Homework for Grown-ups Everything You Learnt at School...and Promptly Forgot

by Foley, E.; Coates, B.

• ISBN13: 9780767932387
• ISBN10: 0767932382
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-08-11
• Publisher: Crown

Summary

Even the most basics facts learned in school seem to fade over time. In this fun and informative book, Foley and Coates teach grown-ups the basics of English, math, history, science, geography, and art.

Author Biography

E. FOLEY and B. COATES are editors at Vintage who both live in London.

Excerpts

INTRODUCTION

Where did it all go? Everything we learned at school now seems a distant memory. We sit slack-jawed when our children ask us which planet comes after Jupiter, or what the capital of Bulgaria is, or whatquid pro quoactually means. Have you ever found yourself making up your own version of the Pythagorean theorem in order to avoid the humiliating scorn of your offspring? Have you ever started blithely on a list of the thirteen original colonies only to find yourself stuck at eight? Have you ever succumbed to the temptation to use the embarrassing cop-out clause “Ask your father/mother”?

Even simple queries like “Why is the sky blue?” have many parents scratching their heads. All we can remember is that we used to know the answer. A recent study revealed that even though most pupils learn French for five years, by the time they are adults the sum total of their knowledge stretches to–at best–four words. In these days of highspeed Internet connections and calculators on cell phones, we rarely have to use the information that was drummed into us in our school days. The good news is that it’s still all there. And even better, it’s surprisingly easy to revive those dormant gray cells and hold your head up with pride when you’re next asked to help with homework.

Homework for Grown-upsis a revision guide for adults that will put you back on track. We aim to entertain you as well as exercise your brain and equip you with the basics, so you can impress your friends or handle home work without humiliation.

Homework for Grown-upsis organized into nine chapters, each covering a school subject: English, Mathematics, Home Economics, History, Science, Religious Education, Geography, Classics, and Art. After reading it, we hope you’ll be as sharp as a tack, as bright as a button, and as clever as when you were a fresh-faced youngster in gray socks and a blazer.

Wouldn’t it be great to slip a couple of Latin phrases into a conversation with your boss, or pontificate on the qualities of a tetrahedron at a cocktail party, or name all the presidents in your head while the
dentist is giving you a filling?Homework for Grown-upsis the way to get back your self-respect and also show the kids a thing or two.


Chapter 1:
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

“Englishn.the language of England, now used in
many varieties throughout the world”
Oxford Concise English Dictionary

“For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809—92),In Memoriam A. H. H.

Our mother tongue is a rich and flexible beast. It contains such beauteous and varied words as “tatterdemalion,”* “punch,” “vulpine,”† “mendacious,”‡ “croak,” “badger,” “Saturday,” and “snow.” It has the power to communicate a huge spectrum of emotions in a compact, vague phrase (“I love you,” “I’m not sure about that”) and also to express accurately very specific notions (“He’s a little ochlophobic,”§ “Pass me the potassium permanganate”). The shapes and sounds of our words are
hugely varied, often depending on whence our magpie language has picked up specific terms: the vowel-heavy, melodic “anaesthesia,” “echo,” and “chaos” from the ancient Greek; the concise, muscular “belch,” “night,” and “cow” from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers; and the sleek “cuisine,” “blonde,” and “rendezvous” from the French, for example.

Today English is an official language of more than fifty countries, including Madagascar, Belize, Fiji, and Singapore and is spo

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Excerpted from Homework for Grown-ups: Everything You Learned at School and Promptly Forgot by E. Foley, B. Coates
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.