Archive: Arts & Entertainment

SMART TALK SMART TALK

by Dr. Thorn Schwa

FALSE PRETENSES: At the Center for English as a First Language, we love to use this redundancy to annoy each other at staff meetings or while joking around in the Fowler Lounge. It never fails to annoy, because we've heard it from patients until we want to throw things.

Imagine our self control when we remain calm and polite while in session instead of screaming, "It's a pretense! Hello? Isn't something you pretend by definition something false? Can you possibly have a true pretense?"

And where did the preposition come from? Under false pretenses? Why not in or on? And why the plural? How many pretenses can you have, for goodness sake? Try saying, for instance, "Senator Blowhard's argument was a pretense," or "His coming to me with that deal was a pretense." Or - brace yourself - you could say, "He wasn't being honest."

Look at that. The language is simpler. It's clearer. Simpler and clearer is always better. For proof of this maxim, see the opposite of simple and clear in most scholarly quarterlies, where the object is less sharing knowledge than obfuscation, the better to befuddle one's colleagues.

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The CFCU Community Credit Union and The Gateway Commons State Series will present Ladysmith Black Mambazo Live at the State Theatre of Ithaca, Thursday, January 30th at 7:30pm.

In a career that spans over 50 years, South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo has garnered multiple GRAMMY® awards, nominations and critical acclaim, and continues to sell out concerts in prestigious venues worldwide. Reviewing a recent performance at Carnegie Hall, Jon Pareles of The New York Times noted a distinctly Zulu quality of the group’s songs when he described them as 'music that had survived sorrows to find benedictions in the aftermath.'

Aurora, New York—The Wells College visual arts department presents its annual exhibition of student work, a wide-ranging collection of pieces produced by students enrolled in Wells’ studio and book arts classes during the fall 2013 semester. The annual student art exhibition will be on display in Wells College’s String Room Gallery from January 29 to March 5, with an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, January 29 providing an opportunity to enjoy refreshments and meet the student artists. Admission is free.

SMART TALK SMART TALK

by Dr. Dot Pilcrow


POURED OVER: Here at the Center for English as a First Language, we're very interested in errors caused by poor listening, poor pronunciation, or regional dialect. Notice that word poor, for instance. The double O is pronounced like the double O in hoot. Its homonym, pour, sounds exactly the same. That's why it's a homonym.

However, we've found well meaning people say both words as if they were pore, as in "pore me a glass of milk" or "give to the pore."

Hence this week's subject. The same well meaning citizens hear that the lawyers pored over a document and think it's the same word they mispronounce when they put milk into a glass. No, it's not pour, it's pore, which, unlike poor and pour, rhymes with door.

This confusion has bedeviled us for centuries, and we can blame the English. The people, that is. To some Brits, Iago was a More, not a Moor. Some pronounced the name Moore as if it were spelled More, and before spelling became more or less as settled as it is, the name was often written both ways in the document those lawyers were poring over.

Regional accents actually changed people's names. At Ellis Island, an English immigrant named White might pronounce it Hoyt. Thus it was written down, and thus it became the family name.

You can find similar connections by poring over the records.

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The Cat in the Hat is back, more fun and mischievous than ever, in Running to Places’ production of “Seussical,” January 10 and 11 at the State Theatre of Ithaca.

The musical brings the beloved characters of Dr. Seuss to vivid life. The Cat in the Hat (Erin Hilgartner) is host and MC to a colorful cast that includes Gertrude McFuzz (Keara Byron), Mayzie (Allie Young), the Grinch (Gilday Ryan), Yertle the Turtle (Caitlin Mallory) and Sour Kangaroo (Jewell Payne). The plot centers on Horton the Elephant (Noah Elman), who is valiantly trying to protect his tiny friend JoJo (Imri Leshed) and the other diminutive denizons of Who-ville on their endangered speck of dust.

The Hangar Theatre will produce four plays for its 40th Anniversary mainstage season that offer audiences a spectrum of experiences representing the best of live theatre.

"This milestone season features two of the most celebrated plays of the last five years, one of the most beloved musicals of all time, and a treasured classic tale," says Artistic Director, Jen Waldman. "These are some of my all-time favorites - the kinds of plays that remind you why you love theatre - and I can't wait to share them with our audience."

The Gallery@FOUND will feature folk art painter Bonnie Bell for the month of January. Her new show, Frozen in Time will hang in the Gallery from Wednesday, January 8th through Sunday, February 2nd.

Bell graduated with a BS in Art Education from Mansfield University in 1972 and has been a full-time working artist ever since.

SMART TALK SMART TALK

by Dr. Garrel S. Utter

WHOLE LOT: “I love you a whole lot” sounds cute to some people. However, at the Center for English as a First Language, it’s a symptom of Redundancy Syndrome, which is as common as cold viruses and as difficult to control.

How much is a lot, anyway? Can you tell when it’s a whole lot any better that when it’s a half a lot?

My dad was a dairy farmer — Surely you’ve heard of Utter Udders — and he used to quiz us kids to sharpen our critical thinking. “Whole slew of ‘em?” he’d ask with an eyebrow up. “So how many are in half a slew?” His most devastating criticism of an acquaintance was to day “He’s farming with half a herd,” which didn’t and couldn’t describe the number of cows he milked; it meant that the man had a poor grasp on management and optimizing resources.

He also might send us to get half a piece of string. We soon learned to listen to what came out of our mouths and others’, and to think critically about our language.  I’m not the only offspring to go on to study linguistics, and I thank my dad’s thoughtful influence for my being a therapist here at the Center today.

A lot, a pile, and a slew describe an indefinite large amount. To modify those words with whole, huge, and the like is truly gilding the lily.

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Tompkins County Public Library will celebrate the opening of two new art exhibits during Downtown Ithaca’s Gallery Night January 3.

Created by sixth grade students from Boynton and DeWitt Middle Schools, these fascinating exhibits feature repurposed books and redesigned book covers.

SMART TALK SMART TALK

By Dr. Will S. Sert

THAT and WHICH:  At the Center for English as a First Language, we teach the difference between that and which as an advanced series of sessions.  We usually use Strunk Hall, which houses our auditorium, because this is a point of grammar that schools seem unable to instill.

To the assembled multitude, we first offer a mnemonic device: "No naked whiches."  That is, they must have clothes, meaning, in this case, commas.  Any series of words starting with "which" must have a comma before "which" and a comma or end punctuation after it.  See the example in the first paragraph.   

If you don't pause as if you're thinking of parentheses around the words, then don't insert commas, and use "that."  Again, see the example in the first paragraph.

In technical language, "which" begins an independent clause, requiring the extra punctuation, and "that" begins a dependent clause, but you don't need to know that.

Logical thinking may help, because your choice of "that" or "which" can change the meaning of what you say.  "I saw five cars that were rusty go by" means you watched some traffic, and five of the cars were rusty.
"I saw five cars, which were rusty, go by" means that you saw exactly five cars go by, all of them rusty.  See?  It makes a difference.

Ironically, the English are particularly weak at keeping this straight and tend to use "which" nakedly to an embarrassing degree.  I feel bad for them.

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Tully Council for the Arts presents its ninth annual Messiah Sing Along on Sunday, December 22, 2013 at 6:30 PM in the Tully High School Auditorium.

The evening will feature chorus and orchestra performing the beginning section of Handel’s oratorio, commonly known as the Christmas Canon, with the well-known 'Hallelujah Chorus' as the finale.

The Council invites the public to come and sing: copies of the choral numbers will be available to people who don’t have their own score. People are welcome to just come and listen; a big audience is always appreciated for this event!

Nothing says Christmas like Scrooge’s transformation from greedy miser to gift-giving hero, and this holiday classic comes to glorious life in Running to Places Theater Company’s (R2P) musical production December 21-22 at the State Theatre of Ithaca.

The play tells the familiar story of tight-fisted Ebenezer Scrooge who, after being visited by a series of ghosts in the night, opens his heart just in time for Christmas morning. R2P’s emotional production leaves no doubt that even the worst of us can find—and deserve--redemption.