HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1993-12-01, Page 5International Scene
By Raymond Canon
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1993. PAGE 5.
Creating the last
Will and Testament
Will: n. a device for splitting heirs.
Ah, the Last Will and Testament. Was
there ever a legal proceeding that caused
more friction, fright and fractiousness?
Okay, not counting marriage.
There have been some wild and woolly
wills written ever since — well, I like to
imagine that it goes back to the first
primeval solicitor operating out of a
storefront cave in prehistoric Mesopotamia. I
see him as a smiling devil with meticulously
combed eyebrows, wearing a three-piece
pinstripe of Mastodon worsted. I can
visualize my Stone Age solicitor wedging a
charred stick between the stiffening fingers
of an expiring client, positioning the poor
wretch in front of a stone tablet and urging
him to "remember his friends" in writing.
And thus creating the first Last Will and
Testament.
An awful lot of legal ink was flowed under
the litigational bridge since those early days,
but wills still make for some fascinating
reading. Take the case of Henry, Earl of
Stafford, an 18th century English gentleman.
Well, not much of a gentleman
perhaps...but a plain speaker. Part of his will
reads: "To the worst of women
...unfortunately my wife, guilty as she is of
all crimes, I leave five-and-40 brass
halfpence which will buy a pullet for her
How hard
is English
to learn?
If there is one complaint that teachers at
the post-secondary school level have, it is
that a large number of our students don't
have a sufficient command of the English
language to express themselves well in the
written or spoken language, let alone
understand the texts that they are required to
buy. I am not talking about those whose
native language is not English, but those
who have spoken the language right from the
beginning of their talking career. I get asked
frequently just how difficult English is to
learn compared to other languages; the
person making the inquiry often has in mind
the fact that the above situation may be
caused by some inherent difficulty in the
language.
In my mind there is more to the problem
than that, but before I comment on the
situation in general let me answer the above
question. To begin with, you may be
surprised to learn that English is not all that
difficult to learn, although it does have its
problems. For openers, all the other
languages I know make the adjective agree
in gender and number with the noun it
modifies. Since readers are most likely to
have studied French than any other foreign
tongue, let me use an example out of that.
Nouns, as you know, are either masculine
(le) or feminine (la) and the adjective
modifying them will have an additional
letter if the noun is feminine (le grand
garcon, la grande fille). If the same noun is
put in the plural, the French add an "s". (les
grands garcons, les grandes filles) Thus not
only do you have to know what the word is,
you also have to know whether it is
masculine or feminine.
German and Russian are even worse. They
supper."
Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis
Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland was
more concerned with how people handled
his sendoff. "I request" wrote Dodgson ''that
no Pall may be employed...Also that it may
be a walking funeral...and generally that all
details be simple and inexpensive, avoiding
all things which are merely done for show."
The will of the great magician Houdini is
more remarkable for what it did not contain.
Contrary to hints he gave out while living,
Houdini did not reveal his professional
escape secrets in his Will, but he did
bequeath his collection of books on magic to
the U.S. Library of Congress — and made
sure that the rabbits he customarily pulled
out of hats all found good homes with the
children of his friends.
Silverdene Emblem O'Neill left a will at
least as interesting as the name of the
subject. "I have little in the way of material
things to leave," says the will. "There is
nothing of value I have to bequeath except
my love and faith."
"These I leave to all those who loved
me...Perhaps it is vain of me to boast when I
am so near death, which returns all beasts
and vanities to dust, but I have always been
an extremely loveable dog."
That's right. Silverdene Emblem O'Neill
('Blemie' to his friends) was a Dalmatian
owned by American playwright Eugene
O'Neill, who also wrote up the will on his
pet's behalf.
have not only feminine and masculine nouns
but also neuter ones as well. Also, both
follow the French example outlined above.
Germans, therefore, have to learn to say
guter Wein, gute Butter and gutes Brot. Can
you imagine yourself saying gooder wine,
goode butter or goodes bread? You don't
know how lucky you are in English not
having to worry about the gender of the
noun, let alone the ending of the adjective
which modifies it.
Every language has idioms and these are
hard in any language so there is no
advantage to be had there. English word
order is quite normal as is French, Spanish,
Russian or Italian, and infinitely easier than
that experienced by the Germans. Tangle
with something like this: "I have the girl
with the brown dress and dark hair seen."
"What!" you will say, "The verb comes
right at the end of the sentence?" You are so
right. Try this one: "I have my hair cut got."
Don't you feel happy that you have such a
nice easy time of it in English.
Well, there must be something hard about
English. Yes, you are right. One big problem
is the use of the word "do." What did you
say? How do you do? are enough to drive
most non-English speakers to drink. So is
the expression "isn't it, doesn't it, won't it,
etc. French nicely does with just one for
each occasion (n'est-ce pas) as do all the
other languages. English has some hard
sounds to master with 'the' and 'w' being the
worst.
I frequently have people tell me that
people speak faster in other languages. That
is very much an illusion. The less your
command of a foreign language is, the faster
it sounds when you hear somebody speaking
it. My granddaughter is the latest to notice
this; she has taken French in school for four
years. The other day she was listening to me
speaking French to one of my sons, her
uncle, and when her mother asked her how
much she understood, she replied, "Not very
J. Edgar Hoover, the eccentric, if not
downright kinky, head of the FBI for several
hundred years, left the bulk of his estate to,
not surprisingly, his 'constant companion'
Clyde Tolson.
There is no provision in the Hoover will
for disposition of his fine collection of
ballroom gowns.
Speaking of party girls, the late great Janis
Joplin left a typically Joplinesque will to
remember her by — money for an all-night
party for 200 pals at her favourite saloon in
San Anselmo, California "so all my friends
can get blasted after I'm gone." For one
night, all the Southern Comfort, tequila,
vodka and beer was on Janis.
Which brings us to the Last Will and
Testament of Terry Oxley, recently deceased
farmer near the town of Goole, in northeast
England. From his hospital bed, Terry
dictated the terms of his will, including a
clause that instructs his solicitor to drop in to
the nearby British Legion Pub in Goole once
a week to pay George Carkwell's bar bill.
George, you see is (was) Terry Oxley's
drinking buddy. The Oxley will states that
George is to get "1,000 pints of bitter...on a
basis of 35 pints a week."
Thirty-five pints a week, eh?
Well, cheers to you Terry Oxley...and
whichever bar you're bellying up to these
days, be it celestial or infernal, I suggest you
make room for your pal George.
At 35 pints a week, he should be alongside
any day now.
much; they're talking too fast."
If there is one problem in English that
stands out, it is spelling. The language has
this horrible habit of saying a word one way
and not spelling it phonetically. This habit is
by far the worst of any language I know, but
that in itself, while it does cause problems
for my students, is not the main reason why
they have trouble. My generation did not
have TV when we were young; if we wanted
to know something we had to read about it.
Now it is so easy to watch the 30 second
clips on TV and get all your current affairs.
No knowledge or written English is required
and it is not emphasized in school as it used
to be. I think we will turn out literate high
school graduates only when we put the
proper emphasis on such things as
vocabulary and written English. I don't
blame the teachers for this; they are teaching
what and how they are told to teach and,
judging from what I hear, there is a lot of
grumbling going on in the profession about
this lack.
This trend has not reached other countries
with such intensity. The French, for one, still
emphasize the old-time skills and it shows. It
is a sad state of affairs when the biggest
growth industry in the post-secondary
system is remedial English. Pity!
Paul's Perspective
Continued from page 4
Investment Strategy. This was done after
holding extensive public meetings with
farmers. It has been a privilege for me to
work with him on the Rural Loan Pool
program. The convention provided an
opportunity to get reactions from farmers to
this program.
As well as hearing from the Ministry of
Agriculture Elmer Buchanan, Premier Bob
Rae made an extra effort to attend the
convention. He spoke to members and
recounted some of the issues which had been
raised during his visit to Huron County. The
new federal Minister of Agriculture also
spoke to the convention.
Paul Klopp, MPP Huron.
The
short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
They don't make 'em
like they used to.
Too bad!
Whether or not I'm ready, it's beginning to
look a lot like Christmas.
For someone who traditionally is the first
to get her shopping done, have her
decorations warming up the home and her
baking in the freezer, I must admit I just
can't seem to catch the spirit as early this
year.
Needing some inspiration it was a real
treat to catch on television a seasonable
showing of the black and white, original
version of the classic movie, It's a
Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart and
Donna Reed I don't know if it inspired any
Christmas spirit, but it certainly did lift the
spirits I have with its slightly sappy,
delightfully drippy, tear-jerking tale.
For as long as I can remember I have
loved old movies. Even in Kindergarten I
was frustrated to be in the afternoon class as,
my friends in the morning class all, reminded
me, I missed the afternoon matinee. I tried
countering their digs by pointing out I could
sleep in every day, which really brought
little satisfaction as I was in truth an early
riser.
Anyway to get back to where I started, old
movies have always had a special charm for
me. Curling up in my flannels, a warm drink
in my hand and tissue close by for when the
sobbing began was life at its best. Actually, I
guess you could say Iwas cocooning before
it was vogue!
Of late, however, I am noticing that my
children have inadvertantly moved me away
from the reels I loved, into the world of the
unreal. Today's movies, the ones they've
grown up with, are slick, polished, and rife
with characters that resemble more action
hero or tortured psychotic than everyday
folk. If by some unusual happenstance you
actually uncover a piece that relys on
simplicity and beauty, today's movie fans act
as if you've just served the Christmas turkey
without stuffing.
For example, a few weeks ago, one of my
kids and I were watching A River Runs
Through It, a movie, which while
admittedly I was disappointed in, was still
quite a pleasant story. The reaction from the
younger generation was a little more, well,
reactive, however.
"That was dumb. What was the point?"
she asked at the movie's end.
I knew where she was coming from; after
all, this was just a story with believable
characters. There was no sex, at least none
that we got to see, and only one person was
killed, which we didn't get to see either.
There were times when I even found myself
waiting for the restricted parts to happen;
you just expect them.
Certainly, I'in not suggesting that older
movies didn't have their share of brutal parts,
look at Psycho, but they were the exception
not the norm. Just try and find a movie today
that your family wants to watch that doesn't
have violence. They say we are becoming so
saturated by violence in movies that it no
longer phases us and while I don't know if
that is fact it certainly has to make you
wonder.
Movies to me are a form of entertainment
which helps me forget all that's wrong with
the world. Watching someone brutally
murdered isn't my idea of a good time, so
I've begun thinking that I may have to rent a
few oldies for the family to see if I can
convert them. They don't make many like
them anymore, which is really too bad.
Arthur Black