Posts tagged English

Dear Mentee || What you should know about the word think-tank

Dear Mentee Educative 4 Comments

…and other English words.

So I have this leading to start a segment where I write what’s desperately on my heart. Obviously, that’s what the entire blog is for, but this is different. On the blog, I’m addressing myself, addressing my future children and grandchildren, addressing you and your uncles and neighbours. This segment though is addressing my mentees or proteges, if you’ll like. The things that I desperately want to pass on to the younger ones (not only age wise) that’s what I’ll write here. They are some of the life tips I’ll tell my younger ones who come to sit beside me at night and say “advise me. Tutor me”. Its a broad range of advice too.

This post has nothing major to do with the word think-tank, but it has everything to do with my attitude to the word.
I was reading someone’s profile on LinkedIn just now and I saw a reference made to a think-tank that she set up. I would’ve skipped over it since I had the basic understanding that it meant an initiative – an intellectual initiative. But I didn’t skip over it. I barely ever do. Words that I manage to question a bit in my head, I head over to my phone’s dictionary and do a crosscheck. I strongly believe this is a proper attitude to learning.

Make a habit of this and you’ll become so familiar with the words you already know including their context. What’s more? You’ll also become perceptive of the meaning of mere expressions of words you’ve never even heard of.
You’re welcome.

By the way, Think-Tank:

“(idiomatic) A group of people who collectively perform research and develop reports and recommendations on topics relating to strategic planning or public policy, and which is usually funded by corporate, government, or special interests.”

Notice how I largely fell short of the meaning earlier and the disadvantage of brushing over it.
Okay, Mentee, that’ll be it for today.

P.s: If you have recommendations of some great dictionaries for android, please let me know.

Till next time,
Debby.

BOOK REVIEW– The remains of the day.

Book Reviews 8 Comments

Hello-o.
I’ve had quite some people just glance through the blog and later ask me about reviews. Here is the link to all book reviews on the blog. Read and share. ??
Title: The remains of the day.
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Pages: 168(e-book)
First Publisher/publication date: Faber and Faber limited London/ 1989
Blurb
In the summer of 1956, an ageing butler has embarked on a six-day motoring trip through the West Country. But his holiday is disturbed by the memories of his past service to late lord Darlington, and most of all by the painful recollections of his friendship with the housekeeper, Miss Kenton. For the first time in his life, Stevens is forced to wonder if all his actions were for the best after all. A sad and humorous love story, and a witty meditation on the democratic responsibilities of the ordinary man.
Review
Do you even know why I wanted to read this book? Kazuo Ishiguro won the 2017 Nobel prize for literature and that was the first time I was hearing of his name. He however appeared popular with other readers, I needed to get to the bottom of the matter. I developed the desire to read one of his books. And so when I got this one, you know it, it was a dream come true.
The remains of the day is a telling of a butler’s perspective. Yes, butler as in 1937, big fancy houses in England.
The main character, Stevens, is in his later years having worked all his life trying to be a great butler and learning valuable life lessons in the process.
His character flaw in spite of his many virtues is revealed in his inability to admit his feelings, even to himself.
We also given some great insight into lord Darlington’s life and the events rounding up the Second World War; And the delightful miss Kenton.
What I admire in Stevens is, he tries to adapt as the need arises along the line, in his professional tasks; just as he did on the issue of learning how to banter with his new American boss, Mr Farraday.
I suspect one reason why I favour this book is because it preaches, on a broad platform, good character. I mean can you fully be English and live in 1934, without having learnt the finesse of being a lady or a gentleman?
There’s core focus on humility. There’s also highlighting the beauty of integrity in each person’s work and how it upholds the system in the long run. I think this is a good read when you want something quite light yet not searching for something that would crack you up every five seconds.
I joyfully rate it 4 out of 5 stars.
It’s a win for this book that it hooked me and made me think I may have had a part in organizing banquets for important figures!
Excerpts

‘’ it is quite possible then, that my employer fully expects me to respond to his bantering in a like manner, and considers my failure to do so a form of negligence. This is, as I say, a matter which has given me much concern. But I must say this business of bantering is not a duty I feel I can ever discharge with enthusiasm. It is all very well, in these changing times, to adapt one’s work to take in duties not traditionally within ones realm; but bantering is of another dimension altogether. For one thing, how would one know for sure that at any given moment, a response of the bantering sort is truly what is expected? One need hardly dwell on the catastrophic possibility of uttering a bantering remark only to discover it wholly inappropriate.’’

Stevens is such a prim and proper English man that American jokes elude him inspite of his best efforts.

‘’we call this land of ours – great Britain,… just where and in what does it lie?…but if I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness and feels no need to shout it. In comparison, the sorts of sight offered in such places as Africa and America, though undoubtedly very exciting, would, I am sure, strike the objective viewer as inferior on account of their unseemly demonstrativeness’’

?? hard to deal with this guy.

‘’The purpose: for we were, as I say, an idealistic generation for whom the question was not simply one of how well one practices one’s skills, but to what end one did so; each of us harboured the desire to make our own small contributions to the creation of a better world, and saw that as professionals, the surest means of doing so would be to serve the great gentlemen of our times in whose hands civilization had been entrusted.’’

(If you want this book, I can e-mail it to you on the condition that when you’re through, you give your thoughts on here. Ey? And don’t be scared into thinking it’s some boring English book, its not.)
I hope you’re subscribed to the blog by email. If you’re not, please do so.
?
Yours faithfully,
Debby.