When students are younger(primary three and four), many like to end compositions with the fact that their main characters are praised or scolded in the end. What other ways can we express the same feelings, without using those two words over and over again?
Well, we can say that elders commended the person for doing the right thing, or that parents / a parent (either father or mother) complimented the person for doing well. Another way is to say that he /she was given a pat on the back, or lauded for doing the right thing.
On the other hand, they could be berated for being mischievous (note the spelling of this word!), chided, castigated, rebuked, admonished or reprimanded. We could say that someone was given the cold shoulder or rebuffed too.
Why are there more words to scold than to praise? Beats me! It is just so 'world-ly' that we nit-pick than to praise others, isn't it so?
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Vocabulary - Restaurants
Let me attempt to do a little vocabulary work here. It is, no doubt, all there is to what I list; or what they say - the list is non-exhausive.
I was thinking of doing this over the weekend when I was buying food for my family and pondering if we could ever understand and write well on the stated topic, with the many terms already around. Do we understand them all?? I am not sure. We live, we learn. Oh yes, not forgetting that we eat too.
There are many types of restaurants. The familiar ones we have are our fast-food restaurants, hawker centres and coffee shops. The working class and younger generation will be able to associate with cafes and bistros better. To get a little reading on the types of restaurants, visit this page from Wikipedia.
We will discuss a few common types here. Fine-dining restaurants offer dedicated full-course meals (think appetizer, main-course, dessert). They are visually appealing - from decoration to cutlery and crockery - and aim to provide diners with good ambience. Even their waiters and waitresses are supposed to be specially dressed and trained. Some of these fine-dining restaurants have al fresco dining - an area that has tables and seats for customers to sit around the restaurant with enjoying their food.
Most of these restaurants offer a-la-carte orders. You can choose different dishes instead of the courses of meals offered. Some of these belong to a franchise - the brand name is established and separate individuals purchase rights to set up restaurants under that brand. For example, Kenny Rogers. Another example, crossing over to the fast food arena, are your McDonald's, KFC, Long John Silver, etc. Buffets are quite commonplace too. Diners pay a flat-amount and take all they can from the food lay out.
Hawker centres do not spring up as commonly these days. My impression of them is that they are beside wet-markets. They have many stalls lined up side-by-side, offering a variety of local delicacies. Prices of dishes sold there are definitely more affordable compared to fine-dining restaurants.
Then we have coffee shops. No, not coffee houses that offer coffee with perhaps one of two other types of light refreshments. I mean those that we find commonly in the vicinity of housing board estates. In one such shop, we have a handful of stalls offering a smaller variety of food choices.
Then we talk about the words to describe the food we eat. The food could be sweet, sugary, spicy, bitter, sour, salty, cheesy, tangy (having a pungent, fresh, or briny flavour or aroma), etc. I hope you do not get rotten or uncooked food.
The smell could be fresh, aromatic, sweet-scented or having a frangrance. It better not have an odour (American-spelling is odor) or some stench!
How can our food taste, overall? The meat can be succulent, juicy and tender. Good experiences will leave comments like tasty, delicious, scrumptious, delightful, appetising, delectable, palatable, mouth-watering. Informal words (can be used, but have to be restricted to dialogue or within quotes) are 'yummy' and 'heavenly'.
Try describing the food that you eat during your next meal. With a vast vocabulary on food and all, you might become a food critic or connoisseur in the field. Bon appetit (French: I wish you a hearty appetite)!
I was thinking of doing this over the weekend when I was buying food for my family and pondering if we could ever understand and write well on the stated topic, with the many terms already around. Do we understand them all?? I am not sure. We live, we learn. Oh yes, not forgetting that we eat too.
Most of these restaurants offer a-la-carte orders. You can choose different dishes instead of the courses of meals offered. Some of these belong to a franchise - the brand name is established and separate individuals purchase rights to set up restaurants under that brand. For example, Kenny Rogers. Another example, crossing over to the fast food arena, are your McDonald's, KFC, Long John Silver, etc. Buffets are quite commonplace too. Diners pay a flat-amount and take all they can from the food lay out.
Then we have coffee shops. No, not coffee houses that offer coffee with perhaps one of two other types of light refreshments. I mean those that we find commonly in the vicinity of housing board estates. In one such shop, we have a handful of stalls offering a smaller variety of food choices.
Then we talk about the words to describe the food we eat. The food could be sweet, sugary, spicy, bitter, sour, salty, cheesy, tangy (having a pungent, fresh, or briny flavour or aroma), etc. I hope you do not get rotten or uncooked food.
The smell could be fresh, aromatic, sweet-scented or having a frangrance. It better not have an odour (American-spelling is odor) or some stench!
How can our food taste, overall? The meat can be succulent, juicy and tender. Good experiences will leave comments like tasty, delicious, scrumptious, delightful, appetising, delectable, palatable, mouth-watering. Informal words (can be used, but have to be restricted to dialogue or within quotes) are 'yummy' and 'heavenly'.
Try describing the food that you eat during your next meal. With a vast vocabulary on food and all, you might become a food critic or connoisseur in the field. Bon appetit (French: I wish you a hearty appetite)!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Composition - The juicy inside
After writing an introduction, you need to, in your next few paragraphs, tell a good story. You need to make sure that the story makes sense. Many times, students will also mix up the presence of 'I' in the story and do not bother to reread the story through after writing it. If only they had read their own writing like reading someone else's story, they would have noticed some of their own errors!
How then, can we write a story that has a 'good' plot? Well, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. I can only use my own version of how I see work as a gauge.
'Safe' stories that are not well developed, but may just pass the mark. For the use of discussion, I have 'lifted' this picture from another website that discusses composition writing.
How would you plan for a story based on this picture? A 'safe' one that just makes it would write about two friends going to play at a park / near a lake or pond with their kite. The kite was blow and got tangled up with a tree's branches, and one of the boys climbed the tree to get it down.
A story that is a little better would write about a lesson learn at the end. One even better would write about how they got there, why they were there.
I suggest a few other point of views:
- Think out of the ordinary. Instead of the boys playing with the kite, they may happen to be there and notice a young child crying for a kite that got tangled on a tree. The boys then played 'hero' and tried to get it down for the child. Climax / Complication arise when the boy fell (normal) or tore the kite (did you expect that!).
- A prank. The child asked them to help get the kite down, but upon climbing the tree and getting to the kite, found sticky 'stuff' on the kite, plus many insects getting onto their bodies from the tree. It was a prank by their class 'joker', teaming up with his younger sibling. Or it may be a plot to get back at them for having ruined the 'joker''s plan in school.
- Have an unexpected 'twist'. Boys' teacher / parent appears on the scene, berating them for forgetting to attend a 'make-up' tuition class, and playing in the park instead.
- It was a staged effect for part of a show. The boys were going home after school / tuition together. Walking through the neighbourhood park, they noticed a 'fighter kite', one that they had always wanted, perched high up in a tree. Overcome by greed, they decided to get it and make it their own. It was during this that they realised that this was a set-up by 'Gotcha!' to see how Singaporeans may react to seeing an expensive kite on a tree.
See how I have come out with four possible plots out of the ordinary, just like that. You can too! Just think of the possible, and veer from it! Introduce one of two characters to help you twist the story! Be wary though. Introducing too many characters may also give you a problem that you are unable to concentrate on the story and fail to comprehend what you are writing. For that, you need a clear mind and a distinct personality for each of your characters!
How then, can we write a story that has a 'good' plot? Well, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. I can only use my own version of how I see work as a gauge.
'Safe' stories that are not well developed, but may just pass the mark. For the use of discussion, I have 'lifted' this picture from another website that discusses composition writing.
How would you plan for a story based on this picture? A 'safe' one that just makes it would write about two friends going to play at a park / near a lake or pond with their kite. The kite was blow and got tangled up with a tree's branches, and one of the boys climbed the tree to get it down.
A story that is a little better would write about a lesson learn at the end. One even better would write about how they got there, why they were there.
I suggest a few other point of views:
- Think out of the ordinary. Instead of the boys playing with the kite, they may happen to be there and notice a young child crying for a kite that got tangled on a tree. The boys then played 'hero' and tried to get it down for the child. Climax / Complication arise when the boy fell (normal) or tore the kite (did you expect that!).
- A prank. The child asked them to help get the kite down, but upon climbing the tree and getting to the kite, found sticky 'stuff' on the kite, plus many insects getting onto their bodies from the tree. It was a prank by their class 'joker', teaming up with his younger sibling. Or it may be a plot to get back at them for having ruined the 'joker''s plan in school.
- Have an unexpected 'twist'. Boys' teacher / parent appears on the scene, berating them for forgetting to attend a 'make-up' tuition class, and playing in the park instead.
- It was a staged effect for part of a show. The boys were going home after school / tuition together. Walking through the neighbourhood park, they noticed a 'fighter kite', one that they had always wanted, perched high up in a tree. Overcome by greed, they decided to get it and make it their own. It was during this that they realised that this was a set-up by 'Gotcha!' to see how Singaporeans may react to seeing an expensive kite on a tree.
See how I have come out with four possible plots out of the ordinary, just like that. You can too! Just think of the possible, and veer from it! Introduce one of two characters to help you twist the story! Be wary though. Introducing too many characters may also give you a problem that you are unable to concentrate on the story and fail to comprehend what you are writing. For that, you need a clear mind and a distinct personality for each of your characters!
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