The High Speech

#original_high_speech
Hello, everyone! Here is a first in 2024. It is another excerpt of poetic English from 'The Forsyte Saga' by John Golsworthy, book 'To Let', chapter XI 'The Last of the Old Forsytes'.

When I was finishing this book, this passage at its end was a rather difficult read with all these elongated syntactic structures. But now when I've gone over it a couple of times, it seems much more easier to understand. Maybe I've become a better reader, maybe it's just easier to understand somethng after you've read it before. But anyway in case you have some struggels with it, my glossary is there to your rescue. Have a good read!

Supportive glossary:
🔹vault – склеп
🔹urn – урна
🔹gaudy – цветастый
🔹immortelles (франц.) – бессмертные
🔹rough-hewn – грубо высеченный
🔹yew-tree – тисовое дерево
🔹Bois de Boulogne – Булонский лес
🔹fancy – фантазия
🔹weed – сорная трава
🔹sinuous – жилистый
🔹to tether – сдерживать, сковывать
🔹to prowl – рыскать

Soames turned from the vault and faced toward the breeze. The air up here would be delicious if only he could rid his nerves of the feeling that mortality was in it. He gazed restlessly at the crosses and the urns, the angels, the "immortelles," the flowers, gaudy or withering; and suddenly he noticed a spot which seemed so different from anything else up there that he was obliged to walk the few necessary yards and look at it. A sober corner, with a massive queer-shaped cross of grey rough-hewn granite, guarded by four dark yew-trees. The spot was free from the pressure of the other graves, having a little box-hedged garden on the far side, and in front a goldening birch-tree. This oasis in the desert of conventional graves appealed to the aesthetic sense of Soames, and he sat down there in the sunshine. Through those trembling gold birch leaves he gazed out at London, and yielded to the waves of memory. He thought of Irene in Montpellier Square, when her hair was rusty-golden and her white shoulders his – Irene, the prize of his love-passion, resistant to his ownership. He saw Bosinney's body lying in that white mortuary, and Irene sitting on the sofa looking at space with the eyes of a dying bird. Again he thought of her by the little green Niobe in the Bois de Boulogne, once more rejecting him. His fancy took him on beside his drifting river on the November day when Fleur was to be born, took him to the dead leaves floating on the green-tinged water and the snake-headed weed for ever swaying and nosing, sinuous, blind, tethered. And on again to the window opened to the cold starry night above Hyde Park, with his father lying dead. His fancy darted to that picture of "the future town," to that boy's and Fleur's first meeting; to the bluish trail of Prosper Profond's cigar, and Fleur in the window pointing down to where the fellow prowled. To the sight of Irene and that dead fellow sitting side by side in the stand at Lord's. To her and that boy at Robin Hill. To the sofa, where Fleur lay crushed up in the corner; to her lips pressed into his cheek, and her farewell "Daddy." And suddenly he saw again Irene's grey-gloved hand waving its last gesture of release.

#synonymiser
Hello, dear readers! Here is the closing post of 2023 – a little collection of words relating to rituals of different kinds along with examples from articles and books to make the distinctions clearer. Hope you'll enjoy this somewhat tinier post nonetheless.

And happy New Year, keep calm and carry on in 2024! Keep on doing what's good for yourself and someone else. And here go the synonyms!

🔸mores – the traditional patterns of behaviour that are typical of certain parts of society
▫️We are going to have to change the complete mores, taboos and cultural motivations of these people before we can get our mine into operation. (Harry Harrison – Deathworld. The Horse Barbarians)
▫️The mores, as thus conceived, are the judgments of public opinion in regard to issues that have been settled and forgotten. (Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess – Introduction to the Science of Sociology)
▫️Cultural conservatives will put up with a certain amount of pandering to more modern mores with a nudge and a wink. (The Daily Beast)

🔸rite – a set of fixed words and actions that are often part of a religious ceremony
▫️Another summer has passed, and with its passing the rites of autumn have begun. (The Daily Beast)
▫️In short, Marcella had been too long under her tuition, to become a willing devotee to the monastic rites of the Romish Church. (The Pastor's Fire-Side)
▫️The wooden floors sloped, and signed photos of Harry Houdini and Harry Blackstone hung on the walls, like patron saints presiding over sacred, mysterious rites. (The Washington Post)

🔸custom – a regularly repeated act of tradition
▫️So things remained till one fine summer day they went for their yearly little outing together, as they had made it their custom to do for a long while past. (Thomas Hardy – Life's Little Ironies)
▫️When his lordship retired early, as was his custom, the other men adjourned once more to the billiard-room. (Charles J. Wills – The Pit Town Coronet, Volume I)

🔸ritual – traditions associated with religious ceremonies
▫️The room was full of dozens of urns, each full of olive oil, used in some of the Yezidi rituals. (The Daily Beast)
▫️A connection may have existed between human sacrificial ceremonies that were intended to appease Inca deities and events held at Lake Titicaca, including the submerging of ritual offerings, the researchers suggest. (ScienceNews)

#heed_and_hear
Hello, everyone! Here is another episode of A Point of View from BBC Radio 4 for another piece of 'Heed and Hear'. In it, AL Kennedy is sharing her opinion on negative news dominating the media space: how it affects the modern society, how to protect yourself from it and what can be done to counter this trend of doom and gloom. AL is starting her train of thought on a hypothetical situation of being asked for directions by a stranger, giving them an answer to said question and then suddenly digressing onto something completely unrelated in an angry way. She compares this hypothetical situation to how we are dealing with news in online media nowadays: lots of misleading things we do not ask for that oftentimes make us feel worse.

She argues that the evolution of online media has led to arguable results with democracies being embattled by manipulative media sources feeding lies to people in favour of the powerful. And then she is reflecting on how to set the media space aright and reveals how she avoids feeling bullied by daunting news headlines and facts.

You can find the episode here. Enjoy the listening!

Glossary for the episode:
🔸demeanor – манера поведения
🔸a butcher's – мясная лавка
🔸to pad out – дополонять
🔸lino offcut – обрезок линолиеума
🔸pasty – пирожок с мясом или сыром
🔸rodent – грызун
🔸unhinged – чокнутый, поехавший
🔸underpinnings – базис
🔸appalling – чудовищный
🔸to loathe – испытывать неприязнь
🔸feral – дикий, неприрученный
🔸courtesy of – благодаря чему-то
🔸gun – пушка
🔸PTSD – посттравматический синдром
🔸to unfurl – разворачивать
🔸to contemplate – созерцать
🔸advertorial – реклама
🔸drawl – медлительная речь
🔸oversight – надзор
🔸pulse oximeter – пульсоксиметр
🔸coypu – нутрия
🔸hoofer – танцор
🔸tap move – постукивание
🔸zaouli – заули (танец)
🔸voguing – вог (танец)
🔸hula kahiko – хула кахико (танец)
🔸hula 'auana – хула ауана (танец)
🔸Torres Strait – Торресов пролив

#original_high_speech
Good day to you all! Here is an extract from the short story 'A Son's Veto' from Life's Little Ironies by Thomas Hardy; a rather sad one. As all classical literature, these short stories are particularly rich with florid language. So read this extract to learn a few more graceful words that might embellish your speech and let you have a broader variety of English vocabulary to choose from as you please as well as better understand high-flown speech and text whenever you may come by any.

My supportive glossary is there to help you simplify the task; however, you might want to check the definitions of some of the words with a dictionary.

Supportive glossary:
🔹repugnance – отвращение, антипатия
🔹to plead – упрашивание
🔹suit – ухаживание
🔹peremptoriness – решительность
🔹undergraduate – студент
🔹to ordain – посвящать в духовных сан
🔹encumbrance – помеха
🔹ascendency – власть, господство
🔹devotion – чтение молитв
🔹to bid – повелевать
🔹clerical – клерикальный, церковный
🔹to oust – устранять
🔹idyllic – идиллический
🔹fruiterer – торговец фруктами
🔹greengrocer – торговец овощами и фруктами
🔹lameness – хромота
🔹thoroughfare – главная дорога

It was dropped for months; renewed again; abandoned under his repugnance; again attempted; and thus the gentle creature reasoned and pleaded till four or five long years had passed. Then the faithful Sam revived his suit with some peremptoriness. Sophy’s son, now an undergraduate, was down from Oxford one Easter, when she again opened the subject. As soon as he was ordained, she argued, he would have a home of his own, wherein she, with her bad grammar and her ignorance, would be an encumbrance to him. Better obliterate her as much as possible.

He showed a more manly anger now, but would not agree. She on her side was more persistent, and he had doubts whether she could be trusted in his absence. But by indignation and contempt for her taste he completely maintained his ascendency; and finally taking her before a little cross and altar that he had erected in his bedroom for his private devotions, there bade her kneel, and swear that she would not wed Samuel Hobson without his consent. ‘I owe this to my father!’ he said.

The poor woman swore, thinking he would soften as soon as he was ordained and in full swing of clerical work. But he did not. His education had by this time sufficiently ousted his humanity to keep him quite firm; though his mother might have led an idyllic life with her faithful fruiterer and greengrocer, and nobody have been anything the worse in the world.

Her lameness became more confirmed as time went on, and she seldom or never left the house in the long southern thoroughfare, where she seemed to be pining her heart away. ‘Why mayn’t I say to Sam that I’ll marry him? Why mayn’t I?’ she would murmur plaintively to herself when nobody was near.

#heed_and_hear
Hello, dear readers! Here is a piece of very thoughtful speech on the subject of dust: where it comes from, where it goes to and how to make your peace with it. This is an episode of A Point of View from BBC Radio 4 presented by British writer and presenter Rebecca Stott.

Rebecca Stott reflects on her move from Norwich to an old house in East Sussex in October 2022. She reflects on her experience of living through the winter in this old house and the subsequent coming of spring, which put to light the dust on the multiple surfaces of the house, which had been kept obscured in the winterly dim sunlight. Her train of thought then trails on to the dust in her house that she wants to restore and her ideas on how you could treat the dust in your lodging: you could spring-cleaning your house as suggested in a book on housekeeping Rebecca bought back in the day or find yourself at peace amid the dust around you like some artists have done.

And should we eventually be overly concerned about the dust around us having come from the stardust of a supernova ourselves? Or is the value of life too high for it to be smudged by any kind of dust? You can discover what Rebecca has to say on the matter toward the end of this episode of A Point of View.

You can find the episode here.

Glossary for the episode:
🔸blossom – цветение
🔸undulating – изгибающийся
🔸down – холм
🔸ribbon – лента
🔸roof tile – черепица
🔸dazzling – феерический, захватывающий дух
🔸to scrape – скрести
🔸to poke out – выковыривать
🔸plaster – штукатурка
🔸to rake out – выгребать
🔸mortar – бетон
🔸smudge – грязное пятно
🔸dust mite – пылевой клещ
🔸pollen – пыльца
🔸to freight – загружать, добавлять
🔸deathwatch beetle – жук-точильщик
🔸to burrow – проделывать проход, пробираться
🔸beam – ствол дерева
🔸lime plaster – известковая штукатурка
🔸to slather – намазывать толстым слоем
🔸joiner – столяр, плотник
🔸trinket – безделушка
🔸soot – сажа
🔸straw – солома
🔸tattered – истрёпанный, изодранный
🔸on a whim – под влиянием момента, с бухты-барахты
🔸laundry blue – синька
🔸to proclaim – утверждать
🔸film – плёнка
🔸grime – грязь
🔸abbey – аббатство
🔸to keep at bay – держать на (почтительном) расстоянии, держать под контролем
🔸hoarder – барахольщик
🔸recluse – затворник, отшельник
🔸debris – обломки, мусор
🔸sinter – накипь
🔸to dissolve – растворяться
🔸chimney – печь
🔸to mingle – перемешивать
🔸minstrel – менстрель
🔸lead – свинец
🔸lime – известняк

#original_high_speech
Another round of High Speech has arrived! Here, I will present to you another extract of lush language from Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of' the Dog by Gerome K. Gerome. This one comes from the beginning of Chapter 6 and is much abundant with high-flown, poetic language that you rarely come across in your everyday lives, which makes it all the more valuable to the appreciator of finely choreographed expressions and demanding English learners striving for perfection of eloquent talk.

As per usual, my simple glossary is there for you to simplify the task at hand.

Supportive glossary:
🔹dainty – изящный
🔹sheen – лоск
🔹quaint – странный, убогий
🔹to glint – сверкать
🔹towpath – пешеходная дорога вдоль берега реки
🔹blazer – спортивная фланелевая куртка
🔹to lull off – задремать
🔹fit – внезапное неконтролируемое погружение в какое-либо состояние
🔹upland – возвышенность
🔹to put up at – оставаться на ночь
🔹public house – трактир
🔹to chuck – выгонять, выдворять
🔹to flock – выстраиваться в очередь

It was a glorious morning, late spring or early summer, as you care to take it, when the dainty sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green; and the year seems like a fair young maid, trembling with strange, wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood.

The quaint back streets of Kingston, where they came down to the water’s edge, looked quite picturesque in the flashing sunlight, the glinting river with its drifting barges, the wooded towpath, the trim-kept villas on the other side, Harris, in a red and orange blazer, grunting away at the sculls, the distant glimpses of the grey old palace of the Tudors, all made a sunny picture, so bright but calm, so full of life, and yet so peaceful, that, early in the day though it was, I felt myself being dreamily lulled off into a musing fit.

I mused on Kingston, or “Kyningestun,” as it was once called in the days when Saxon “kinges” were crowned there. Great Cæsar crossed the river there, and the Roman legions camped upon its sloping uplands. Cæsar, like, in later years, Elizabeth, seems to have stopped everywhere: only he was more respectable than good Queen Bess; he didn’t put up at the public-houses.

She was nuts on public-houses, was England’s Virgin Queen. There’s scarcely a pub of any attractions within ten miles of London that she does not seem to have looked in at, or stopped at, or slept at, some time or other. I wonder now, supposing Harris, say, turned over a new leaf, and became a great and good man, and got to be Prime Minister, and died, if they would put up signs over the public-houses that he had patronised: “Harris had a glass of bitter in this house;” “Harris had two of Scotch cold here in the summer of ’88;” “Harris was chucked from here in December, 1886.”

No, there would be too many of them! It would be the houses that he had never entered that would become famous. “Only house in South London that Harris never had a drink in!” The people would flock to it to see what could have been the matter with it.

#language_advice
Reading Classical English Literature

In the last 3 – 4 years, I have read some classical English novels. Last year, I finished The Forsyte Saga, and now I am reading Life's Little Ironies by Thomas Hardy. And I have found it very challenging – if not difficult – at times.

In terms of language learning, it is a very intense memory-engaging exercise because of the big chunks of textual information you often have to sustain in your memory that come within one sentence and because of the syntactic structures with numerous clauses and parenthetic constructions used on a regular basis. Classical novels also often present a challenge for the reader on a lexical level because of how abundantly diverse they are with the language they use, which is occasionally outdated but no less relevant in the modern-day discourse. For some, it might be the biggest stumbling block in reading classical literature, for others – the biggest trove.

From my personal experience, I would suggest that you could start reading classical English literature as an English learner once you are solidly at the Upper-Advanced level. Otherwise, it might become too big a frustration and burden for you. By my reckoning, your total word stock should constitute at least 16,000 words so that you feel relatively comfortable with the language of classical fiction.

There are two ways of approaching classical literature: reading for improving your comprehension skills and reading for building up your vocabulary. In the first case, you should be ready to skip over some of the words you do not understand and probably try to infer their meaning through the context around them. The benefit of this approach will be a smoother, uninterrupted reading process and a faster reading rate, and the deficit will be a vaguer understanding of some details and nuances in the narrative.

In the second case, you must be more diligent and methodical with your approach to the reading process. You will take your time to look up the definitions of unfamiliar words and probably write them down in a notepad for better retention. The benefit of this approach will be a faster growth of your vocabulary, and its deficit will be a more psychologically draining reading process because of the additional time and effort you will have to spend on studying the new words. If you do find it hard, you might want to go for smaller portions of the book every day or every other day to retain the continuity of the plot in your memory and make the reading more entertaining.

But in real life, it will probably more often be a mixture of both approaches when you feel that you have relatively well understood the meaning of a previously unfamiliar word and may take more time with another word to look it up and study its meaning.

In any case, you should be conscious of classical English literature being a tricky tool for learning English. If you don't feel fully confident but still want to try it, I would recommend taking on something of a smaller size that will technically take you less time to read than a longer novel and will be of a lesser psychological burden if the going gets tough. Also, if you feel that you are getting stuck at some point, you should probably go for faster reading and skip through the unfamiliar words more to revive interest in the book by relying on a general understanding of the plot.

#sticky_and_tricky
That or Which and Punctuation in Relative Clauses. Part 2

The first post on this topic: Part 1.

1. How to tell apart defining and non-defining clauses
In order to understand whether a relative clause is defining or non-defining, you can leave it out of the sentence and see if it remains clear which object is denoted in the main clause. If it is still clear, then the relative clause is non-defining because you do not need it to understand which object is denoted in the main clause; if it is not clear, then it is defining because you need it to understand which object is denoted in the main clause.

2. Which or that?
The relative pronoun that can be used to refer to both animate and inanimate objects, and which can only be used to refer to inanimate objects, including animals in relevant contexts.

Examples:
Did you find the textbook which I left in the classroom?
I tried to help a boy that I came across in the street.
I have been to a museum that stores paintings of the Renaissance era.

As for the choice between which and that in reference to inanimate objects, there is no grammar rule that governs this selection. But which is preferred when you want to make a stronger emphasis on that specific object in the main clause that is defined by the relative clause. And you can use that when you are referring to that object in a more casual way.

Examples:
The question which we earlier discussed still bothers me.
Justin was certain that the splendid Ferrari car which he saw in the street must have been one of the cars from the auto show that had closed a day before.
The dog did not want to part with the bone which it found under the bridge.
These are the items which have been collected at the crime scene.

#sticky_and_tricky
Which or That and Punctuation in Relative Clauses. Part 1

A relative clause is a clause that adds information about the subject or an object in the main clause. A relative clause is often introduced by relative pronouns that and which.

1. Punctuation in non-defining clauses
A non-defining clause provides supplementary information about the object it describes; otherwise, it does not provide any information that helps identify the object that is denoted in the main clause.

Non-defining clauses can be introduced by relative pronouns which, whose, who and others but not that and are always marked off by a comma or commas, depending on their position in a sentence.

Examples:
The red carpet on the floor, which rests on brick supports and wooden beams, helps decorate the room.
When Amanda saw a meteorite falling through the Earth's atmosphere, which primarily consists of nitrogen and oxygen, she took a photo of it with her photo camera.
Jack proudly put the ten pounds, which he had been meticulously saving with the odd errands he had been getting here and there, in a jar his mom had given him for his savings.
When the boys were playing with the football in Mike's backyard, they found a human arm, which must have been hastily buried there a few days ago.

2. Punctuation in defining clauses
Defining clauses provide information about an object that is indispensable in identifying the object that is denoted in the main clause. They can be introduced by both that and which and are not marked off by any punctuation marks.

Examples:
I have stopped in Venice at the hotel which Mark recommended to me.
Next time, don't forget to do the exercises which you haven't handed in today.
When collectors pay silly money for musical instruments which famous musicians have owned and played they are often buying instruments of very regular quality.

#heed_and_hear
Hello, everyone! This time, I want to cover another episode of 'A Point of View' coming from Tom Shakespeare ‒ an English sociologist and bioethicist. Mr. Shakespeare shares his view on the so-called ratings game ‒ the ratings that service providers so frequently ask of their customers.

While these rating requests were neutrally viewed back in the day when they were not so ubiquitous, they have become quite annoying and oppressive nowadays. All these ratings are declared to help raise the quality of services and products because customers can point to some flaws in them in their reviews that often accompany their ratings.

However, the author of this episode of 'A Point of View' is asking if these reviews and ratings are quite as strongly needed on some occasions and if they are more misleading than truthful in some cases. Tom Shakespeare has his own unorthodox vision of this problem. If you are keen to know what he thinks about it, certainly listen to this programme.

I will say that he doesn't pronounce words very clearly, and it can occasionally get difficult to make out what he says. For instance, in this episode there are two such instances at 6:08 and at 8:20, but either of them does not obscure the main ideas; so it should not be a big problem.

You can find the episode here.

Glossary for the episode:
🔸enticing – манящий, завлекающий
🔸ubiquitous – вездесущий
🔸commonplace – будничный
🔸to peer – разглядывать
🔸cross – сердитый
🔸online outlet – онлайн-магазин
🔸flurry – поток
🔸the butcher, the baker and the cndlestick maker – люди всех профессий, самый разный люд
🔸bubbly – шампанское
🔸parcel – посылка
🔸vociferously – громогласно
🔸to shrivel – морщиться
🔸denunciation – порицание, осуждение, обличение
🔸impressionable – впечатлительный
🔸banal – банальный
🔸tarmac – дёгтебетон
🔸clientelle – клиентура
🔸resort – курорт
🔸raucous – шумный
🔸as-much-as-you-are-gonna-eat deal – что-то наподобие шведского стола

#original_high_speech
Here is another extract of high-style language from 'Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog' by Gerome K. Gerome. This piece also comes from Chapter 6 and is shorter than the previous one but no less profuse in stylish language. Have a look at the glossary and enjoy the reading!

Supportive glossary:
🔹revelry – кутёж
🔹moorings – швартовы
🔹gallant – щёголь
🔹to swagger down – сходить
🔹water steps – ступеньки, ведущие к воде
🔹gadzooks! – чёрт возьми!
🔹gramercy – ну и ну!; боже мой!
🔹borough – городок
🔹courtier – придворный
🔹gay – задорный
🔹to clank – лязгать, бряцать
🔹to prance – горцевать
🔹palfrey – иноходец, парадный конь
🔹to rustle – шелестеть
🔹oriel – эркер
🔹latticed – закрытый решёткой
🔹gabled – стрельчатый, остроконечный
🔹hose – штаны в обтяжку, лосины
🔹doublet – камзол
🔹pearl-embroidered – вышитый жемчугом
🔹stomacher – корсаж

Years later, to the crash of battle-music, Saxon kings and Saxon revelry were buried side by side, and Kingston’s greatness passed away for a time, to rise once more when Hampton Court became the palace of the Tudors and the Stuarts, and the royal barges strained at their moorings on the river’s bank, and bright-cloaked gallants swaggered down the water-steps to cry: “What Ferry, ho! Gadzooks, gramercy.”

Many of the old houses, round about, speak very plainly of those days when Kingston was a royal borough, and nobles and courtiers lived there, near their King, and the long road to the palace gates was gay all day with clanking steel and prancing palfreys, and rustling silks and velvets, and fair faces. The large and spacious houses, with their oriel, latticed windows, their huge fireplaces, and their gabled roofs, breathe of the days of hose and doublet, of pearl-embroidered stomachers, and complicated oaths. They were upraised in the days “when men knew how to build.” The hard red bricks have only grown more firmly set with time, and their oak stairs do not creak and grunt when you try to go down them quietly.

#synonymiser
Hello, dear readers! Thanks for staying in! I seem to have found a good free source of searchable authentic English – Thesaurus.com. I have known about it before but never really used it in this way. It will certainly help me with finding relevant samples of English for my sysnonymisers in the future.

Let's now jump into the word list I have prepared: these are all adjectives descriping different types of dilapidation. Please note that the adjective run-down must be hyphenated when used in this sense.

🔶decrepit – worn out by long use; weakend by old age
▫️I had walked into that reading room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck. (Gerome K. Gerome – Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog)
▫️The fourth-largest city in Spain had lost its former glory as a manufacturing centre: its factories shuttered, its port decrepit. (The Guardian)

🔸dilapidated – in poor condition and decay due to wear, age or neglect
▫️There were three men in sight, one of whom was a policeman; a market cart full of cabbages, and a dilapidated-looking cab. (Gerome K. Gerome – Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog)
▫️With no fresh cash coming in, the graveyard had become a dilapidated embarrassment. (Washington Post)

🔸shabby – looking old and impaired by wear
▫️If I were to ask you to lend me fifty pounds, which I would repay you next midsummer, and I did not repay you, I should consider myself a shabby sort of fellow, especially if you wanted the money badly. (Thomas Hardy – Life's Little Ironies)
▫️A friend sees Etta in a bookstore, in her shabby daily costume – a “wrinkled old evening gown” and sneakers. (The Washington Post)

🔸ramshackle – loosely made and unkempt-looking, and likely to break or fall easily
▫️Mayorga evokes ramshackle dwellings of her native Colombia and elsewhere with “Beautiful Facade,” a pink-painted cardboard and wood model. (The Washington Post)
▫️They set out a strong set of “best practices” to modernize and improve the ramshackle way our democracy runs elections. (The Daily Beast)
▫️Manchester United in its current state can remind a neutral observer of an afore glamorous edifice that has become a ramshackle, leaky shed.

🔸run-down – in very bad condition due to continued active use without proper maintenance or lack of care
▫️This railway line has looked pretty run-down since being out of use for nearly a decade.
▫️Once a thriving area with a well-run factory, with years of economic decline and shrinking demand it has turned into a run-down, vandalised site.

🔸rickety – unsound to the point of being likely to break
▫️There were taxis, called “hackneys,” which were rickety stagecoaches cast off by the rich and repurposed as transport for hire. (The Daily Beast)
▫️The going rate for life jackets on board the dangerously rickety vessels tops $200, whether for men, women or children. (The Daily Beast)

🔸derelict – not cared for and in bad condition
▫️Favelas in Brazil are derelict densely populated areas with a high level of crime and low living standards.
▫️Due to the centralisation of power and corruption stemming from top to bottom in Russia's political hierarchy and a lack of adequate public control, many people in remote regions of Russia live in extremely derelict real estate.
▫️The couple has bought one of Detroit’s many derelict homes, which can cost just a few thousand dollars, and are renovating it themselves. (Time)

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#original_high_speech
Now it is good time for another piece of High Speech for none has lately been seen on this channel however the notion of 'lately' may on this channel be stretched. So this one comes from a comic book 'Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog' by Jerome K. Jerome, which has surprisingly turned out to be quite a trove of poetic language of high style. And the book itself is a very decent collection of advanced vocabulary for anyone who desires to embellish his or her lexicon.

Without further ado, here is the supportive glossary for the extract:
🔹to swamp – утопать
🔹lumber – древесина
🔹craft – судно
🔹swell – богатый, зажиточный
🔹twopence – два пенса
🔹ha’pence – полпенса (от halfpence)
🔹pretence – притворство
🔹ostentation – чванство
🔹dread – боязнь
🔹to cloy – приедаться
🔹yore – давно минувшие дни
🔹rush – ручеёк
🔹sedge – осока
🔹orchis – вид класса орхидеи, произрастающего в северном климате
🔹forget-me-not – незабудка
🔹thirst – жажда

George comes out really quite sensible at times. You’d be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life, generally. How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is ever in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber.

How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha’pence for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with—oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all!—the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal’s iron crown of yore, makes to [should be without to in this case] bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!

It is lumber, man—all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment’s freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment’s rest for dreamy laziness—no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o’er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombre-waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchis, or the blue forget-me-nots.

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

#sticky_and_tricky
Compare with vs. Compare to

Compare with

The use of compare with implies a comparison of two objects intended to identify both dissimilarities and similarities between them. Compare with is also used to compare two objects of essentially the same order. Thus, it will be incorrect to compare a motorcycle with a house or a writing desk and correct to compare one motorcycle with another.

Examples:
▫️If you compare Erling Haaland with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, you may confidently say that they are both phenomenal strikers. But Zlatan has already had his astonishing career while Erling is still rising to probably even more breathtaking heights.
▫️If you compare the 4*110 inline speedskating frames with the 3*125 ones, the two most important differences will be the boot hight and the speed of skating.
▫️Football clubs like Real Madrid, Juventus and Bayern München have been dominating their leagues for more than a decade, but Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga offer so much less competition compared with the English Premier League.

Compare to

Compare to is used to compare two object with a focus on similarities between them, i.e. to liken them. For this reason, compare to is often used to liken two objects of different orders, sometimes – for the purpose of allegorical comparison or for the sake of imagery.

Examples:
▫️Thinking of his first year in freelance, he compared it to a massive rollercoaster with epic highs and rock-bottom lows.
▫️Eric has often compared his first three post-graduate years to Dante's Divine Comedy with a gradual transition from Inferno to Paradise.

#heed_and_hear
As a bit of a New Year special, here is another 'Heed and Hear' for you all, the first since virtually ages ago. I thought for some time that some BBC Radio 4 programs I liked were discontinued or not accessible anymore for some reason. But fortunately, I've been proven wrong.

For this post, I have chosen an episode of 'A Point of View' where the speaker – British writer Rebecca Stott – recollects her getting lost in woodland and reflects on the primordial fears and emotions evoked in us by darkness.

This winter when power cuts may take place across the UK, the notion of darkness may have more practical relevance for the Brits. In this light, Rebecca reflects on the cultural significance of fire in British history and how many millions of people still live entirely without electricity. And moves on to speculate about how we might have to let more darkness into our lives if we want to maintain the so-called net zero.

You can find and listen to this episode of 'A Point of View' here.

A glossary for the episode:
🔸bonfire – костёр
🔸dusk – сумерки
🔸gleamy – тусклый
🔸to trip over – спотыкаться
🔸dawn – рассвет
🔸black lab cross – чёрный метис лабродора
🔸lead – поводок для собаки
🔸undergrowth – подлесок
🔸to nuzzle – тыкаться носом
🔸flicker – мерцание
🔸rolling power cuts – веерные отключения электричества
🔸to evoke – пробуждать
🔸zealot – адепт, фанатичный приверженец
🔸stygian – мрачный, относящийся к реке Стикс
🔸inky – чернильный
🔸louring – хмурящийся, нависающий
🔸portend – предзнаменование
🔸conjure – воскрешать в памяти
🔸to nestle – угнездиться
🔸down – холм
🔸solicitor – юрист
🔸Lewes Bonfire – крупнейшее празднество британской "Ночи костров" в Льюисе
🔸to mesmerise – завораживать
🔸to chant – скандировать
🔸tar – дёготь
🔸effigy – чучело
🔸to commemorate – отмечать
🔸Samhain – гальский фестиваль в конце сезона уборки урожая
🔸to banish – изгонять
🔸to mitigate – минимизировать, смягчать

#original_high_speech
Good day, dear readers! I am coming to you with another piece of elegant English discourse. An extract from The Forsyte Saga, the book 'To Let', chapter XI 'The Last of the Old Forsytes'. It is from the very end of the whole saga and a very thoughtful piece as well.

Supportive glossary:
🔹athwart – из стороны в сторону
🔹dyke – ров
🔹to lap – окружать
🔹foot – подножие
🔹primeval – первобытный
🔹to dispossess – отнимать, лишать чего-то
🔹to lapse – терять силу
🔹to ebb – затихать

The waters of change were foaming in, carrying the promise of new forms only when their destructive flood should have passed its full. He sat there, subconscious of them, but with his thoughts resolutely set on the past — as a man might ride into a wild night with his face to the tail of his galloping horse. Athwart the Victorian dykes the waters were rolling on property, manners, and morals, on melody and the old forms of art — waters bringing to his mouth a salt taste as of blood, lapping to the foot of this Highgate Hill where Victorianism lay buried. And sitting there, high up on its most individual spot, Soames — like a figure of Investment — refused their restless sounds. Instinctively he would not fight them — there was in him too much primeval wisdom, of Man the possessive animal. They would quiet down when they had fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and destroying; when the creations and the properties of others were sufficiently broken and defected— they would lapse and ebb, and fresh forms would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of change — the instinct of Home.

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#synonymiser
Hello, dear readers! After a lengthy pasue, here I am another synonymiser post! In it, I am presenting a list of verbs with the meaning of looking. Please enjoy if you will!

🔸to look – to see something intentionally
▫️He looked at the door, when the officer came in.
▫️George was ralaxing and looking at the sky, while lying on the grass by the river.
▫️Magnifying glasses with bright plastic handles are furnished for those who like to peer into the world of fine detail. (The New York Times)

🔸to stare – to look in puzzlement, reflection or surprise without moving your eyes
▫️He was staring at space, thinking about the mission at hand.
▫️'Stop staring at me as if you have seen an alien!', – Helen told her brother.
▫️They young explorer of nature was staring at the trees as if he had seen some rare spicies or plant.

🔸to glower – to look with menace or annoyance
▫️He was glowering at the crowd of journalists looking to further remind him of his difficulty.
▫️You cannot shirk this duty; therefore, you'd better get on with it rather than glower at me.

🔸to peek – to look furtively
▫️He peeked into the hall to have a glimpse of the final rehersal for the performace.
▫️The child was brimming with curiosity and peeked at his birthday present a day early.

🔸to peer – to look carefully or with difficulty
▫️When no one answered the door, she peered through the window to see if anyone was there. (Cambridge Dictionary)
▫️He was peering into the thickening dusk. (Paul Theroux – Monkey Hill)

🔸to ogle – to look at in a lecherous manner
▫️She is from legal, and she is potentially a very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit if you keep ogling her like that. (Iron Man 2)

🔸to glare – to look at someone or something with contempt or apparent indignation
▫️He then refused to say whether he had used the Press Complaints Commission and Turner was by now aware that the conversation had gone sour. Evidently, he was glaring at her fiercely. (The Guardian)
▫️Glaring at the reporters, the President continued, "You heard me. (The New Yorker)

🔸to contemplate – to look emotionlessly and calmly at something
▫️The man was placidly contemplating the landscapes opening from the train window to his gaze.
▫️People who are well at peace with themselves can take true pleasure from contemplating simple things around them however ordinary or trivial they may seem to the average observer.

🔸to gaze – to look continuously at something intently or absently
▫️The voice belonged to a girl about twenty-one who was standing next to the bed, gazing down at Jason. (Harry Harrison – Deathworld)
▫️He took it and gazed long at it, and he
shook his head; for if he did not altogether
approve of dwarves and their love of gold, he
hated dragons and their cruel wickedness, and
he grieved to remember the ruin of the town of
Dale and its merry bells, and the burned banks
of the bright River Running. (John R. R. Tolkien – The Hobbit)

#sticky_and_tricky
The Usage of 'all', 'all of the' and 'all the' with Plural Nouns

To understand the difference in the usage of the determiner 'all' with the definite article and without it, you need to bear in mind the difference in reference that the definite article creates, i.e., particularity.

1. All + plural noun

When speaking about all objects in a group of homogeneous objects without making any exceptions.

Examples:
All living things normally want to keep on living.
All school teachers must not forget about setting an example for their students.
Our family have owned many cars, and we can all agree on one common feature all cars have – they break down.

2. All of the + plural noun

When speaking about a specified group of homogeneous objects. The definite article in this case performs the individualising or restrictive function with countable and uncountable nouns respectively.

Examples:
All of the water was used up by the irrigating system.
The administration of the charity event announced that all of the wearable merchandise prepared for the event had been sold out.
When we arrived to the stadium, all of the parking lots were occupied.

3. All the + plural noun

This construction is a shortened, more colloquial variant of 'all of the + plural noun'.

Examples:
The evacuation of the building engaged all the emergency exits.
He told his mother that he had done all the housework before going out with his friends.
When we entered the cinema hall, almost all the seats were occupied though the showing had not started yet.

#synonymiser
Hello, dear readers! Here I am with another bunch of synonyms for you. In this post, I will share a selection of verbs with the meaning of making someone annoyed or angry.

But before I start, I want to announce a simple poll below this post. The question is 'Are you ready to support this channel financially?' If you are, please press the 💸 button. Your financial support will allow me to post more content more regularly and will be vastly appreciated.

And now to the post! And as always I encourage you to look for more authentic context with the words in the list to improve your own command of the words in it.

🔸to peeve – to annoy
▫️It peeves me that it is raining the whole weekend.
▫️Helen was peeved by her sister's request to pick up a delivery for her from the post office.
▫️Some people's egotistical behaviour can peeve you a lot.

🔸to annoy – to get on someone's nerves up to an extent of making them angry
▫️Sara gets annoyed when mosquitoes start buzzing over her ear in the night, interrupting her sleep.
▫️It annoys me when people are coughing en masse during spectacles in theatres.
▫️It annoys Tom when someone is answering a call during a showing in the cinema.

🔸to irk – to make someone feel annoyed
▫️His arrogance irks me.
▫️Denis was feeling nervous about the approaching exam, and his self-centred behavior irked his mother when she needed his help.
▫️The need to postpone his meetup with friends because of the sudden change in his work schedule irked him.

🔸to irritate – to make someone lose temper
▫️It was the offhand, unimportant manner it had been done that irritated him. (Harry Harrison – Deathworld)
▫️He brimmed with enthusiasms and self-confidence and issued pronouncements on all sorts of subjects, which amused some of the Rhodes scholars and irritated others. (The New Yorker)

🔸to bother – to annoy or cause problems for someone
▫️The boy did not want to bother his father with questions about his homework because he looked tired after a day at work.
▫️They thought they could live happily in a bungalo away from civilisation without being bothered by city chaos.
▫️The news about a prison break bothered the citizens.

🔸to pester – to annoy someone by repetitively asking the same thing
▫️John has been pestering her to go out with him all month. (Cambridge Dictionary)
▫️Baggers were pestering tourists for coins at the railway hub.
▫️Kevin was pestering his mates to lend him some money to pay back what he owed to his boss.