REvolting Rhymes -Roald Dahl

LRRH and the Wolf

The spectacular Roald Dahl  shares one of his shorter nursery rhymes. 

For those of you who haven't heard of Revolting Rhymes, its basically Dahl's take on classic fairy tales. For example, Snow White is a gambler, Goldilocks is a thief and Little Red Riding Hood is a hunter. 

My favourite :

 YOUtube story about Red Riding Hood.

outset

As soon as the wolf began to feel
That he would like a decent meal
He went and 1-………………. on Grandma's door
When Grandma opened it, she saw
The 2-……………….  white teeth, the horrid grin
And Wolfie said, "May I come in?"
Poor Grandma was terrified,
"He's going to eat me up," she cried.
And she was absolutely right.
He ate her up in one big 3-……………….
But Grandma was small and 4-……………….
And Wolfie wailed, "That's not enough!
"I haven't yet begun to feel
"That I have had a decent meal!"
He ran around the kitchen yelping,
"I've got to have another 5-……………….!"
Then added with a 6-………………. leer,
"I'm therefore going to wait right here
"Till Little Miss Red Riding Hood
"Comes home from walking in the wood"
He quickly put on Grandma's clothes.
(He hadn't eaten those.)
He dressed himself in coat and hat.
He put on shoes and after that
He even brushed and 7-………………. his hair,
Then sat himself in Grandma's chair. 

body

In came the little girl in red.
She stopped. She 1-……………….. And then she said,
"What great big ears you have, Grandma."
"All the better to hear you with" the Wolf replied.
"What great big eyes you have, Grandma"
said Little Red Riding Hood.
"All the better to see you 2-………………. " the Wolf replied.
He sat there watching her and smiled.
He thought, I'm going to eat this child.
Compared to her old Grandmamma
She's going to taste like 3-……………….
Then Little Red Riding Hood said, "But Grandma,
what a lovely great big 4-………………. coat you have on."
"That's wrong!" cried Wolf. "Have you forgot
"To tell me what BIG TEETH I've got?"
"Ah well, no matter what you say,
"I'm going to eat you anyway."

epilogue
The small girl smiles. One 1-………………. 2-……………….
She 3-………………. a pistol from her 4-……………….
She aims it at the 5-………………. head
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.
A few weeks, later in the wood
I came across Miss Riding Hood.
But what a change! No 6-………………. of red,
No silly hood upon her head.
She said, "Hello, and do please note
"My lovely furry  7-………………. 8-………………."

TEXT__________As soon as the wolf began to feelThat he would like a decent mealHe went and knocked on Grandma's door.When Grandma opened it, she sawThe sharp white teeth, the horrid grinAnd Wolfie said, "May I come in?"Poor Grandma was terrified,"He's going to eat me up," she cried.And she was absolutely right.He ate her up in one big bite.But Grandma was small and toughAnd Wolfie wailed, "That's not enough!"I haven't yet begun to feel "That I have had a decent meal!"
He ran around the kitchen yelping,"I've got to have another helping!".Then added with a frightful leer,"I'm therefore going to wait right hereTill Little Miss Red Riding HoodComes home from walking in the wood"He quickly put on Grandma's clothes.(He hadn't eaten those.)
He dressed himself in coat and hat.He put on shoes and after that

He even brushed and curled his hair,Then sat himself in Grandma's chair. In came the little girl in red.She stopped. She stared. And then she said,"What great big ears you have, Grandma.""All the better to hear you with" the Wolf replied."What great big eyes you have, Grandma" said Little Red Riding Hood."All the better to see you with" the Wolf replied.
He sat there watching her and smiled.He thought, I'm going to eat this child. Compared to her old GrandmammaShe's going to taste like caviareThen Little Red Riding Hood said, "But Grandma, what a lovely great big furry coat you have on.""That's wrong!" cried Wolf. "Have you forgot"To tell me what BIG TEETH I've got?""Ah well, no matter what you say,"I'm going to eat you anyway."
The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.She whips a pistol from her knickers.She aims it at the creature's headAnd bang bang bang, she shoots him dead. A few weeks, later in the wood came across Miss Riding Hood.But what a change! No cloak of red,No silly hood upon her head.he said, "Hello, and do please note"My lovely furry WOLFSKIN COAT."

Fallen idols XXI - modern life freedom and culture contexts

ICON.  imageIconoclasm is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of icons and other images or monuments, most frequently for religious or political reasons.

It is clear that the last word has not been written on out past Leaders, Heroes, Icons, nor is it likely to be in the future. 

A multitude of writers  have produced,  studies on them ... and the best/worst is yet to come.  

Find a wide spectrum, from the variously hagiographical or informative, to the critical and contentious! 

TASK. Have a go at these cases. Then, 
 Prepare a speech on a Fallen Idol of your liking.

• (Mao Tse Tung, Columbus,  Nixon, ...)  

SECTION  1__    Asian Leader: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

The truth about Mahatma Gandhi: he was a wily operator, not India’s smiling saint

• The Indian nationalist leader had an eccentric attitude to sleeping habits, food and sexuality. However, his more controversial ideas have been written out of history.   Article here
• news- BBC 

SECTION  2__       American Leader on race:  J. Marion Sims 

New York just removed a statue of a surgeon who experimented on enslaved women -Article here

• The statue of J. Marion Sims, known as the “father of gynecology,” was moved as the US grapples with its history.

SECTION  3__  POLITICS -  The rights of citizens
  
            MP and Minister (60-63) in  UK   1968-  50 years ago   Enoch Powell 


           "Rivers of blood" speech  controversy 

10,000-year-old skeleton - Cheddar MAN

•        SLOGAN:    

            Back Britain, not black Britain   

•  “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.”   - article here

• The Windrush generation (1948-2018) - here

Theresa May sorry for Caribbean citizens immigration mix-up

SECTION  4__    MEDIA     Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby: Fallen Idol -article

The dishes from our Sunday BBQ had been washed and put away. The smell of brisket and strawberries hung in the air. It was Phoenix in 1964. The summer heat made outside entertainment undesirable, so our neighbor from down the street gave my father a record to play on our homemade Hi Fi system. “You’re going to love this,” he said as he settled onto the couch next.....

Bill Cosby retrial: Comedian paid sexual assault accuser $3.4m in previously undisclosed settlement

SECTION  5__    SOCIETY - USA - Harvey Weinstein

Hollywood Figures Who Have Spoken Out Against Media Mogul

A crowd against the producer amid sexual misconduct allegations.

timeline so far (Feb 2018) : How the scandal unfolded... here

EPILOGUE:

heroes of popular culture we said farewell  ...here

WAR'S AMISS. Word lover’s awarded a whirled World

TASK_1. What did J. Joyce intended to express is this sealed sentence:

   They lived und laughed ant 

loved end 

left.

TASK_2. Before entering the subject matter read aloud this sentences, getting the full benefit of all its mighty wit...

SET ONE.  Subject? Verb? ambiguity....

 Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

 Subject1? ..............   Verb1? ..............

Subject2? ..............   Verb2? ..............

1. · What’s the definition of a will? It’s a dead giveaway.
2. · A backward poet writes inverse.
3. · In democracy, it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your count that votes.
4. · She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
5. · He often broke into song, because he couldn’t find the key.

How do they increase their meaning/ambiguity. Tell your partner/s.

SET TWO.

· Every calendar’s days are numbered. 

· He had a photographic memory which was just never developed. 

· When you’ve seen one shopping centre, you’ve seen a mall. 

· Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine. 

· When an actress saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she’d dye.

· Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

TASK_3.  

Two years ago author Lynne Truss hit the Christmas best-seller list with the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, subtitled "The zero-tolerance approach to punctuation".

The title alludes to how punctuation, or a lack of it, can utterly change the meaning of a sentence.

Take the peculiar title, which is from a joke:
A panda goes into a café, orders a sandwich, eats it, takes out a revolver, fires it into the air, and goes out. When the waiter calls to ask what is going on, the panda plunks a badly punctuated wildlife manual onto the table and growls:
"Look me up."  

The waiter finds the entry:

"PANDA. Large, black-and-white, bear-like mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

TASK_4. We have all heard the expression, the last straw that broke the camel’s back and have felt that one more thing could send us over the edge in times of stress.

A comma can change the whole meaning of a sentence. According to Toronto's Globe and Mail for August 6, 2006, a misplaced comma in a contract to string cable lines along utility poles may cost the Canadian company a whopping $2.13 million.

TASK_5. Missing punctuation leads to much ambiguity, meaning that we have to ask the writer what was meant, rather than it being crystal clear in the first place.

Get the punctuation right and the message will be clear.

Here is a classic illustration of altering punctuation to change meaning:

Do males/females write the same?  

· A woman, without her man, is nothing

· A woman: without her, man is nothing.

Colon Brackets Dash comma Hyphen and Parentheses at Exclamation Point. At the end...Period.

INTRO. Imagine a scene with those badly known Greek Punctuation gods. 

• Do you know their names:
• NOT Aphrodite, but Apostrophe,
• NOT Daphne, but Hyphen, and so on. "here" "come" ...
• We can end up in a sad end full of frustration and grief. PERIOD. 
• As in the perverted tale of Echo and Narcissus

• WHO: Someone called Colon
• ACTION: Someone  embraces somebody
• WHOM: those named Dash or Hyphen and Parentheses. 
• WHERE: at Exclamation Point. 
• WHEN; At the end... Period.

• MY PUNCTUATION YARN:

In the beginning, Colon embraces Apostrophe at Exclamation Point while observed by Dash and Hyphen and Parentheses ran away to tell Semicolon. Period yawns himself.

TASK ONE: 

It’s not just the addition or lack of commas that can change meaning. This example shows how the placement of punctuation, such as full stops/periods, commas, and question marks, can turn something that seems loving and innocent into something more sinister:

       Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior.  

You have ruined me  for other men.   I yearn for you.  I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart.       I can be forever happy. Will you let me be yours?  

    Gloria

TASK TWO: 
How about picturing in your mind these 4 typography signs:

        hyphen  ___  semicolon ___  ellipsis  ___ dash  


check below:

How about naming these 5 typography signs:

&  ____  @  ____  \ _____ "  ____ # _______

check below:

General typography ampersand & asterisk * at sign @ backslash \ bullet • caret ^ dagger † ‡ degree ° ditto mark ″ inverted exclamation mark ¡ inverted question mark ¿ number sign, pound, hash, octothorpe #

KEY task one: 

Now let’s see how those same words read with the punctuation in different places:

        Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is.  All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior.  

You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy.  

Will you let me be?      

     Yours,  

          Gloria

TASK THREE: Now, your 2 tasks. 

• Copy the two letter of your choice and add your punctuation.
• 
  
• Then, ... Check with the one on the given BBC webpage below.

The Magazine, in association with the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), challenged readers to write a thank you letter with two meanings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4583594.stm

LETTER ONE.   Dear mother  …. From Matthew

dear mother  in law  there is nothing to make me say thank you but the quality of your gifts compels me at least to write to tell you how I feel thank you so much for the presents I was expecting nothing more than a token yet  again you have exceeded even your own incredible standards it was a shame you had to stay here for such a short time I thought I might have coped, but it was unbearable seeing you leave  the relief was immense when I heard we might see you again soon I wanted to end it all by saying goodbye now I hope I will not have to say it to you again for a long time if you have the opportunity to spend Christmas elsewhere next year please do not much love  Matthew

LETTER two.          Dear  Mandy  From CLAIR

Dear Mandy just a quick note to say I received your gift I was very surprised  when I saw the effort you had gone to I nearly cried  when I heard that you were coming for our roast turkey lunch I looked forward to the Christmas day celebration far more disdaining others no doubt spending the festive season feeling drunk  with joy we sang the classic yuletide carols however the horror on the streets tonight revellers ignore the message of Christmas and down pints instead I wish I could be there to help them Clair.

LETTER three.   Dear Santa from MATT

Dear Santa you really made my year when I heard you had fallen from your sleigh I was sad  to see such wonderful gifts lined up under my Christmas tree  my eyes lit up when I unwrapped your gifts I knew that the spirit of Christmas was still alive it was terrible hearing about your accident  the best piece of news all year is your safe return  things yet to come you say Christmas is a time to love and share I disagree with Scrooges everywhere Christmas is slowly fading thanks for making it so fantastic Matt

LETTER   four .  Dear Auntie Maude  from rob 

Dear Auntie Maude I was amazed to receive yet again the perfumed soap you've compelled me to appreciate for three straight Christmases that my family had suffered due to my body odour I felt such delight  I took the soap to the bathroom I normally enter only once each July not that I wish to wash never could a mere gift change that no your stubbornness fuelled my resolve  to drive my body to the soapy unknown my family have sued me for cruelty and threatened random hose attacks I cannot allow that water and skin should meet with dignity intact Rob

  LETTER  five.   Dear Aunt Agatha from TOM

Dear Aunt Agatha  sorry it has taken me so long to write telling you how much I liked your Christmas present this year only I didn't have the time to take it back and get another would be out of the question I suppose for you to be so kind shouldn't come as a surprise after what you bought me last year it was splendid news about Uncle Brian dying to see you again in the New Year would be awful to lose touch Mark