His willingness to describe himself and the contours of his thoughts even when they are inconsistent or incomplete—his conflicted feelings about Gatsby, for instance, or the long musing at the end of the novel—makes him seem trustworthy and thoughtful. His position in relation to the other characters gives him a perfect vantage point from which to tell the story—he is Daisy's cousin, Tom's old college friend, and Gatsby's neighbor, and all three trust and rely on him. Though Nick participates in this story and its events certainly affect him, The Great Gatsby is not really his story in the sense of being about him. However, it is his story in the sense that it is of crucial importance to him: he defines himself in the process of writing it. Indeed, he struggles with the story's meaning even as he tells it. Though Nick professes to admire Gatsby's passion as a lover and a dreamer, Nick's own actions in his relationship with Jordan Baker cast an ironic pall over his admiration: with Jordan, Nick is guarded, cautious, and skeptical. Overall, Nick suggests that Gatsby is an exception to his usual ways of understanding and judging the world, and that his attraction to Gatsby creates a conflict within himself.
What are some of The Great Gatsby's most important symbols? What does the novel have to say about the role of symbols in life?
Apart from geographic locations, the two most important symbols in the novel are the green light at the end of Daisy's dock and the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The first is a perfect example of the manner in which characters in The Great Gatsby infuse symbols with meaning—the green light is only a green light, but to Gatsby it becomes the embodiment of his dream for the future, and it beckons to him in the night like a vision of the fulfillment of his desires. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg work in the same fashion, although their meaning is less fixed. Until George Wilson decides that they are the eyes of God, representing a moral imperative on which he must act, the eyes are simply an unsettling, unexplained image, as they stare down over the valley of ashes. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg thus emphasize the lack of a fixed relationship between symbols and what they symbolize: the eyes could mean anything to any observer, but they tend to make observers feel as though they are the ones being scrutinized. They seem to stare down at the world blankly, without the need for meaning that drives the human characters of the novel.
In general, symbols in the novel are intimately connected to dreams: Gatsby's dream of Daisy causes him to associate her image with everything he values, just as he associates the green light with his dream for the future. In reading and interpreting The Great Gatsby, it is at least as important to consider how characters think about symbols as it is to consider the qualities of the symbols themselves.
How does the geography of the novel dictate its themes and characters? What role does setting play in The Great Gatsby?
Each of the four important geographical locations in the novel—West Egg, East Egg, the valley of ashes, and New York City—corresponds to a particular theme or type of character encountered in the story. West Egg is like Gatsby, full of garish extravagance, symbolizing the emergence of the new rich alongside the established aristocracy of the 1920s. East Egg is like the Buchanans, wealthy, possessing high social status, and powerful, symbolizing the old upper class that continued to dominate the American social landscape. The valley of ashes is like George Wilson, desolate, desperate, and utterly without hope, symbolizing the moral decay of American society hidden by the glittering surface of upper-class extravagance. New York City is simply chaos, an abundant swell of variety and life, associated with the "quality of distortion" that Nick perceives in the East.
Setting is extremely important to The Great Gatsby, as it reinforces the themes and character traits that drive the novel's critical events. Even the weather matches the flow of the plot. Gatsby's reunion with Daisy begins in a ferocious thunderstorm and reaches its happiest moment just as the sun comes out. Tom's confrontation with Gatsby occurs on the hottest day of the summer. Finally, Gatsby's death occurs just as autumn creeps into the air. The specificity of the settings in The Great Gatsby contributes greatly to the creation of distinct zones in which the conflicting values of various characters are forced to confront each other.
Suggested Essay Topics
1. In what sense is The Great Gatsby an autobiographical novel? Does Fitzgerald write more of himself into the character of Nick or the character of Gatsby, or are the author's qualities found in both characters?
2. How does Gatsby represent the American dream? What does the novel have to say about the condition of the American dream in the 1920s? In what ways do the themes of dreams, wealth, and time relate to each other in the novel's exploration of the idea of America?
3. Compare and contrast Gatsby and Tom. How are they alike? How are they different? Given the extremely negative light in which Tom is portrayed throughout the novel, why might Daisy choose to remain with him instead of leaving him for Gatsby?
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end.
Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. With the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry him.
Many of these events from Fitzgerald's early life appear in his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is a thoughtful young man from Minnesota, educated at an Ivy League school (in Nick's case, Yale), who moves to New York after the war. Also similar to Fitzgerald is Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury and who falls in love with a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the South.
Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to please Zelda by writing to earn money. Similarly, Gatsby amasses a great deal of wealth at a relatively young age, and devotes himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties that he believes will enable him to win Daisy's love. As the giddiness of the Roaring Twenties dissolved into the bleakness of the Great Depression, however, Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald battled alcoholism, which hampered his writing. He published Tender Is the Night in 1934, and sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post to support his lavish lifestyle. In 1937, he left for Hollywood to write screenplays, and in 1940, while working on his novel The Love of the Last Tycoon, died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.
Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of 1920s America, an era that he dubbed "the Jazz Age." Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary documents of this period, in which the American economy soared, bringing unprecedented levels of prosperity to the nation. Prohibition, the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1919), made millionaires out of bootleggers, and an underground culture of revelry sprang up. Sprawling private parties managed to elude police notice, and "speakeasies"—secret clubs that sold liquor—thrived. The chaos and violence of World War I left America in a state of shock, and the generation that fought the war turned to wild and extravagant living to compensate. The staid conservatism and timeworn values of the previous decade were turned on their ear, as money, opulence, and exuberance became the order of the day.
Like Nick in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald found this new lifestyle seductive and exciting, and, like Gatsby, he had always idolized the very rich. Now he found himself in an era in which unrestrained materialism set the tone of society, particularly in the large cities of the East. Even so, like Nick, Fitzgerald saw through the glitter of the Jazz Age to the moral emptiness and hypocrisy beneath, and part of him longed for this absent moral center. In many ways, The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald's attempt to confront his conflicting feelings about the Jazz Age. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, even as she led him toward everything he despised.
Plot Overview
Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth. Nick's next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night.
Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg—he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick's at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Tom's marriage: Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose.
As the summer progresses, Nick eventually garners an invitation to one of Gatsby's legendary parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone "old sport." Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still loves her. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled, they begin an affair.
After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife's relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans' house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal—his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.
When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby's car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom's lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle's husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.
Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby's life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as Gatsby's dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsby's power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him "great," Nick reflects that the era of dreaming—both Gatsby's dream and the American dream—is over.
Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1262


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14 Animal Documentaries To See If You Can't Get Enough Of The Cuteness
These days, no studio can touch Disney when it comes to their hit-making ability. The brand includes Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Disney animation, and Disney live action, creating a quintet that is unstoppable at the box office. But there's another branch of Walt Disney Studios that doesn't get as much press and doesn't make as much dough, and that's Disneynature. Disney has a long history of churning out great nature documentaries, which continues with their newest effort, this month's Born in China. Yet while Disney is certainly a leader in the field, they're not the only studio putting out animal documentaries you should see.
Probably the best animal docs with which most people are familiar are those that are made for television and produced in separate installments. Docuseries like Planet Earth, Life, and the new Planet Earth II have raised the bar when it comes to nature documentaries, but there are plenty of film-length animal docs that are just as good. In the list below, you'll see a number of productions by Disneynature and others that are well worth your time, and that won't require a ten hour time commitment to watch. So take a look at the following animal documentaries to see if you want to feel closer to nature.
Don't have time to watch the entire Planet Earth series? Then check out this condensed version, produced by Disneynature.
2'Monkey Kingdom'
Monkey's reign supreme in this Disneynature doc, narrated by Tina Fey.
3'March Of The Penguins'
This look at everyone's favorite flightless birds was a sensation back in 2005, and Morgan Freeman's smooth narration was a big reason why.
4'African Cats'
Lions, and cheetahs, and Samuel L. Jackson, oh my! There are surprisingly few (OK, zero) f-bombs in this Disneynature effort.
5'Winged Migration'
There's just something hypnotizing about birds in flight.
Narrated by James Bond, err, Pierce Brosnan, this Disneynature film looks at life below the surface.
7'The Crimson Wing'
Who knew flamingos could be so compelling? Leave it to Disney.
You'll have a new appreciation for bugs (really!) after checking out this engrossing look at their universe.
9'The Living Desert'
Disney's first full-length nature documentary from back in 1953, the film won an Oscar and has since been chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
10'Wings Of Life'
Is this Meryl Streep's greatest role? That's up for debate, but she does lend her talents to this Disneynature examination of pollinators.
11'Turtle: The Incredible Journey'
Literally one of the most incredible journeys you'll ever see, this turtle tale lives up to its title.
Tim Allen, known for his ape noises, narrates Disneynature's look at our closest relatives.
John C. Reilly provides fittingly hilarious vocals to this Disneynature doc about nature's clowns.
14'The Silent World'
Jacques Cousteau is a legend for a reason, and this 1956 film — his first feature-length doc — shows why.


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Punching Out! Beware of Cultural Issues in M&A Deals
Company culture is hard to define and manage, but it is a critical factor in making an M&A deal successful. It is also often ignored or misunderstood during and after due diligence because culture is a "soft" science instead of a "hard" subject like finances, legal contracts, IP, or accounts receivable, among other things, which makes culture a difficult factor to deal with.View Story


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"Oh, my my, oh, hell yes
Honey, put on that party dress
Buy me a drink, sing me a song
Take me as I come 'cause I can't stay long"
When I was thirteen, I saved my money, rode my bike to the record store and bought Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes LP. I had to have it because "Refugee" had this B3 organ sound and this soulful cutting voice that chilled me to the bone. It is another reason why I play Hammond organ. I went through two copies of that record. His song "Breakdown" is why I play Wurlitzer electric piano and not Rhodes.
Tom Petty had THAT sound and it changed me.
In my days of playing on Bourbon Street at the Tropical Isle, I played a handful of Tom Petty songs. Of them, "Free Fallin'", "I Won't Back Down", "Mary Jane's Last Dance" were my favorites. Those songs taught me the power of simple but poignant songwriting. He was the best of the best at it.
"And all the bad boys, are standing in the shadows, all the good girls are home with broken hearts"
Mulebone, the band I had with Mark Mullins pre Bonerama and Papa Grows Funk, covered "Honey Bee" from his Wildflowers record. Wildflowers is one of my favorite records. It has everything in it: rockers, introspective ballads, grooves, and hook after hook….
"you wreck me, baby, yeah, you break me in two"
It's his body of work and his rock and roll ability to bend but not compromise his sound that makes him special. He was our Johnny Cash, for lack of a better example.
My favorite thing about Tom Petty is that he was extremely predictable. You knew what to expect. You could figure out the chords on the first pass, you could recite the rhymes before the end of the verse, you could tell the end was coming a mile away and it all lived up to the expectation of already knowing. He gave us exactly what we wanted, what we anticipated and it felt oh so good. There are not many artists like that.
Thank you Tom Petty for being in my life. Long may you rock and roll.
"It's time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing"


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I usually avoid exhibitions / fairs because the crowd scares me. However, Selangorlicious notified me that my food photos from the Foodster Blogging Competition 2011 would be exhibited in their booth at the Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival 2011 (KLPF) in MidValley Exhibition Centre. The photography fair was on for 3 days (7-9 October), so I made a special visit there on the first day to catch a glimpse of my photos. Unfortunately, my photos were not up on the first day so I made an effort to return again on Sunday 9th since this was the first time my photos were being exhibited. (*excited* LOL)
So here are the four photos of mine which were exhibited at KLPF:
Crab claw from Restoran Makanan Laut Kwai Lam, Roast duck from Four Seasons Restaurant, Hakka Noodle from Toast & Roast and Deep fried pork belly from Pan Heong.
Baby C went with us on both days and she too was very happy to see mummy's photos being exhibited. :) She took photos of mummy's photos.
Mmmm... the crab claw looks so good, mummy...
I want to lick the photo.. oops I mean crab..
Selangorlicious photo booth at KLPF 2011
You can also view my nature photography on this website here.


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When talking about the future of rates there are many factors to consider among them are the local economy, world economy, Bond Markets, World Markets, and current political climate. But predicting the future of rates is like predicting where a helium balloon will end up if you let it go. You got a general idea based on the direction the wind is blowing but that can quickly change.
There is a certain romance in popular culture around the 'do-it-yourself' renovation, spawned by ads showing smiling, stress-free couples nonchalantly flirting over bowls of cereal in their Euro kitchens or effortlessly applying the latest paint colours to quaint summer cottages; but many who have lived through a major do-it-yourself project will warn that costs can quickly spiral - especially if you're not as 'handy' as you might think.
Whether you are buying a home, refinancing or renewing your mortgage you are the client and should be treated with respect and professionalism. Here are a few examples of Mortgage Agents who were not doing their job.
Refinancing could be just the thing to set your credit score back on track, reduce your monthly obligations, and save you thousands of dollars as well.
If you are a first time homebuyer you have access to programs to help you afford the purchase of that home. The government has rebates and refunds for you!
If you are a recent permanent resident of Canada or a non-resident looking to buy a home you should know that Canada welcomes you. There is a program in place to get you into your dream home now rather than later.
US Mortgage Brokers have given Canadian Mortgage Agents a bad name. Not really their fault, its ours....
You have made a decision to buy a home, now there are a few things you should consider before and during the entire buying process.
Considering a port of your existing mortgage? There are a couple of ways to do that and a few things you should know.
Do you look longingly at todays low rates and wish you could have the same rate for your existing mortgage? It may be the best thing you ever did by looking into the costs and savings of breaking your mortgage and switching today.
How difficult can buying a new home really be? People do it every day. Find a house, work-out the financing, move in, and live happily ever after. Where's the difficult part?
The process does appear simple, but the critical thinking, financial planning, legal analysis, and calculations that inform each step of the process can easily overwhelm, frustrate, and infuriate even the most experienced buyers. If you are about to begin your search for your first home, you soon will discover the process always has one more question than you feel prepared to answer; and by the time you finish the process, you will feel as though you have earned an advanced degree in Economics. Before you travel too far down that garden path, recruit a skilled professional team to guide and assist you, and take time to do all of your homework. If you skip a question, it inevitably will become the one that mystifies you.
Have you carefully compared and contrasted renting and buying?
If you rent from month to month, you enjoy great flexibility; you may pack-up and move almost at a moment's notice. If a great career move requires relocating, you can tell the human resources director, "No problem." When your plumbing backs-up, you can think to yourself, "No problem," as you call the landlord for repairs. If you simply feel a compelling need for a change of view, you can shrug and say, "No problem." When you buy a house, you inevitably sink deep roots into your community; do you feel prepared to stay in one place for a decade or two? When you own your own home, you must repair and maintain it—inside and out; do you have time, tools, and skills to manage it, or do you have money to hire contractors? When you rent, you need not anticipate property taxes, property owner's liability, or regional assessments; do you have planning and budgeting skills equal to the demands of home ownership?
Considered from the standpoint of short-term expedience, renting may seem to hold an advantage. In the long-term, however, the balance shifts dramatically. What about improving your tax situation as your income increases? What about laying the foundation for family life? What about building genuine wealth and making satisfactory provision for your retirement? What about seizing an historic opportunity to finance a home at record-low interest rates? What about capitalizing on special incentives that allow first-time buyers to purchase houses with as little as 5% down?
Have you considered how much you can afford?
For the sake of getting oriented in the housing market, take your household's annual pre-tax income and multiply it times 3.4, a derivative of the formula lenders use to calculate your qualification for a mortgage. Calculating the possibilities with reliable 2010 statistics, a household with one breadwinner earning Canada's median income can afford a home priced at or below $251,000. If your household has two breadwinners earning median Canadian incomes, you gain purchasing power on homes priced at or below $502,000—more than enough to cover purchase of an average home in Canada.
Have you done some of the math for qualifying?
Anticipating the mortgage qualifying standards, calculate your "gross debt service ratio" and your "total debt service ratio." The first calculation focuses exclusively on your home expenses; the second looks at all of your monthly obligations. In order to secure a mortgage, your income and expenses must fall within the standards for both. First, calculate 32% of your pre-tax (gross) income, setting the standard for your housing expenses. Then, total your proposed mortgage payment (using an online mortgage calculator), taxes, condo fees if any, and approx 120 for heat costs, holding the sum against your 32% standard. Calculating according to 2010 standards, if you make the median Canadian salary, you can afford monthly home expenses totalling approximately $1980. The second calculation determines how much of your paycheck you can dedicate to all of your credit obligations—home, car, credit cards, and other unsecured debts. Lenders will hold you to their 40%-44% standard, so calculate the standard by multiplying your pre-tax income by 0.40. Using the same numbers we crunched in the first example, your lenders will allow $2460 in total debt service. A closer examination suggests, however, if you maximize your housing costs, you can afford only $492 in other payments. Because the ratios do not change, you must adjust your expectations and budget according to the facts of your situation. There are many small variables that are included alongside the above calculations so please remember to use the above as a rough estimate. A licensed Mortgage Agent has the expertise to take all variables into account and present them to you in an easy to understand evaluation so please consult with one before you go home hunting.
Do you understand the mortgage qualification process?
Before you start shopping, you should complete a mortgage application with your lender of choice or licensed Mortgage Agent. The application simply demands you copy your income and expense information from your budget to the lender's "official" forms; then, their agents do the same basic math you did, and they grant you a "pre-approval." Pre-approval does not assure you ultimately will get your loan, but it does give you sufficient assurance to shop in the appropriate price range. More importantly, when they pre-qualify you, the best lenders "lock" your interest rates and give you rate guarantees. In other words, if interest rates fall during the ninety to one hundred and twenty days prior to your closing day your pre-qualification remains in effect, your lender will give you the lower rate; if rates rise, you have the lender's assurance your rate will remain locked at the pre-qualification numbers. A Mortgage Agent will give you the benefit of the many lenders they have access to, in effect comparing multiple lenders rate and product offerings and reporting back to you. In order to complete the qualification process, your lender will require you to document all of the income and expense information you supplied on your application. Your friends might take your word for it, but your lender demands proof.
Do you know how to choose the right house?
First, have you weighed the pros and cons of condominiums? Condominium complexes are not known as kid-friendly places; many are not especially pet-friendly either. For a professional couple laying the foundation for wealth and upward mobility, however, a well-appointed condominium may represent the best vehicle for both saving and building equity. Especially in one of Canada's super-heated markets—Vancouver or Toronto, for example—a condo may appreciate faster than any other investment; it certainly will build value faster than any conventional savings instrument. Experts stress the importance of factoring your monthly condo fees in your 32% qualifying numbers.
Second, if you have decided on a house, have you compared and contrasted the benefits of new and older homes? A new home, of course, has the distinct advantage of being…well, new. You may have the privilege of choosing exactly the options and upgrades you like, and you can relish the excitement of watching it rise from the ground like a growing thing. More practically, you may also cash-in on builders' pre-opening incentives and first-time buyer programs. If yours is a young and growing family, you almost inevitably will discover the new development will fill-up with other families like yours. Most importantly, a new home will have energy efficient appliances and other conservation features, so that you may save up to 50% on your monthly utilities. Existing homes, however, typically offer slightly more value-per dollar, because owners already have done the landscaping, installed some of the upgrades, and generally made the house a home. In an older home, you also will enjoy the benefits of living in an established neighbourhood, where the various sport leagues are up and running and the recreational facilities are complete, where the bus routes are established and the schools have high-quality reputations to maintain.
Regardless of your preference, you must consider the key variables; do you know what they are? First and by far most importantly, does the home really have sufficient space to meet your needs? Do you need a home office? Do you need lots of open space for young children to play? Can each child have his or her own bedroom? Would you benefit from having a finished basement—a rec-room or workshop? Second, does the house have some attractive extras? What about an indoor "endless" pool or luxurious bathroom fixtures including a Jacuzzi? Does the neighbourhood have good schools, and does the school district provide transportation for the kids? Will your new home be close to shopping, and do the local mini-malls include your favourite stores? Will you save money or at least break-even on your commute; or can you use public transportation to meet your commuting needs? What about the property taxes?
Have you put together a good team?
More comparison and contrast: Should you work with a realtor, or should you focus on properties for sale by owner? Similarly, should you work with your regular banker, or should you enlist the help of a Mortgage Agent? Will you need a professional home inspector? If this is your first venture into treacherous home-sales territory, build a good team of trustworthy, experienced professionals to guide you safely from shopping to closing. The experts suggest you shop carefully and interview aggressively for the three key positions on your team—your real estate attorney, your Lender/Mortgage Agent, and your appraiser.
Your attorney stands out as by far your most important ally, because she will complete your title search, draw-up your purchase offer, review the sales contract, and manage all the details of the property transfer. The attorney with the biggest website is not automatically the best; the one with the greatest word-of-mouth in your new neighbourhood probably is the one you want. As you search, do not be shy about asking for detailed information about fees or hourly rates. Your Lender/Mortgage Agent will help you get your financing in order and make sure you can close on that dream property. An experienced Mortgage Agent will also have many options for you when it comes to Lenders, rates and mortgage programs so make sure you take advantage. You are signing a mortgage agreement at the end of all this so make sure that agreement carries the lowest rate and mortgage terms and conditions that co-inside with your future plans for the property. Your appraiser brings assurance you are paying a fair price for your new home—that its price matches the prices of comparable homes in the neighbourhood and that square-foot by square-foot you are getting the best value. More importantly, your appraiser assures your lender that your purchase price and your qualifications align as they should.
Most first time home-buyers are inclined to overlook one other key player on the team—an experienced insurance agent. You will need homeowner's insurance with adequate coverage and manageable deductibles; and you should seriously consider either mortgage life insurance or whole life insurance that builds cash value. Many of Canada's major insurers offer substantial discounts for families who carry all of their policies—home, auto, and life—with them.
Do you understand how to consummate the deal?
Your real estate attorney plays a crucial role in this process, checking and certifying the details at each step. First, when you find the house you want, you tender an official purchase offer. Naturally, your offer specifies the price you feel willing to pay, and it also sets out other terms and conditions you want attached to your purchase. Be prepared to negotiate, and make your wishes clear even as your realtor or attorney represents you. You may go through several rounds of offers and counter-offers before you reach accord with the seller. Once you and the seller have endorsed your purchase agreement, your attorney reviews its compliance with the laws and goes on to manage all the technical details of funding your loan, transferring the money, paying applicable fees and taxes, and presenting you with your keys.
Now, really, how hard can it really be to purchase a home? People do it every day.
Abraham Niyazi
Mortgage Agent
Lic# M08010640
Centum One Financial Corp
Lic# 10758
Cell: 416-993-4082
Toll Free: 1-866-728-3708 x 115
Centum One (EasyRate.ca) mortgages can find you the best rate with our established network of more than 80 major Canadian lenders. We offer the lowest mortgage rates and loan rates in Canada, servicing all of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, and the Yukon. We also provide mortgages and loans to the residents of all major Canadian cities, including Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Mississauga, North York, Oakville, Scarborough, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, London, Ottawa, Hamilton, Laval, Brampton, Woodbridge, Windsor, Virginia, Saskatoon, Burnaby, Kitchener, Markham, Regina, Quebec, Oshawa, Burlington, Saint Catharines, Markham, Thornhill, Oak Ridges, Guelph, Halifax, Cambridge, Etobicoke and Newmarket.
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