Review Packet #13



Review Packet #6Name: ____________________Part I: Regents Prep51015202530354045 Sure, you know their names, possibly better than you know the name of the street youlive on—almost every writer does. When the need comes, these names drip lightly andquickly off our tongues like they were our own brothers. I am thinking about the famedeponymous1 duo Webster’s Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. But I dare say, almost none of us can identify the actual person or conjure up anythingabout him. Don’t report me, but neither did I until I started to write this column.Webster’s Dictionary. Many people can respond immediately: Noah Webster. We areaware that he is the father of the dictionary. But who was he? What did he do for a living?When did he live? Noah was born in 1758, graduated from Yale University in 1778, and subsequentlygraduated from law school. He produced the first American dictionary in 1806 andpublished his sentinel work An American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. Hisinterests led him to be a lexicographer,2 textbook editor, author, Bible translator and spellingreformer. He campaigned for years to secure nationwide copyright privileges for authors,and he succeeded in 1790. His ubiquitous3 mind produced extensive writings in epidemicdiseases, mythology, meteors, and the relationship of European and Asian languages. Inaddition, he founded the first New York daily newspaper. He died in 1843. Another dictionary eponym almost as well-known is Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Sowe have to ask, “Where did Merriam come from? What relationship does Merriam have toWebster?” George and Charles Merriam purchased the right to revise Webster’s dictionary afterhis death in 1843. They produced several revised and expanded editions, and the“Collegiate” series was begun in 1898. The C. and G. Merriam Company eventually lost itsexclusive right to the Webster name and in 1983, the company name changed to Merriam-Webster, Inc. with the publication of Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. TheC. and G. Merriam Company has been owned by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. since 1964. That brings us to… Roget’s Thesaurus. And it gives us the chance to learn about Roget, the man—Peter Mark Roget. Who? What? When? Englishman Peter Roget, MD, was born in 1779. He studied medicine and mathematicsat the University of Edinburgh, entering at age 14 and graduating at age 19. He isacclaimed as the creator of the first-ever thesaurus, a compilation of words and phrasesaccording to meaning rather than alphabetic order. It has been called one of the 3 mostimportant books ever printed, along with the Bible and Webster’s dictionary. He began his monumental work Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases in 1805 butdid not release it publicly until 1852 — 47 years later. Meanwhile, he was earning a deservedreputation as a distinguished physician and anatomist. In his lifetime, he became a noted lecturer and writer on anatomy, sewer sanitation,magnetism, bees, geology, and more. He wrote a landmark paper, “Persistence of Visionwith Regard to Moving Objects,” which stirred much research and dispute in the scientificand optics community. When Roget died in 1869 at age 90, his son, John, took over the Thesaurus and hegradually expanded it. [Physician and writer—what an interesting combination!] So now you know these men—the “-nyms”4 in the eponyms. Not enough information?As James Thurber suggested in the title of his 1941 book about baseball, You Could LookIt Up!—Arnold Melnick, DO“But Do You Know Who They Were?”from AMWA Journal, 20071eponymous — being the person for whom something is named2lexicographer — author of a dictionary3ubiquitous — being everywhere at the same time4“-nyms” — namesDirections: Select the best suggested answer to each question. The opening paragraph creates a tone of(1) authority (3) familiarity(2) sympathy (4) ironyThe author states that “these names drip lightly …off our tongues” (lines 2 and 3) in order to suggest that most people(1) will recognize them(2) have misquoted them(3) will respect them(4) have ignored themPhrases such as “When the need comes” (line 2),“Another dictionary eponym” (line 18), and“That brings us to…” (line 27) serve to(1) introduce theories(2) define vocabulary(3) indicate flashbacks(4) provide transition The use of the dash in “until 1852—47 years later” (line 36) emphasizes Roget’s(1) growing disinterest(2) personal dedication(3) poor scholarship(4) excellent reputationAccording to the passage, Noah Webster and Peter Roget are alike because they both(1) were physicians(2) became professors(3) had multiple interests(4) established a charityThe purpose of the final paragraph is to(1) caution future readers(2) encourage further research(3) restate accepted assumptions(4) provide background informationPart II: Author’s StyleFrame Story-a frame story is story within a story that consists of an outer frame and an inner frame.Task: Find one example of a frame story. You may choose a television show, book, or movie. Next complete the two frames (inner and outer) by describing the setting of the outer frame and inner frame of the story.Example: Story: Homer’s Odyssey2886075142240004448175266065Odysseus was just washed on the shore of Phaeacia, and he is explaining his past ten years to King Alcinous and the Phaeacians. They are sitting around a fire listening to Odysseus’s tale. 00Odysseus was just washed on the shore of Phaeacia, and he is explaining his past ten years to King Alcinous and the Phaeacians. They are sitting around a fire listening to Odysseus’s tale. 1381125284480Inner FrameIt starts with ten years ago while Odysseus is on his way home from the Trojan War. The events lead all the way up to the present. 00Inner FrameIt starts with ten years ago while Odysseus is on his way home from the Trojan War. The events lead all the way up to the present. 8381998890Outer Frame00Outer Frame Outer Frame265747549529900right38100000685800315595Outer Frame00Outer FrameFrame Story #_______________ Outer Frame99060025400Inner Frame00Inner FramePart III: SAT Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence,?best?fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.?Mr. Warmington considered himself a connoisseur of fine wines, claiming he could?-------variations in taste and quality among any range of vintages he was served.purveydiscerneffacemollifydebateProfessor Chen believes that the universal character of art refutes the prevailing notion that art is a?-------?of civilization, a cultural frill, a social veneer.guaranteehallmarkrecordluxurydepictionDahntay’s?-------?over winning the prestigious prize was?-------?only by the fact that his father was unable to attend the ceremony.incredulity . . misconstruedebullience . . temperedbashfulness . . extendedsatisfaction . . confirmedrelief . . conveyedPart IV: Nonfiction ArticleJ. D. Salinger, Literary Recluse, Dies at 91 January 29, 2010By CHARLES McGRATH J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died on Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91. Mr. Salinger’s literary representative, Harold Ober Associates, announced the death, saying it was of natural causes. “Despite having broken his hip in May,” the agency said, “his health had been excellent until a rather sudden decline after the new year. He was not in any pain before or at the time of his death.” “Catcher” was published in 1951, and its very first sentence, distantly echoing Mark Twain, struck a brash new note in American literature: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” 421005068453000 Though not everyone, teachers and librarians especially, was sure what to make of it, “Catcher” became an almost immediate best seller, and its narrator and main character, Holden Caulfield, a teenager newly expelled from prep school, became America’s best-known literary truant since Huckleberry Finn. With its cynical, slangy vernacular voice (Holden’s two favorite expressions are “phony” and “goddam”), its sympathetic understanding of adolescence and its fierce if alienated sense of morality and distrust of the adult world, the novel struck a nerve in cold war America and quickly attained cult status, especially among the young. Reading “Catcher” used to be an essential rite of passage, almost as important as getting your learner’s permit. 411480092519500 The novel’s allure persists to this day, even if some of Holden’s preoccupations now seem a bit dated, and it continues to sell more than 250,000 copies a year in paperback. Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon in 1980, even said the explanation for his act could be found in the pages of “The Catcher in the Rye.” In 1974 Philip Roth wrote, “The response of college students to the work of J. D. Salinger indicates that he, more than anyone else, has not turned his back on the times but, instead, has managed to put his finger on whatever struggle of significance is going on today between self and culture.” As a young man Mr. Salinger yearned ardently for just this kind of attention. He bragged in college about his literary talent and ambitions, and wrote swaggering letters to Whit Burnett, the editor of Story magazine. But success, once it arrived, paled quickly for him. He told the editors of Saturday Review that he was “good and sick” of seeing his photograph on the dust jacket of “The Catcher in the Rye” and demanded that it be removed from subsequent editions. He ordered his agent to burn any fan mail. In 1953 Mr. Salinger, who had been living on East 57th Street in Manhattan, fled the literary world altogether and moved to a 90-acre compound on a wooded hillside in Cornish. He seemed to be fulfilling Holden’s desire to build himself “a little cabin somewhere with the dough I made and live there for the rest of my life,” away from “any goddam stupid conversation with anybody.” In the fall of 1953 he befriended some local teenagers and allowed one of them to interview him for what he assumed would be an article on the high school page of a local paper, The Claremont Daily Eagle. The article appeared instead as a feature on the editorial page, and Mr. Salinger felt so betrayed that he broke off with the teenagers and built a six-and-a-half-foot fence around his property. 391477580518000 He seldom spoke to the press again, except in 1974 when, trying to fend off the unauthorized publication of his uncollected stories, he told a reporter from The Times: “There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It’s peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.” And yet the more he sought privacy, the more famous he became, especially after his appearance on the cover of Time in 1961. For years it was a sort of journalistic sport for newspapers and magazines to send reporters to New Hampshire in hopes of a sighting. As a young man Mr. Salinger had a long, melancholy face and deep soulful eyes, but now, in the few photographs that surfaced, he looked gaunt and gray, like someone in an El Greco painting. He spent more time and energy avoiding the world, it was sometimes said, than most people do in embracing it, and his elusiveness only added to the mythology growing up around him. 228600085534500326707597345500 But was he writing? The question obsessed Salingerologists, and in the absence of real evidence, theories multiplied. He hadn’t written a word for years. Or, like the character in the Stanley Kubrick film “The Shining,” he wrote the same sentence over and over again. Or like Gogol at the end of his life, he wrote prolifically but then burned it all. Define prolifically.Based on the first paragraph what is your impression of Salinger? Underline the words that influenced your thoughts. Describe the novel?What does Philip Roth mean?What is so ironic about Salinger’s success?Why would this be true?Define elusiveness.What rumors does predict about what Salinger could have been doing? ................
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