Besides the pope, who speaks Latin today?
By Ben Zimmer
Pope Benedict XVI waved as he lead the Sunday Angelus prayer in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican.
There aren’t many jobs where mastery of a dead language is an asset. But when Giovanna Chirri, Vatican correspondent for Italy’s ANSA news agency, heard Pope Benedict make an announcement in Latin earlier this month, she understood completely, and raced to break the story: The pope was resigning. Meanwhile, many of the assembled cardinals, it was reported, were left scratching their heads. Their Latin skills weren’t up to snuff.
It took the first papal resignation in six centuries to thrust Latin—as a live, spoken language—back into the news. Beyond the extremely rare circumstance of major world religious leaders announcing their retirement, however, you might well wonder: Who still speaks the language of ancient Rome outside of the Vatican walls? In this day and age, what would be the point?
As it happens, a conference in New York City last weekend provided ample evidence that this “dead” language is not quite dead after all. Around 70 participants, about half of whom were high school teachers from the Northeast, gathered at Fordham University to spend a couple of days speaking in Latin together. I dropped by to see what the “living Latin” movement is all about—and got a taste of a language that’s being used not just for scholarly and religious purposes, but as a way to bring centuries of classical learning into the here and now.
Jason Pedicone, a spirited young Princeton PhD candidate and a founder of the Paideia Institute, which sponsored the event, welcomed the attendees with a hearty “Salve!” before launching into an impassioned plea for keeping spoken Latin alive. (Thankfully for me—a non-fluent Latin speaker—he did so in English.) He recalled a “magical” summer program in Rome that introduced him to “the incredible sensation that came from making Latin, this fundamental key to Western civilization, a tool for interpreting and communicating with the world around me.”
Pedicone took issue with Cambridge University classicist Mary Beard, who was quoted by the BBC after the Pope’s resignation as saying, “One of the pleasures of Latin is that you don’t have to speak it.” “Pace Maria Barbatula, begging the pardon of Mary Beard,” he said, “one of the pleasures of Latin is you get to speak it, and by doing so, you get off the sidelines and make yourself an active player in this beautiful, glorious story of human history. Western civilization does not have to be a spectator sport.”
For the next two days, the conference-goers broke into small groups to talk in Latin, guided by instructors, on a number of topics, organized around the theme of mirabilia urbis, or “marvels of the city,” in both Rome and New York. The sessions I sat in on were easy-going and full of laughter, whether the group consisted of novices attempting to speak Latin for the first time or fluent experts declaiming like Cicero.
I caught up with Eric Hewett, who cofounded the Paideia Institute in 2011 as a way to maintain the tradition of Reginaldus, a.k.a. Reginald Foster, a gruff Carmelite friar from Milwaukee who ran that popular Rome summer course on spoken Latin for over 20 years. Foster was the Vatican’s official Latin translator until health problems forced his return to Milwaukee in 2008.
Hewett told me the institute had launched their own summer program in Rome, guided by Foster’s principle that spoken Latin should be a bridge between secular and religious worlds. This also means bridging two different accents: classicists speak a “reconstructed” Latin, while those from a seminary background speak with an Italian-influenced “ecclesiastical” pronunciation. But whether they pronounce c’s like “k” in the classical way or like “ch” in the style of the church, the institute welcomes all comers.
The institute has also started a summer course in Rome for high school students, attracting young scholars from the likes of the Brooklyn Latin School, which is modeled on the Boston Latin School, the oldest public school in the country. The Brooklyn school makes the study of Latin central to a classical liberal arts education, in a disadvantaged area where Latin isn’t typically a high priority.
Bryan Whitchurch, who teaches there, told me about one student who’d gone on the Paidaia program last year: Sabiya Ahmed, the daughter of Bangladeshi and Puerto Rican immigrants. Ahmed was selected based on her spoken Latin talents, with a donor paying her way. She had never been on a plane before, but Whitchurch, as one of the course instructors, was able to accompany her to Rome. “Her face completely lit up when she saw the Pantheon,” Whitchurch recalled. “She almost dropped her gelato.”
While young secular scholars of Latin may be enticed by the opportunity to speak the language in Virgil’s old stomping grounds, Hewett told me that Catholic seminarians are also returning to Latin, after their elders moved away from it following the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s. (Vatican II helps to explain why those cardinals had such difficulty understanding Benedict.)
And that brings us back to what the journalist Chirri found so useful in knowing Latin: understanding the most famous current user of the language. A fluent Latin speaker, Benedict has encouraged the language’s revival, even posting to Twitter as @Pontifex. We don’t yet know if his successor will be such an ardent Latinist. But it seems clear that there are still plenty of signs of life in that old language, even in Novum Eboracum (New York).
Some people still speak Latin. What if U.S. presidents did?
By Frances Stead Sellers
You only have to glance at Washington to see how steeped the American republic is in the classics. The Latin language, so familiar to the Founders, may have faded from our collective consciousness, but the great temples of the Capitol and Supreme Court and the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials echo the classical tradition.
And spoken Latin is even making a bit of a comeback these days, with some educators looking to the ancient language as a means of tackling the country’s contemporary literacy problems.
Two pioneers in the revival of spoken Latin, University of Kentucky Profs. Milena Minkova and Terence Tunberg, run classes and summer camps (or conventicula) in spoken Latin and actually converse in Latin. It’s their common tongue.
Minkova says she speaks Latin with “many other colleagues from Europe and America.” Sure, she and Tunberg will fall back into English in faculty meetings (to do otherwise would be impolite and impolitic), but Latin has become “their normal language of communication.” Rome, where Minkova used to live, may be the world capital, or caput mundi, she says, but she and Tunberg have created a new Rome, “novam Romam,” in Lexington among speakers who are comfortable using “the language that shaped the Western World.” Some of those disciples have in turn sent their own students back to Lexington to study at the Institute for Latin Studies.
“We are like grandparents,” says Minkova, perpetuating a language that many gave up for dead.
Tunberg doesn’t go so far as to suggest, as some have done, that the language of the European Union, for example, should be Latin. (“That’s absurd!”) His approach is more practical — that “we should use the language we study.”
And it’s easy to adapt the language to our changing world. Computer, after all, comes from the Latin verb computare (although there is a healthy disputatio about whether the Latin noun should be computatrum or computatorium). As for a laptop? Tunberg’s answer is simply to add an adjective and call it a carryable computer — computatorium gestabile. In other examples, the words for the new inventions are jargon that work in almost any language: An iPad is an iPad is an iPad.
Their fluency made us wonder what it would be like if the grand tradition of Ciceronian rhetoric had survived in this country, if the successors of George Washington, the American Cincinnatus, had delivered their famous lines in Latin.
Pope resignation: Who speaks Latin these days?
By Robin Banerji
The reporter who broke the news of Pope Benedict XVI's resignation got the scoop because she understood his announcement in Latin. How much of it is spoken in the Vatican and elsewhere these days?
There are not many occasions when a reporter needs a grasp of Latin. But one came on Monday when the Pope made a short announcement.
Most of the reporters present had to wait for the Vatican's official translations into Italian, English and languages that people actually speak.
But not Italian wire service reporter Giovanna Chirri, who had clearly been paying attention in secondary school. Her Latin was up to the job and she broke the story of the Pope's resignation to the world.
But beyond Chirri how widespread is Latin within the Roman Catholic Church? To what extent does it exist as a spoken language?
In his office at the Vatican, Father Reginald Foster says "we always spoke Latin". It was Foster's job to write the Latin for the Church's official documents and encyclicals.
Now retired to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Foster continues to speak to friends in the Vatican on the phone in Latin. And he still has friends to whom he sends postcards in Latin.
But even while he was writing Latin for the Church he felt he was writing not for the present "but for history". It is still important he argues that there is a single version of a text which people can consult in case of any doubts about meaning.
To keep Latin alive he has for many years run Aestiva Romae Latinitas in Rome - a two-month immersion course in Latin.
"Latin is a language," Foster stresses. "It didn't come down in a golden box from Heaven. You don't have to be clever to speak it. In ancient Rome it was spoken by poor people, prostitutes and bums."
And how good is his Latin?
"I can make jokes in Latin and my students can follow my jokes."
But he worries for the future of the language in the Church. He estimates the number of fluent Latin speakers as no more than 100. And he does not see things getting better.
"The text of Vatican II has glorious passages in Latin but can the young priest walking across St Peter's Square understand it? I don't think so."
A sketchy understanding of the language is not good enough. "Take the sentence urinabor in piscinam: if you are guessing, you might think it means 'I will urinate in the swimming pool' but it doesn't. It means 'I will dive into the swimming pool'. "
"With Latin, either you know it or you don't," says Foster.
According to Foster, the language of the Vatican is not Latin but Italian, and to a lesser extent English. "You have to speak Italian properly, if not you're just out of it."
"Ultimately, I am not afraid for Latin," says Foster. "Like other great human creations, like the music of Bach and Handel it will survive. But I am afraid for Latin in the Church."
Foster may be relaxed about the future of Latin outside the Church but the picture is not entirely clear.
Nicholas Ostler, author of Ad Infinitum, a history of Latin, and the Chairman of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, compares Latin's presence on the internet (interretialis) to a small European language - it is comparable to "Icelandic, Lithuanian or Slovenian".
Ostler emails his brother in Latin for fun and enthusiasts maintain websites such as Circulus Latinus Interretialis (Internet Latin Circle), Grex Latine Loquentium (Flock of those Speaking Latin) and the connected online paper Ephemeris. The Finnish radio station YLE even broadcasts news in Latin.
But Ostler is concerned that Latin's vocabulary is not being renewed and developed. "There's a perfectly good Latin translation for tweet. It would be pipatum, the noise made by Catullus's girlfriend's sparrow, but for some reason the Vatican insists on using a periphrastic construction of three long words."
And he does not think much of Benedict's tweets in Latin - "the last one was a real case of messing up Latin word order".
He admits that Latin has been in retreat for a very long time. It survived the fall of Rome remarkably well and continued with some small changes in vocabulary into the Middle Ages.
In the Renaissance there was an attempt to turn back the clock. Writers deprecated the Latin of the medieval philosophers and tried to write like Cicero and Virgil. And not just write Latin.
The French essayist Michel de Montaigne was brought up speaking Latin as his first language and as a boy read Ovid's Metamorphoses for fun.
In Europe Latin was still important in the 16th and 17th Century but by the 18th it was already on the wane. It fell out of use first in France and England. "Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) was the last major work in England to be published in Latin," says Ostler.
In northern and eastern Europe Latin carried on as a language for scholarship and to some extent government even into the 19th Century.
Part of the reason, thinks Ostler, is that in an odd way Latin is actually easier to learn than living languages. "You don't need to be able to follow a conversation in it, you just need to be able to read," says Ostler.
And that is a point seconded by Mary Beard, professor of classics at Cambridge University.
"One of the pleasures of Latin is that you don't have to speak it and of course not many people do. It is charming that the Finns broadcast news in Latin. It doesn't hurt. But it's not why you learn Latin," says Beard.
"You learn it so that you can read what the Romans wrote and what was written in Latin down to the 17th Century. You learn it to read Virgil."
But can she and her classicist colleagues speak it?
"If you give us some nice claret, and as the claret goes down, we'll drop our inhibitions and have a go."
Why Italian is important
Italian cardinals have long dominated Vatican hierarchy
Of the 209 living cardinals, 49 are from Italy - almost a quarter
That percentage is rising again after dipping to 17% in 2005
Fell below 50% in the mid-20th Century
Who Speaks Latin Today ???
Rise of The Polyglots
The cult of the hyperpolyglot
Many people want to speak a second language, but for some people two can never be enough. Welcome to the world of the hyperpolyglot.
Ray Gillon speaks 18 languages. To be precise, he only speaks eight fluently. His grasp on the other 10 is merely conversational.
Throw anything at him in Portuguese, Thai, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Bulgarian or Mandarin and he will banter back.
In the UK, where there has been a growing anxiety over the failure to learn additional languages, Gillon might seem to be a bit of an anomaly. More and more children have been giving up languages since the last government made learning foreign languages optional in England from the age of 14.
Publisher HarperCollins has been searching for the UK's most multilingual student, and has discovered a 20-year-old Oxford University undergraduate who can speak 11 languages. And a new book, Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners, by Michael Erard, suggests Gillon is among a set of people who are learning languages for fun.
So what makes some people learn language after language?
For self-taught polyglot Gillon, 54, his love affair with language started by accident. He says he first learned French and Latin at the age of 11, and later studied French and German as elective courses while studying for his electronic engineering degree.
"But it wasn't until I got my first job, and was sent to live in the south of France, that I had any real enthusiasm for languages," he says.
It was during this chapter of his life, while designing audio visual systems for a cruise liner, that Gillon was introduced to Italian through colleagues.
"I went to Italy for a weekend, and fell in love with the language. I bought books and started teaching myself. By the end of my three years in France, I was fluent in both languages," he says.
Gillon's next job took him round the world, and pretty soon he was up to speed on German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish.
He says he used half a dozen languages every day for 10 years and his current job, which involves supervising foreign language versioning of Hollywood movies, means he has to stay on top of his skills.
"I have a massive foreign language book library, so I regularly keep up to date, revising grammar, reading newspapers, watching satellite television.
"My much better half is also Swedish and speaks six languages - we probably speak them all every day," he says.
According to author and linguistics expert Erard, there are not many hyperpolyglots like Gillon in the world. He has identified 11 languages as a significant watershed. Those who speak more than this are very rare.
But he says it is difficult to define hyperpolyglots and polyglots because essentially it has to be about speaking and knowing rather than reading and writing. In some cases literacy is not possible, or a language does not have an alphabet.
He says the question of "how much a language weighs" is also significant in determining how unusual a linguist is.
"If the languages are English, French, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi and Russian - that would be more significant from a learner's perspective than 11 Romance languages such as Italian, French and Spanish," he says.
People who are gifted linguists also often have to make the choice between getting very highly developed skills in a smaller number of languages, or focusing on one aspect like the oral language, he says.
For language-lover Matt Withers, 32, who speaks German, Portuguese, Luxembourgish, French and Welsh, it is not his vocation, but a fascination with language and the world that fuels his hobby.
But rather than relying solely on books, he also signed up to a series of courses.
"When I lived in Germany, I shared a house with three Brazilians, so I did an evening course in Portuguese to converse with them - it was interesting trying to learn Portuguese through the medium of German," he laughs.
"For the past few years, I've been living in Wales - I share an office with predominantly native Welsh speakers, so I've been learning Welsh."
Withers thinks that fluency in one language allows people to accumulate others more easily.
"Most monoglots in this country aren't really able to explain English in terms such as the perfect past tense and past tense. When you learn about cases and tenses and grammatical formations, I think the tool box is there for other languages," he says.
But he concedes it is not always the case, "as Welsh isn't like any other major European language, in terms of the way it is constructed, and is incredibly different".
So what enables hyperpolyglots to seemingly pick up a new language at the push of a button?
Erard says it is hard to explain, but whatever an individual's biographical reasons are, he believes there is something that distinguishes hyperpolyglots neurologically.
"They have a neurological hardware that responds to the world, that's fed by the world, that is suited to a pattern that is recognition-heavy, sound-heavy and memory-heavy - that is very structured, and also very sociable.
"They have an ability to switch between languages very easily, and that involves cognitive skills which are often heritable," he adds.
But Gillon says he has no idea what the secret to his success is.
He says some "blocks" - Germanic, Slavic, Latin - make it "easier to go with the flow, and language becomes intuitive". He agrees that by the third or fourth language, it also gets easier to assimilate vocabulary and grammar much more quickly.
"Etymology is a sport for me. I enjoy looking up the origin of words and seeing which particular invasion was responsible for bringing that word into our vocabulary. I am immersed in it for my work and it will continue to intrigue me for every day of my life."
But he concludes: "I can't explain it - if I could, I would bottle and sell it."
What's that you're saying?
Up to 7,000 different languages are estimated to be spoken around the world
Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, German and French are world's most widely spoken languages, according to UNESCO
Languages are grouped into families that share a common ancestry
English is related to German and Dutch, and all are part of Indo-European family of languages
Also includes French, Spanish and Italian, which come from Latin
2,200 of the world's languages can be found in Asia, while Europe has 260
Rise of the polyglots
"Most people say it's easier to pick up languages when you're younger," says David Green, of University College London, who specialises in bilingualism.
"But people can learn languages at any point in their lives. Being immersed in a language is important. Personality is a contributing factor too - not being able to tolerate feeling foolish from making inevitable errors will make learning a new language a difficult process.
"Polyglots are definitely on the rise worldwide predominantly because of migration. In 10 years' time, it is estimated that 50% of America will be Spanish-speaking. Many of these people will speak both English and Spanish."
Which words come easily?
Usually easier when second language is close to learner's native tongue in terms of vocabulary, sounds or sentence structure
So Polish speakers find it easier to learn Slavic languages like Czech rather than Asian ones
And Japanese speakers will find it easier to learn Mandarin than Polish
Easiest language for native English speakers to learn is said to be Dutch
Five most difficult languages for native English speakers are Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean
Half-Naked Sexy Mandarin
Have Half-Naked Models Teach You Chinese With “Sexy Mandarin” Online Lessons
If you’re still not convinced, the website SexyMandarin.com is offering online courses featuring hot, lingerie-clad models who teach you Mandarin Chinese.
There, now you have no excuse not to start to learning (unless you’re female or are already dating a sexy Chinese model, which we know you’re not).
Sexy Mandarin launched last December with their first lesson, “What Time Is It?”, in which two half-naked women recite time vocabulary after intimately caressing each other in bed.
There have been a total of 9 stimulating lessons since then, teaching viewers phrases such as “the police are here” and “we are washing the car”. We think you can imagine the kind of situations in which they are spoken.
One of the difficulties of learning Chinese is mastering 4 different tones. Luckily, the models speak with a slow and seductive accent that’s easy on the ears. Key words are also repeated several times with the camera zoomed up close on the model’s luscious lips so you can follow their movements and practice yourself.
The site was created by Kaoru Kikuchi, a Japanese model and designer who graduated from the school of architecture at the University of Nottingham. While Kaoru created the site with the intention of making Mandarin more accessible to learners, it has been met with mixed reactions from the Chinese community, with some criticizing it for not taking language learning seriously. Others, however, credit Kaoru for leveraging that unique Japanese eroticism for a practical use.
The English Words You Shouldn't Use Abroad
Eight English Words You Shouldn't Use Abroad
You may think it's easy to communicate when you're visiting another English-speaking country, but think again! Certain words mean something entirely different on the other side of the world. Read on to see which eight words could cause you embarrassment across the pond or down under.
Pants
Be careful who you tell in the U.K. that you have to go pants shopping—across the pond, "pants" means "underwear." When you're talking about jeans and khakis, you should call them "trousers."
Avoid Using In: The U.K., Ireland
Fanny
Own a fanny pack? In most other English-speaking countries, they're called "bum bags" because "fanny" is slang for a part of the female anatomy (and no, we're not talking about the rear end). So don't tell someone to stop being lazy and get off their fanny, either!
Avoid Using In: The U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa
Pissed
In America, we may get "pissed off" when we're angry, but the Brits and Irish who are "pissed" are extremely intoxicated. "Taking the piss," however, means "to make fun of," not "to get drunk."
Avoid Using In: The U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand
Bangs
Prepare for weird looks if you're bragging about your new "bangs" in England. A forehead-covering haircut over there is referred to as a "fringe" instead. Overseas, "bangs" is more commonly used as the somewhat vulgar slang that it is interchangeable with in America.
Avoid Using In: Anywhere outside of North America
Knob
Americans hear the word "knob" and think "doorknob" or "lever." It has a much dirtier meaning in other countries, like Australia and the U.K., where it's an insult or slang for a part of the male anatomy. Now you'll know to be offended if someone calls you a "knob head."
Avoid Using In: The U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa
Root
Americans may "root around" looking for a lost object, but Australians and New Zealanders use the term to refer to having sex.
Avoid Using In: Australia, New Zealand
Pull
If someone "pulled" last night in the U.K., they're probably not talking about pulling a muscle or drawing something apart. It's commonly used as slang for successfully picking up someone while out on the town. Likewise, "going on the pull" means that someone is going out with the express goal of getting some action.
Avoid Using In: The U.K., Ireland
Bugger
If you affectionately call your child or pet "little bugger," you might want to reconsider doing so in pretty much any other English-speaking country. In most other places, from Canada to Australia, it is commonly used as an expletive similar to the f-word.
Avoid Using In: Most places outside of America
The Knowledge You Should Know Before Die
Stewardesses' is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
And 'lollipop' is the longest word typed with your right hand.
(Bet you tried this out mentally, didn't you?)
No word in the English language rhymes with month , orange, silver, or purple.
' Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'.
(Are you doubting this?)
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
The sentence: 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' uses every letter of the alphabet.
(Now, you KNOW you're going to try this out for accuracy, right?)
The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).
(Yep, I knew you were going to 'do' this one.)
There are only four words in the English language which end in 'dous': tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
(You're not possibly doubting this, are you ?)
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: 'abstemious' and 'facetious.'
(Yes, admit it, you are going to say, a e i o u)
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
(All you typists are going to test this out)
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds ..
(Some days that's about what my memory span is.)
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
A snail can sleep for three years.
(I know some people that could do this too.!)
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
(I know some people like that also. Actually I know A LOT of people like this!)
Babies are born without kneecaps.
They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
Leonard o Da Vinci invented the scissors
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
The cruise liner, QE 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
(Good thing he did that.)
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid .
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Now you know more than you did before!!
Write with BOTH hands at the SAME TIME in different languages
Ink-redible! Chinese woman who can write with BOTH hands at the SAME TIME in different languages
Chen Siyuan can write in Chinese with one hand and English with the other
Discovered her talent by chance while struggling with lots of homework
In this age of computers and smartphones, some of us are finding it harder and harder to write properly with one hand, let alone two.
But that is no such problem for Chinese translator Chen Siyuan.
She has been amazing onlookers with her ability not only to write with both hands at the same time, but do it in different languages - Chinese with one and English with the other.
And for good measure the 24-year-old can also perform the trick with each hand writing in different directions.
Chen, whose name means 'think further', didn't develop her skill through hours of practise.
Instead she discovered it by chance while trying to save time on large amounts of English homework at her high school in northern China.
She told People's Daily Online: 'When I was in high school, I unconsciously wrote with both hands while trying to finish my homework in a hurry.
'My classmates were curious and tried to imitate me, but none of them succeeded.'
Chen, who later obtained a college degree in English, now uses her talent to write poetry, two sentences at a time, of course.
The Phenomenal 2 Letter Word
PHENOMENAL 2 LETTER WORD
I'm sure you will enjoy this. I never knew one word in the English language that could be a noun, verb, adj, adv, prep.
UP
Read until the end ... You'll laugh.
This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is ' UP .' It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].
It's easy to understand UP , meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP , and why are the officers UP for election (if there is a tie, it is a toss UP ) and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car.
At other times, this little word has real special meaning . People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is blocked UP .
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP !
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP , look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP , you may wind UP with ( UP to) a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP . When it rains, it soaks UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP . One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now . . . My time is UP !
Oh . . . One more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?
UP !
Did that one crack you UP ?
Don't screw UP .. Send this on to everyone you look UP in your address book . . . Or not . . . it's UP to you.
Now I'll shut UP
Test Free TOEFL
Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
Teacher: The only reason I always try to meet and know the parents better is because it helps me to forgive the children.
What do you call kids born in whorehouses?
Brothel sprouts.
I break for imaginary objects
What do you call a used tampon floating in a river?
A blood vessel.
Why do women prefer old gynecologists?
They have shaky hands!
What's the difference between sin and shame? It is a sin to put it in,
but it's a shame to pull it out.
How many men does it take to screw in a light bulb? One ...
Men will screw anything.
Money can't buy you love, but it sure makes shopping fun!
Wrestlers don't like to be put on hold.
My electrician usually worries about current events.
What's the difference between meat and fish?
If you beat your fish it will die!
What do you call skunks having oral sex?
Odor eaters!
What do elephants use as tampons?
Sheep!
What do you call a dog with no back legs and metal balls?
Sparky!
What did one lesbian frog say to the other?
"You know, we do taste like chicken!"
Indonesia Learns Chinese
A once-banned language makes a comeback.
It looked like a typical Chinese language class. A young woman named Mela strode to the front of the room and performed a skit about shopping at the beauty counter. "I shop by quality and by price," she said in near-perfect Mandarin. But the location of the scene was a bit more unusual. The class took place at the University of Indonesia, the top school in the world's fourth-most populous country, and almost all the students, including Mela, who was wearing skinny jeans and a headscarf, were Muslim.
A decade ago, an indigenous Indonesian, or pribumi, studying Chinese would have been almost unthinkable. Indonesia had a history of conflict between its Chinese minority and Muslim majority dating back to colonial times, when Dutch rulers favored the Chinese over the pribumi. But today many young Indonesians -- both ethnic Chinese and pribumi -- are leaving behind the old ethnic strife and learning Mandarin to take advantage of China's booming economy. When U.S. President Barack Obama visits the country of his childhood next month, he may find a population increasingly looking north across the South China Sea rather than east across the Pacific.
Although millions of ethnic Chinese lived in Indonesia and were the driving force behind the economy, Mandarin had been excised from public life since long before students like Mela were born, as part of a general effort to assimilate the Chinese by force. Under the rule of President Suharto, from 1965 to 1998, Chinese schools and books and even the celebration of Chinese New Year were forbidden. Ethnic Chinese were strongly encouraged to adopt Indonesian names, and cina, meaning China or Chinese, became a racial epithet.
The Mandarin language was driven underground in many parts of Indonesia during those years, and studying Chinese became a clandestine activity. For example, Henry Tong, the owner of a company in Java that manufactures gloves, told me he learned Chinese as a child by reading Hong Kong comic books and from a private tutor. "When we studied, we had to close all our doors and windows. And when we saw somebody from the army outside, we quickly hid our books," he said.
In May 1998, riots broke out in Jakarta and other cities as demonstrations against economic woes turned into widespread looting and arson lasting for nearly three days. Much of the violence targeted the ethnic Chinese and their businesses, though ultimately most of the people who died, trapped in burning malls, were non-Chinese. But the riots also brought down Suharto, and the next elected president dismantled the country's anti-Chinese policies.
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Now, companies now come to the University of Indonesia to recruit Chinese majors, and job ads asking for Mandarin skills have cropped up in local newspapers. "Finding a job in Indonesia is easier if you speak Mandarin," Mela told me in Chinese. She took up the language in high school after a teacher said China's development would make Mandarin fluency valuable to employers.
As other students gave their presentations in the University of Indonesia class I visited, Daniel Kus Hendarso and a friend sat at the back of the room, joking around and tapping at their cell phones. Hendarso, though three-quarters Chinese by heritage, is even newer to the language than Mela. He and his parents are typical Chinese Indonesians. Their family has lived in Indonesia for generations, and they now speak only Indonesian and a local language, Javanese. Hendarso noted that the Chinese own many of the top Indonesian companies, and he said he hopes to improve his job prospects. But he also cited another motivation for studying the language. "I want to better understand my homeland," he said.
To meet growing demand from students and parents, about one-fifth of the country's universities now offer Mandarin, compared to just 5 percent a decade ago, according to Dendy Sugono, who heads the Language Centre at Indonesia's Ministry of Education. But qualified teachers are hard to find -- not surprising given how long the language was banned -- and often have to be imported from China.
More and more, students are going directly to China for educational opportunities. Another student in the Chinese class, Amelia, one of the few to have parents who speak Mandarin, has just applied for a scholarship at a well-known foreign languages university in Beijing. "Most of my Chinese friends from high school want to go to China to study, not the U.S.," said Amelia, who has one name, as is common in Java. "American universities are too expensive."
Last year 7,926 Indonesian students studied in China, more than three times as many as in 2003. For the first time, China was more popular than the United States, which drew 7,509 students. The high price of U.S. tuition only partly explains the trend. Another reason? Indonesians are beginning to see China, not the United States, as the world power to bet on
It's easy to see why Indonesians who master Mandarin might have a bright future with one of the many Indonesian companies that do business with China. Last year trade between the two countries totaled $22.41 billion for non-oil-and-gas products. Indonesia's wealth of forestry and minerals products are particularly appealing to a natural-resources-hungry China. And since a free trade agreement took effect early this year, exports to China (excluding oil and gas products) have already skyrocketed 137.6% in January and February, compared to the same period in 2009.
"Just as in the past having their sons and daughters mix at American universities paid off at a lot of levels, Indonesian parents feel that now is the time to do that in China," said Greg Barton, Indonesian studies professor at Monash University in Australia.
But for or all the enthusiasm around Mandarin's resurgence, no one can say how much language learning will bridge social divides. True, ethnic tensions have eased significantly in the last decade, and a new politically correct term, tionghoa, has replaced cina, but the differences between ethnic Chinese and the pribumipervade life in Indonesia. In Jakarta, the two groups usually attend separate schools, live in separate neighborhoods, shop at separate malls, and seek treatment at separate hospitals. During a recent trip to the capital, I stayed at a large apartment complex where almost all the residents were ethnic Chinese; only the building workers and nannies were pribumi.
But change is afoot, as the students in Chinese class reminded me. "Before I came to university, all my friends were Chinese. But here, there are more Indonesians, so I'm friends with them," said Amelia. "I think it's okay.
Crazy unbelievable English
You think English is easy?? I think a retired English Teacher was bored.
THIS IS GREAT! No wonder immigrants struggle with the English language.
This took a lot of work to put together!
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewerline.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this ..
There's a two-letter word that has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'
It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP,you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.
When the sun comes out, we say it is clearingUP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP,
for now my time is UP,
so........it is time to shut UP!
Now it's UP to you what you do with this email.
How To Poop At Work
We've all been there but don't like to admit it. We've all kicked
back in our cubicles and suddenly felt something brew down below. As
much as we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the WORK POOP is
inevitable. For those who hate pooping at work, following is the 2001
Survival Guide for taking a dump at work. Memorize these definitions and
pooping at work will become a pure pleasure.
ESCAPEE.
Definition:
a fart that slips out while taking a leak at the urinal or forcing a
poop in a stall. This is usually accompanied by a sudden wave of panic
embarrassment. This is similar to the hot flash you receive when passing
an unseen police car and speeding. If you release an escapee, do not
acknowledge it. Pretend it did not happen. If you are standing next to
the farter in the urinal, pretend you did not hear it. No one likes an
escapee, it is uncomfortable for all involved. Making a joke or laughing
makes both parties feel uneasy.
JAILBREAK (Used in conjunction with ESCAPEE).
Definition:
When forcing poop, several farts slip out at a machine gun pace. This
is usually a side effect of diarrhea or a hangover. If this should
happen, do not panic. Remain in the stall until everyone has left the
bathroom so to spare everyone the awkwardness of what just occurred.
COURTESY FLUSH.
Definition:
The act of flushing the toilet the instant the nose cone of the poop
log hits the water and the poop is whisked away to an undisclosed
location. This reduces the amount of air time the poop has to stink up
the bathroom. This can help you avoid being caught doing the WALK OF
SHAME.
WALK OF SHAME.
Definition: Walking from
the stall, to the sink, to the door after you have just stunk up the
bathroom. This can be a very uncomfortable moment if someone walks in
and busts you. As with all farts, it is best to pretend that the smell
does not exist. Can be avoided with the use of the COURTESY FLUSH.
OUT OF THE CLOSET POOPER.
Definition:
A colleague who poops at work and damn proud of it. You will often see
an Out Of The Closet Pooper enter the bathroom with a newspaper or
magazine under their arm. Always look around the office for the Out Of
The Closet Pooper before entering the bathroom.
THE POOPING FRIENDS NETWORK (PFN).
Definition:
A group of coworkers who band together to ensure emergency pooping goes
off without incident. This group can help you to monitor the
whereabouts of Out Of The Closet Poopers, and identify SAFE HAVENS.
SAFE HAVENS.
Definition:
A seldom used bathroom somewhere in the building where you can least
expect visitors. Try floors that are predominantly of the opposite sex.
This will reduce the odds of a pooper of your sex entering the bathroom.
TURD BURGLAR:
Definition:
A pooper who does not realize that you are in the stall and tries to
force the door open. This is one of the most shocking and vulnerable
moments that can occur when taking a dump at work. If this occurs,
remain in the stall until the Turd Burglar leaves. This way you will
avoid all uncomfortable eye contact.
CAMO-COUGH.
Definition:
A phony cough that alerts all new entrants into the bathroom that you
are in a stall. This can be used to cover-up a WATERMELON, or to alert
potential Turd Burglars. Very effective when used in conjunction with an
ASTAIRE.
ASTAIRE.
Definition: A subtle toe-tap
that is used to alert potential Turd Burglars that you are occupying a
stall. This will remove all doubt that the stall is occupied. If you
hear an Astaire, leave the bathroom immediately so the pooper can poop
in peace.
WATERMELON.
Definition: A turd that
creates a loud splash when hitting the toilet water. This is also an
embarrassing incident. If you feel a Watermelon coming on, create a
diversion. See CAMO-COUGH.
HAVANA OMELET.
Definition:
A load of diarrhea that creates a series of loud splashes in the toilet
water. Often accompanied by an Escapee. Try using a Camo-Cough with an
Astaire.
UNCLE TED.
Definition: A bathroom user
who seems to linger around forever. Could spend extended lengths of time
in front of the mirror or sitting on the pot. An Uncle Ted makes it
difficult to relax while on the crapper, as you should always wait to
drop your load when the bathroom is empty. This benefits you as well as
the other bathroom attendees.
FLY BY.
Definition:
The act of scouting out a bathroom before pooping. Walk in and check
for other poopers. If there are others in the bathroom, leave and come
back again. Be careful not to become a FREQUENT FLYER. People may become
suspicious if they catch you constantly going into the bathroom.
The Most Fail Startups
Be careful With your domain name...
The following are some the list of a rather interesting websites:
http://www.whorepresents.com
http://www.expertsexchange.com
http://www.penisland.net
http://www.therapistfinder.com
http://www.molestationnursery.com
http://www.gasheating.co.uk
http://www.powergenitalia.com
Only English Coulh Have Invented This Language
Anglophiles
Can only say I concur absolutely!!!!
ONLY THE ENGLISH COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE!
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
A Crazy Language
English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in the eggplant
No ham in the hamburger
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England
French fries were not invented in France.
We sometimes take English for granted
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that Quicksand takes you down slowly
Boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
If writers write, how come fingers don't fing?
If the plural of tooth is teeth
Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth
If the teacher taught, Why didn't the preacher praught.
If a vegetarian eats vegetables
What on earth does a humanitarian eat!? (human !)
Why do people recite at a play Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and Drive on parkways
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy Of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down And in which you fill in a form By filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!
English was invented by people, not computers And it reflects the creativity of the human race (Which of course isn't a race at all)
That is why When the stars are out they are visible
But when the lights are out they are invisible
And why it is that when I wind up my watch It starts
But when I wind up this poem It ends.
If GH can stand for P as in Hiccough
If OUGH stands for O as in Dough
If PHTH stands for T as in Phthisis
If EIGH stands for A as in Neighbour
If TTE stands for T as in Gazette
If EAU stands for O as in Plateau
The right way to spell POTATO should be: GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEA U
Fuck You
Okay, we have read and heard about this word all the time. This time I found an essay dedicated to the word "fuck"....
Perhaps one of the most interesting and colorful words in the English language today is the word "fuck." It is the magical word which, just by its sound can describe pain, pleasure, love, and hate. In language, "fuck" falls into many Grammatical categories. ~ It can be used as a verb both transitive (Jim fucked Lauren) and intransitive (Lauren was Fucked by Jim). It can be an action verb (Jim really gives a fuck), a passive verb (Lauren really doesn't give a fuck), and adverb (Lauren is fucking interested in Jim), or as a noun (Lauren is a terrific fuck). It can also be used as an interjection (Fuck! I'm late for my date with Lauren). It can even be used as a conjunction (Lauren is easy, fuck she's also stupid). As you can see there are very words with the overall versitility of the word fuck. Aside from its sexual connotations, this word can be used to describe many situations:
1. Greetings........."How the fuck are ya?"
2. Fraud..............."I got fucked by the car dealer."
3. Resignation......."Oh, fuck it!"
4. Trouble............."I guess I'm fucked now."
5. Agression........."FUCK YOU!"
6. Disgust................"Fuck me."
7. Confusion............." What the fuck....?"
8. Displeasure............"Fucking shit man..."
9. Lost........................"Where the fuck are we?"
10.Disbelief.............."UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE!!"
11.Retaliation............."Up your fucking ass!"
12.Apathy................."Who really gives a fuck?"
13.Suspicion............."Who the fuck are you?"
14.Directions.............."Fuck off."
15. Pleasure................ "She was the greatest fuck ever!"
~It can be maternal........"MOTHERFUCKER!!"
~It can be used to tell time......." It's four fucking twenty!"
~It can be used as an anatomical description............."He's a fucking asshole."
Lastly, it has been used by many notable people throughout history:
"What the fuck was that?" ~Mayor of Hiroshema~
"That's not a real fucking gun." ~John Lennon~
"Where the fuck is all this water coming from?" ~Captain of the Titanic~
"Who the fuck is gonna find out?" ~Richard Nixon~
"Heads are gonna fucking roll." ~Anne Boleyn~
"Any fucking idiot could answer that." ~Albert Einstein~
"It does so fucking look like her!" ~Picasso~
"You want what on the fucking celiling?" ~Michaelangelo~
"Fuck a duck." ~Walt Disney~
"Houston we have a big fucking problem." ~The crew of Apollo 13~
Interesting fucking reading isn't it....
You Think English Is Easy?
The crazy English language
1. A bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full, it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present his present.
8. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
9. I did not object to the object.
10. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
11. There was a row amongst the oarsman about how to row.
12. They were too close to the door to close it.
13. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
14. A seamstress and a sewer fell into the sewer.
15. To help with the planting a farmer taught his sow to sow.
16. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
17. Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
18. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
19. How can I intimate this to my intimate friend ?
Let’s face it. English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England nor French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
Mincemeat is sweet and doesn’t contain any meat at all.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor a pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham ?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth ?
If on your foot your wear a boot, then on your feet you should wear beet.
One goose, 2 geese. So, one mouse, 2 meese ? One mouse, 2 mice so one house, 2 hice ?
One index, 2 indices?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend ?
You can be disgruntled but not gruntled ?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it ?
If teachers taught, why don’t preachers praught ?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat ?
If I drink and get drunk, can I think what I thunk ?
Sometimes I think all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital ? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship ?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, whilst a wise man and a wise guy are opposites ?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out they are visible but when the lights are out they are invisible.
There is a two letter word that perhaps has more meaning than any other two letter word, and that is “UP”.
It is easy to understand UP, meaning towards the sky or the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does the topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP the report?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning … people stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP.
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost ¼ of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways in which UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn’t rain for a while, things dry UP.
One could go on and one but I will wrap this UP for now my time is UP, so it’s time to shut UP.
14 Javanese Principles
In the middle of increasing demand to give more attention to Yogyakarta and Surakarta ’s special status, we also reminded about the 14 Javanese principles:
1. "Nglurug Tanpa Bala, Menang Tanpa Ngasorake, Sekti Tanpa Aji-Aji, Sugih Tanpa Bandha"
Meaning: fight without involving other people; win without humiliating or underestimating others; charm that not base on force / power / money / bloodline; a wealth that not come from material items
2. "Datan Serik Lamun Ketaman, Datan Susah Lamun Kelangan"
Meaning: don’t give up when bad things occur and don’t be sad when you lose something
3. "Sepi ing Pamrih Rame ing Gawe, Banter tan Mbancangi, Dhuwur tan Ngungkuli"
Meaning: work hard whole hearty supported with high spirit; quick but no need to outpace others; aim high but no need to exceed others
4. Aja Gumunan, Aja Getunan, Aja Kagetan, Aja Aleman"
Meaning: do not confuse easily; do not regret easily; do not surprise easily; and do not spoil yourself
5. "Aja Ketungkul Marang Kalungguhan, Kadonyan lan Kemareman"
Meaning: Do not let yourself imprison by the obsession for position / material / other world desire
6. "Aja Kuminter Mundak Keblinger, Aja Cidra Mundak Cilaka, Sing Was-was Tiwas"
Meaning: never think yourself as the smartest one – these habit will guided you towards right direction; do not cheat – these will avoid disaster from happening; whoever doubt those 2 principles will perish
7. "Aja Milik Barang Kang Melok, Aja Mangro Mundak Kendo"
Meaning: don’t let yourself tempted by luxurious and beautiful things; avoid ambiguity in order to maintain good spirit and determination
8. "Aja Adigang, Adigung, Adiguna"
Meaning: avoid self centered and power oriented mind set
9. "Sing Sabar lan Ngalah Dadi kekasih Allah"
Meaning: Be patient and yield in order to become God’s lover
10. "Sing Prihatin Bakal Memimpin"
Meaning: whoever willing to live a modest life will become a warrior, a fighter and a leader
11. "Sing Resik Uripe Bakal Mulya"
Meaning: honesty will lead you to a noble life
12. "Urip Iku Urup"
Meaning: A good life is a life which can gives positive contribution to the others
13. "Sura Dira Jayaningrat, Lebur Dening Pangastuti"
Meaning: Courage, power and influence can be beaten by peace / prosperous greetings
14. "Memayu Hayuning Bawana, Ambrasta dur Hangkara"
Meaning: all living human must fight for their safety, happiness and prosperity. They must also fight the anger and greed within themselves
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