English Chess Forum

We certainly helped China to develop. That's gone well.

Thanks.
What does it mean that:
Representations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America as Third World and underdeveloped are the heirs of an illustrious genealogy of Western conceptions about those parts of the world.

I think it's something like this:

The people of Western Europe and other places with similar modes of thought (such as the USA) have historically had a particular way of thinking about Asia, Africa and Latin America; that way of thinking has led naturally to the current conception of those regions as Third World and underdeveloped.

("Third World", incidentally, is an orphaned etymology - it originally arose as a classification of those countries that were aligned with neither the USA nor the USSR during the Cold War, but because most of those countries were poor and/or underdeveloped, it quickly took on an alternate meaning. That meaning has survived the end of the Cold War.)

Thanks

What does 'And it is' mean in:
Iceland feels like a mystical land of stunning beauty. And it is. Yet for one lifelong chess player, it was here where Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in now-legendary 1972 World Chess Championships.

What does 'And it is' mean in:
Iceland feels like a mystical land of stunning beauty. And it is...

It is a conjunction that serves to connect the two sentences. The second sentence confirms that "Iceland is a land of stunning beauty".

NB: There was a time when school teachers of English in the UK told their pupils not to begin a sentence with a conjunction, but that rule was not followed by writers of English literature.

John McKenna wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 6:32 pm

What does 'And it is' mean in:
Iceland feels like a mystical land of stunning beauty. And it is...

It is a conjunction that serves to connect the two sentences. The second sentence confirms that "Iceland is a land of stunning beauty".

NB: There was a time when school teachers of English in the UK told their pupils not to begin a sentence with a conjunction, but that rule was not followed by writers of English literature.

According to David Crystal the principle reason why starting sentences with a conjunction because distasteful was playground banter became a great annoyance. Dropping conjunctions at the start of sentences was one of many minor changes. Crystal claims teachers invoked that change for the wrong reason.

John McKenna wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 6:32 pm

There was a time when school teachers of English in the UK told their pupils not to begin a sentence with a conjunction, but that rule was not followed by writers of English literature.

Nor by the translators who produced the King James Bible.

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:50 pm

According to David Crystal the principle reason why starting sentences with a conjunction because distasteful was playground banter became a great annoyance. Dropping conjunctions at the start of sentences was one of many minor changes. Crystal claims teachers invoked that change for the wrong reason.

Looks like you got auto-corrected, MJMcC ("because" ought to be "became", yes?). Even with that emendation, though, I can' t make any sense of Mr (Dr?) Crystal's reported assertion. Just what did playground banter have to do with it?

John Clarke wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 10:42 am

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:50 pm

According to David Crystal the principle reason why starting sentences with a conjunction because distasteful was playground banter became a great annoyance. Dropping conjunctions at the start of sentences was one of many minor changes. Crystal claims teachers invoked that change for the wrong reason.

Looks like you got auto-corrected, MJMcC ("because" ought to be "became", yes?). Even with that emendation, though, I can' t make any sense of Mr (Dr?) Crystal's reported assertion. Just what did playground banter have to do with it?

MJMcC's witty repartee is known for exeggeration and embellishment...

... in The Story of English in 100 Words David Crystal points out:
“During the 19th century, some schoolteachers took against the practice of beginning a sentence with a word like “but” or “and”, presumably because they noticed the way young children overused them in their writing...”

https://www.onpointcopywriting.co.uk/an ... njunction/

I remember the same instruction being given to me in the second half of the 20th c.

Don't we all...

What's the difference between chaperone and accompany in hospital settings, if both are used?

How do we categorize countries in terms of development?
Is developing the same as underdeveloped?

soheil_hooshdaran wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 19, 2021 7:18 pm

What's the difference between chaperone and accompany in hospital settings, if both are used?

Chaperone is quite an old-fashioned word now. It usually implies that the 'chaperone' has a duty to protect a person from being treated improperly and also to provide evidence that nothing improper has happened. So, for example, if a male doctor needs to make an intimate physical examination of a female patient a female nurse might be asked to be present both to ensure that the female patient is treated properly and also to protect the doctor if an unfair allegation against him is made later. Originally unmarried women would often be chaperoned when meeting unmarried men to ensure there was no sexual interference.

soheil_hooshdaran wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:44 am

How do we categorize countries in terms of development?
Is developing the same as underdeveloped?

It is the United Nations Human Human Development Index (HDI) that is commonly used to measure countries in terms of development. This includes economic factors such as Gross National Income per capita, but also includes factors related to education and the opportunity to live a long and healthy life (see hdr.undp.org).

Some sources say that "developing" and "underdeveloped" are synonyms, but other sources treat "underdeveloped" as the countries ranked the very lowest in terms of the HDI, with "developing" countries in the next category up.