God Keep Our Land

As crazy things happen around the world this week--riots, lynchings, assassinations, etc.--it's a blessing that we in Canada have not been affected by the violence instigated in the name of religion or politics.
But this freedom comes at a price, that of our men and women in the Canadian Forces protecting our values and our liberties half a world away.

This post salutes the good work they're doing and wishes them every success in keeping our enemies at bay.

Trrrrrrrrrrrrue Norrrrrrrrth Strrrrrrong n Frrrrrrreee

How about this for a venue to sing our national anthem, eh?



If you'd like to comment on these young hearts standing "on guard for thee," click on the link below.

Don't Play Around with Plagiarism

In some countries, claiming ideas and words from others as your own on academic papers and publications is considered a common, acceptable, or even smart thing to do. Students would cut and paste paragraphs from Wikipedia, "borrow" outlines or phrases from sources, or share their notes with one another--all this without acknowledging where they got it from--just to get a better mark, which they sometimes do.

What seems a clever way to academic and career success is viewed in North American culture as plagiarism (say PLAY-jer-Riz-zem), a form of stealing or cheating. This wasn't always the case. One very American religion is based on a blatant work of plagiarism. Their 19th-century holy book consists of wholesale copying from an old translation of the Bible dated 200 years before, but followers of that religion are told their holy book was given by an angel and translated by their final prophet by looking at stones placed in his hat.

A side-by-side comparison between the Book of Mormon (1830) and the King James Bible (1611)

Harvard Professor Platt

More recently, Harvard professor Matthew B. Platt caught a number of his students cheating in this way. Instead of typing the number 22,500 without any space after the comma, those students all typed 22, 500 instead--with a space after the comma. 22, 500 vs. 22,500! Good catch! Obviously, mistakes like this are likely to occur and multiply when people simply cut and paste text rather than type out the number.

But there were other clues as well, just like what happens after any burglary.

So what's the result?

The Daily Mail's headline screams, "Harvard cheating scandal which could see over 100 students thrown out." Uh oh.

Interestingly, the Harvard course where this all happened was Introduction to Congress. One wonders how many former students in that course got away with their cheating and are now "successful" members of the American Congress.

As bloggers and ESL learners, let's not plagiarize. We can put quotations in quotation marks and indicate where we got the quotes from. Then it will be clear which words and thoughts are ours and which are borrowed. And we'll be safe!

Do You Play English?

A.J. Hoge (above) says that he can teach you his "Effortless English System."

His focus is on spoken language. In his newsletter, he says:

Play English with
other people. English is a way of
communicating. You need two
people for that at least. So play
with others, conversation
partners, other learners, friends,
people on the Internet with
Skype. It doesn’t matter. They
can be native speakers from the
United States or they could be
other people learning in different
countries, just play with English.
Have fun with it. Enjoy it. Play
with it every day, listening,
listening, listening and, also,
just talking and playing and
conversing with other people,
communicating with other
people. Find other English
players. So play English
and have fun.

Do you agree? Write your Comments below.

"Is that woman speaking English?" - Danny777

Watch this video and see if this person was speaking in English:


If you have a question about it, so do two of the comment writers at the website.

According to the reader:

Firebody, too, is debedet to eraser lives of the disabled persons. It consists of an active EPSL hessette, A. Ahjone at a computer. The computer can receive the EEG singles via Bluetooth and convert them to specific mosques to control Ahjone's silver fye barrio tem fook gram.
We can single left to heart to take off to land, left lay to flank cocklewise, single red to flag forward, single pull to flare up, flanch to flag down and blink, to take pictures.
Firebody, too, can be a good assistant, with Firebody two's abity to navgate in seedy's space. The disabled persons can sink to play boxing game, can seem to take pictures, and sink to sea.

Write your suggestions on how to improve one's pronunciation skill under Comments below.