Table of contents for No 483 in Speak Up

No puede caber ninguna duda sobre la calidad literaria de Jane Austen ni sobre la trascendencia social de sus novelas dulcemente costumbristas y sutilmente subversivas. Son, por parafrasearla a ella, dos verdades universalmente reconocidas. Existe, sin embargo, un pequeño enigma en los márgenes de la academia, en ese terreno pantanoso entre la literatura comparada y los estudios biográficos donde se especula sobre las motivaciones de la propia autora; hasta qué punto su historias, los personajes de las mismas y especialmente las ideas y actos de sus heroínas son reflejos de su propia visión del mundo. Este terreno pantanoso se conoce como ‘falacia intencional’: la creencia errónea de que en la biografía del autor o artista podemos encontrar la clave para entender su obra y apreciarla en su totalidad. En el…

The concept of using technology as a learning tool1 has a history spanning2 over a century. Educational films and mechanical devices3 known as ‘teaching machines’ that asked simple multiple choice questions, were the first tools to put technology in classrooms. Gradually, television and computers complemented academic books. The founding of the UK’s Open University in 1969 was a turning point4. By the late 20th century, the internet expanded access to information, and online courses and digital learning resources became more common. DIGITAL AGE By the 2000s, personal computers, projectors and interactive whiteboards5 had infiltrated classrooms, promising a future of more interactive and multimedia-driven learning. The e-learning platform Moodle, an open-source learning management system (LMS), was introduced in 2002, potentially breaking down geographic barriers. PERSONALISED The 2010s brought massive open online…

Twentieth-century fashion-photography icon, Cecil Beaton (born in 1904 who died in 1980) was enigmatic, flamboyant1 and controversial; both a misfit2 and a social climber3 with a talent for self-promotion. Openly bisexual, through his decades-long career he captured the essence of various eras on camera: from the 1920s Jazz Age to the high fashion of the 50s to the 1960s glamour of the movie My Fair Lady — for which he designed the set and created the costumes4. As a royal photographer, Beaton played a pivotal role5 in adapting the British monarchy to the modern age. He also photographed, and to a degree curated6, the hardships7 of World War Two. VOGUE CONTROVERSY Beaton was born in London in 1904, the son of a timber merchant8 and an actress. Mesmerised9 by his…

Adam Aleksic has been thinking about seggs. Not sex, but seggs — a substitute term that took off a few years ago among those trying to dodge1 content-moderation restrictions on TikTok. Influencers shared stories from their “seggs lives” and spoke about the importance of “seggs education.” Lots of similarly inventive workarounds2 have emerged to discuss sensitive or suggestive topics online. This phenomenon is called ‘Algospeak’ (a portmanteau3 of ‘algorithm’ and ‘speak’ that Aleksic invented), and it has yielded4 terms like ‘cornucopia’ for homophobia and ‘unalive’, a euphemism for ‘suicide’ that has made its way into middle schoolers’ offline vocabulary. These words roll off5 the tongue for Aleksic, a twenty-four-year-old linguist and content creator who posts as Etymology Nerd on social media. Others may find them slightly bewildering6. But, as he…

Very little is known about Jane Austen’s life, including what she looked like. The only portrait of the writer that is considered authentic is a simple pencil and watercolour sketch1 made by her sister Cassandra around 1810 and now held in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Although there have been many adaptations of her novels, only a few films and TV shows try to explore Jane Austen’s personal life. Becoming Jane (2007), directed by Julian Jarrold and starring American actor Anne Hathaway as Austen, moves between reality and fiction to present the author as the heroine of a romantic love story, almost as one of the characters of her novels. TOM LEFROY In the film, Jane is an aspiring writer who refuses to marry Mr. Wisley, nephew2 and only…

Getting1 the cultural reference behind an expression feels great, right? And a surprising number of expressions enter the English language from advertising campaigns: think of the US firm McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” or Nike’s “Just do it!”. In some cases, even native speakers end up2 using the expression without thinking about the product it was originally advertising. In the UK there are many advertising slogans (memorable phrases) or straplines (short, snappy3 slogans) that have captured the public imagination so successfully that they’ve become integrated into everyday English. TIN TRUTH In the mid-1990s, the marketing department of Ronseal, the manufacturers of wood stain4, decided that instead of trying to make wood stain glamorous, they would emphasise the boring, predictable nature of their product as a positive thing. There’s an expression in…

Hey, I was thinking we could do something meaningful1 as a team. How about a charity drive? That’s a great idea! What cause did you have in mind? How about the food bank down the road2 ? Sounds perfect. Do you know what kind of donations they accept? Tinned food and other non-perishable items, but also clothes and toys. We could collect things over the next two weeks. OK, let’s do it! Who should we talk to about making it official? Probably the office manager. She’ll know how to get permission and spread the word. OK, I’ll speak to her this afternoon, but let’s start planning now. Should we set up3 collection boxes around the office? Yes. One on each floor would be ideal. We’ll need to communicate it —…

Hello!’ is a common way to greet1 someone, and for many of us is the first word that we learned in English. In fact, ‘Hello’ didn’t start out as a greeting at all2: in the early 1800s, the word was used to call attention to something or to express surprise (or some other emotion) such as in the phrase, “Hello, what’s going on here?” ‘Hello’ was related to older words, such as ‘holla’ or ‘holà’ from the French phrase meaning something like ‘Whoa there!3’ or to Germanic terms like ‘halōn’ or ‘halen’ meaning ‘to fetch4’ or ‘call’. TECHNOLOGY Until well into the 19th century, common greetings in English were the formal-sounding ‘Good day’ or ‘How do you do?’ But such phrasing was too slow for the speed of technological change…

Margaret Thatcher (born in 1925 and who died in 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. The first woman to hold the office1, her tenure2 was marked by radical economic and social reforms, a strong foreign policy and highly-conservative principles. Thatcher’s promotion of free markets, privatisation and deregulation, an ideology known as neoliberalism, left an indelible imprint3 on Britain and the world. CONSENSUS POLITICS From 1945 to the late 1970s, Britain had an economic order and social model called the ‘post-war consensus’. Parties agreed on policies4 such as full employment, heavy government regulation, high taxes, a welfare state5, nationalisation and strong trade unions6. Thatcher led the Conservative Party to a decisive electoral victory in May 1979 following the Winter of Discontent, five months of devastating…

The capital city of Norfolk, Norwich, is a UNESCO1 City of Literature. Located in East Anglia, England, it is one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Britain. It is also home to the magnificent Norwich Castle, which stands at the top of a large mound2 in the city centre, overlooking3 the market and Castle Quarter shops. CONQUEST Norwich Castle dates back to4 1067 and was built soon after the Norman invasion of Britain. Symbolic of the conquest and authority of the country’s new rulers5 , the castle served as a defensive structure, royal palace and centre for legal and financial rule. Built adjacent to the Norman cathedral, near the River Wensum, the castle changed life in Norwich forever. DESIGNED TO IMPRESS The impact on the city’s Anglo-Saxon population (living and…

The quintessentially English author Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the small village of Steventon, North Hampshire, in the south of England. The daughter of village vicar1 Reverend George Austen, she spent the early part of her life in Steventon Rectory. As the seventh of eight children, Austen was used to the hubbub2 of a busy home, and the comings and goings of her many siblings4. But she also enjoyed the peace and quiet of the rural surroundings, and found it a bit of a shock when her father suddenly announced they were moving 50 miles (or 80 km) away, to spa town Bath. TO SOUTHAMPTON After her father died in 1805, Jane then accompanied her mother, her sister Cassandra, and friend Martha Lloyd to Southampton, approximately…

Robert Redford, who died on 16 September aged eighty-nine, was the golden boy of American cinema for more than fifty years. Redford, who was always ill at ease1 about his looks, was described by Sydney Pollack, for whom the actor made seven films, as “an interesting metaphor for America, a golden boy with a darkness in him.” To many of his characterisations, he added a wry wit2, able to hint3, via subtle nuance4, at a more complex psychology hidden beneath the surface. Romantically flawed5 and fallen heroes were his forte, so he was perfectly cast in the title role of The Great Gatsby (1974). “I wanted Gatsby badly,” he commented. “He is not fleshed out6 in the book and the implied parts are fascinating.” Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born…

Bruce Lee is considered one of the most influential martial artists in the history of film. Sadly, Lee, who was also an actor and filmmaker died of a brain oedema at the age of thirty-two. This November, the world is celebrating him and his lasting1 influence on martial arts, filmmaking, and popular culture on what would have been his 85th birthday. FORMATIVE YEARS Born in San Francisco, California, Lee was raised2 in Hong Kong, which was then under British rule3. He appeared in his first film, The Beginning of a Boy (1946), at the age of six and had been in twenty films by the time he was eighteen. He also began studying martial arts at a young age; he was thirteen when he started taking kung fu lessons from…

It was Valentine’s Day 2005 when three ex-Paypal employees, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, founded YouTube. The world quickly fell in love with the platform, and just over a year later, Google acquired it for $1.65 billion. FIVE BILLION VIDEOS Headquartered in San Bruno, Ca, YouTube is now the world’s second-most-visited website, after Google Search. It has over five billion1 videos, in almost every imaginable category, and about 2.5 billion users, who collectively watch more than one billion hours of video a day. Today, the video-sharing platform has considerable power over what many believe to be the truth. As its influence over popular culture and global trends has grown, so have concerns over its content policies2, copyright issues and handling3 of misinformation and harmful4 content. Despite this, YouTube…

Norwich Castle: Royal Palace Reborn is an ambitious €32-million renovation project to restore the city’s historic Norman palace to its 12th-century glory. Original rooms, walls, floors and roofs have been restored to reconstruct the building, which was begun by William the Conqueror and completed by his son, King Henry I of England, who visited here in 1121. To make way for the structure, almost one hundred Anglo-Saxon houses, entire streets and churches existing at the time, were demolished. To find out more, Speak Up spoke with two of the experts involved from start to finish. Dr. Tim Pestell is senior curator of archaeology at Norfolk Museums Service and interpretation lead for the project. Dr. Pestell explained why the castle, one of the largest Norman keeps1 in England, was built in…

Built over five hundred years ago, the house now known as Jane Austen’s House began as a farmhouse1 and later served as a coaching inn2 (a place where horses are changed on long journeys by horse-drawn carriage3.) In 1809, Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Austen Knight, offered the house to his mother and sisters, providing them with a permanent residence on his Chawton estate4. It was here that Austen revised her earlier novels and wrote new ones, including Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion, the latter published posthumously in December 1817, five months after her death. Since opening to the public as Jane Austen’s House Museum in 1949, the site, informally called Chawton Cottage5, has been dedicated to preserving the legacy of the author. The museum holds a collection of personal artefacts,…

Many people believe that dogs are intelligent, but it’s surprising to learn just how smart they are. One study, at Emory University in Atlanta in the US, found that dogs have a basic understanding of words, and can distinguish words they have heard before from those they haven’t. Other studies have found that most dogs can understand complex gestures, such as pointing, even if they’ve never been trained to do so. THE SMARTEST BREED Many studies have found that the most intelligent dog breed1 is the British border collie. So it makes sense that the dog many consider to be the most intelligent in history is a border collie called Chaser (born in 2004-died in2019). Chaser was trained by behavioural psychologist2 John Pilley at his home in South Carolina. She…

What was better: fifteen years of prison or fifteen years of unconsciousness? That was what Samson was trying to decide with his lawyer, Jared. Had he been sentenced to prison years ago, he would not have had this decision to make. He would have gone to prison for fifteen years, simple as that. But in 2055, the UK had introduced the option of No Time, where prisoners were placed in an AI-induced coma for the duration of their sentence, instead of in a traditional prison. It had its pros and cons, which Samson had been considering since he’d been arrested on multiple charges1 of fraud. He had defrauded hundreds of vulnerable and desperate people, often taking every penny2 they had. He didn’t regret3 his crimes, but he did regret getting…