Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Science and Age of Enlightment essays

Science and Age of Enlightment essays Science and The Age of the Enlightenment There were many people involved in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. Most of these people were fine scholars. It all started out with Copernicus and his book called On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. This book marked the beginning of modern astrology. The current dispute at times echoes the tensions that existed in the sixteenth century between believers in the Copernican theory of the universe and the Ptolemaic established order, which preached that the earth was the center of the galaxy. His theory was anathema to the church and a threat to the established way of thinking about the world and the people in it. Skeptical thinkers, such as Galileo and Kepler, produced treatises that helped build a case for an alternative way of viewing the solar system. It was a gradual shift in professional allegiances in educational evaluation. No promises can be made for the power of a new paradigm offers a new set of explanations of our educational system. Descartes contemporary, the English philosopher Francis Bacon, took a somewhat stronger line concerning how conclusions should be reached. Bacon rejected deducing knowledge from self-evident principles and instead argued that only through observation and repeatable experiments could theories be built. Bacon thus relied on proofs that could be demonstrated physically, not through deductive logic. He believed that the pursuit of scientific knowledge would enrich human life immeasurably. Galileos lunar observations extend from 1609 to 1638 when failing eyesight compelled him to abandon his astronomical research. During these three decades, he discovered an important contribution to our understanding of three ...

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Theres a Time for Tmesis

Theres a Time for Tmesis There’s a Time for Tmesis There’s a Time for Tmesis By Mark Nichol Tmesis is a linguistic device in which a word or phrase interrupts another word or phrase. (The word is a Greek term that refers to cutting.) Depending on the type of tmesis, it is either acceptable in formal usage or relegated to humorous and/or emphatic colloquialisms. Phrasing in which the preposition down is located within the verb phrase â€Å"turn down† in â€Å"Turn down that music,† as opposed to its placement in â€Å"Turn that music down,† is a standard form of tmesis, as are whatsoever and unbeknownst, in which, respectively, so is inserted in whatever and be is placed within an archaic form of unknown. (Interestingly, in some literary usage, a tmetic word is itself cloven, as in the biblical verse â€Å"He shall be punished, what man soever offendeth.†) By contrast, seemingly tmetic words such as notwithstanding and nevertheless do not qualify, because the framing syllables do not constitute words or set phrases. A form of tmesis often heard spoken spontaneously but best reconstructed for writing is a possessive phrase such as â€Å"the girl in the back row’s,† referring to something belonging to a girl sitting in a back row; the modifying phrase â€Å"in the back row† is artificially inserted between girl and the possessive s. â€Å"The book is the girl in the back row’s,† for example, should be recast as â€Å"The book belongs to the girl in the back row.† Informal tmetic usage is ubiquitous but discouraged in formal writing. Examples include â€Å"a whole nother† and â€Å"any old how† as intensifications of another and anyhow. Recently, however, this form of tmesis has been supplanted in popularity by a form formally known as expletive infixation, in which a profane or otherwise emphatic word is inserted into an adjective to fortify its impact, as in abso-frickin’-lutely and la-dee-frickin’-da. Another colloquial construction is the emphatic insertion of so in such statements as â€Å"I am so not going there.† These contemporary conversational habits have their place in transcriptions of casual dialogue and in light-hearted informal prose, but they’re intrusive in formal writing. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Fiction Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Possessive of Proper Names Ending in SEnglish Grammar 101: Verb MoodUsing "May" in a Question