Monday, September 8, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
4. Will Power
An old man lived alone in Minnesota. He wanted to spade his potato garden, but it was very hard work.
His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation.
Dear Son, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year.
I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot.If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me, if you weren't in prison.
Love, Dad
.........
Shortly, the old man received this telegram:
"For Heaven's sake, Dad,don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!" At 4a.m.
The next morning,
A dozen FBI agents and local police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns.
Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened, and a sked him what to do next.
His son's reply was: "Go ahead and plant your potatoes, Dad. It's the best I could do for you from here."
********
- Moral Of the Story
NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE IN THE WORLD,
IF YOU HAVE DECIDED TO DO SOMETHING DEEP FROM YOUR HEART, YOU CAN DO IT.
IT IS THE THOUGHT THAT MATTERS NOT WHERE YOU ARE OR WHERE THE PERSON IS.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
1. Indians better than British in English usage
London: Indians must be proud as academics say that the students from India who are studying in British universities possess high potential in using English language perfectly. While many British students usually come up with wrong usage of spelling, punctuation and grammar, Indian students are often showing high standards in the basic English grammar and other usages.
An Indian-origin university lecturer said that British students even in their second year of degree course, use atrocious English in their assignments. He said that he often found it challenging to figure out what students wanted to express in English. "International students, in contrast, had better English language skill," he added.
According to the academics, most common mistakes are in spelling, student often use 'their' when they mean 'there', 'who's' for 'whose', 'truely' for 'truly', 'occured' for 'occurred' and 'speach' for 'speech'.
Ken Smith, a senior lecturer in criminology at Bucks New University, said that many students failed to apply basic rules, such as 'i' before 'e', except after 'c'. The words 'weird', 'seize', 'leisure' and 'neighbor' are regularly misspelt by students. "Mistakes are now so common that academics should simply accept them as 'variants,"' he told.
Bernard Lamb, a Reader in genetics at Imperial College London told that many British students appear to have been through school without mastering basic rules of grammar and punctuation, or having their errors corrected.
As students find it difficult to use English properly, some universities have extended the course by a year to give extra tuition to weaker students.
"All the data suggests that there are more and more students at university level whose spelling is not up to scratch. Universities are even finding they have masters-level students who cannot spell," told Jack Bovill, Chairman of The Spelling Society.
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