Misquoted Quotes

There was an article in June edition of Reader's Digest on the spreading of counterfeit quotes. I thought it was very interesting and informative. So I thought I would share some of their examples.

The article states that many of the misquoters are actually American politicians. Barack Obama said that: "Abraham Lincoln once said to one of his opponents...if you stop telling lies about me, I'll start telling the truth about you." But it was not Abraham Lincoln who said this quote; it was actually a Republican senator, Chauncey Depew, who first used a version of this quote in the 19th century!

Many T-shirt slogans and beer commercials often quote Benjamin Franklin as saying "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." What he actually said was a quote about wine and largely the beauty of Springtime. "We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle...But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine--a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy." Guess it's too big to fit on a bumper sticker!

Ralph Keyes' book The Quote Verifier is on frequently misused sayings. I am looking forward to what more his book has to offer on wonderfully misquoted quotes!

Passengers: Movie Review

I give this movie a C-. Not really worth the money I spent on it to rent. It was horribly cliched and I knew what was going on within the first thirty minutes. If you've seen "The Others" or "The Sixth Sense" you're guaranteed to figure it out just as fast. Not Anne Hathaway's best.

Abraham's Eye

I got a desk calendar for the new year called "Forgotten English" by Jeffrey Kacirk. It has old phrases and words from English for each day. Some are pretty funny. So I though I would share a few along the way for your pleasure.

Abraham's eye: A magical charm, the application which was supposed to deprive a thief a who refused to confess his crime of eyesight; from a 16th-century manuscript on magic.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1896

The entry also comes with a little tidbit on some historical significance of the day and/or the word.

Today is 150th birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes series. It goes on to say that even though the movies have Sherlock saying "Elementary, my dear Watson" he never actually said that in the books, though he did use "Exactly, my dear Watson" three times.

A Few Of My Favorite Movies

I thought I'd also share some of my all-time favorites!

The 'Burbs A: This is one of my favorite comedies! Tom Hanks does an excellent job! It's all about how crazy people can get when they're living in the suburbs! New neighbors move in next door and everyone starts suspecting them of murder, especially after an elderly neighbor disappears mysteriously. All the neighbors band together to try and gather evidence! Corey Feldman adds an awesome element to the movie as the stoner teen across the street that spies on everyone else! It's hilarious and will keep laughing through the entire movie!

Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightley version) A+: This is my favorite rendition of Jane Austen's classic. I felt that the movie filled in a lot of blanks from the book, the sort of blanks I imagined while reading her book! Keira Knightley is an excellent Elizabeth Bennett and Matthew McFadyen shines as Mr. Darcy. The supporting cast is just as superb! And the musical score is amazing! I bought the soundtrack and listen to it regularly! This is one I watch over and over again!

Casino Royale A: OK, I have never read any of the Ian Fleming books on James Bond, so I'm not quite sure on how Fleming truly portrayed Bond in his books. But I'm an action-flick girl! I love the fighting and to me that's what a spy should be--tough! In my opinion none of the other bonds have been able to portray that. Special gadgetry is nice...but, I love my action! So this was by far, the best Bond movie ever and Daniel Craig was an excellent Bond! I know lots of you will disagree with me, but that's OK! This is my opinion and my Blog!! This movie helped me see the softer side of Bond and his motivation about why he's a walking STD! Great storyline and lots of action!

Bourne series A: By far my favorite action flicks! Incredible acting, storyline, and action/chase scenes! Matt Damon is an excellent actor and love almost everything he's in as long as it's decent. I started reading the first book "Bourne Identity" and it's very different from the movie. They definitely took a lot of liberties with the books, but since I watched the movies first they're still my favorites. Good movies!

I guess that's good for now! I'll add more later! I have a large library of DVDs of all my favorites and would love to share them with you! Movies rock!

Other Recent Movie Reviews

"Angels and Demons" B-: The storyline isn't quite as intriguing as the one in "The DaVinci Code," but Ron Howard was able to tone down the crazy plot contrivances from the original book. But no matter what one thinks about the crazy plot devices, the movie is fun--dumb fun--but fun nonetheless! And that's what movies are supposed to do--entertain!

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" B-: It wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be. But the visual effects were astounding. I can't even imagine how they made Brad Pitt so old and so young! It was a bit depressing and confusing, but overall it was an interesting story and makes you think about how you'd live life if you had to live it backwards.

"Bride Wars" C: Not the best comedy ever written. It was pretty cliche and the ending was fairly predictable. I'm a fan of Anne Hathaway, but I haven't seen anything that I liked with Kate Hudson. She's fairly formulaic in anything I've seen her in; she doesn't quite have the acting chops of her mother Goldie Hawn. But it's a fair movie for a couple of afternoon laughs.

"Seven Pounds" B: Wow, very intriguing storyline. If you're a driving-while-texting person this will definitely make you think again! It was really depressing, but Will Smith did an excellent job and Woody Harrelson really shined in his scenes as well. Overall, worth at least one viewing.

"Hancock" B+: Not Will Smith's best movie, but it was an interesting twist on the superhero genre. Worth at least one look for sure. The ending was a bit convoluted, though. The special effects were fun, at least!

"Marley and Me" A+: Excellent family movie! Down to earth and heart-warming as well! Both my husband and I shed a few tears along the way! I loved following the family through all their crazy changes with their sweet dog! We will definitely be adding this DVD to our library soon.

Star Trek, The New Movie

A+!

WOW! This was an awesome film! I'm a big a Trekkie and was very excited for this film to come out! My husband and I were finally able to see it last weekend with the help of my mother watching our cute little boy!

It's a fun and exciting movie for all, whether you're a Trekkie or new to the genre. I hope people who haven't checked out "Star Trek" before, will now.

I give two big thumb ups for this movie!! What a way to kick-off the summer! Enjoy!

Break No Bones: Book Review

I just finished reading "Break No Bones" by Kathy Reichs. It is an excellent book for those who enjoy good, clean mystery thrillers!

Kathy Reichs is a Forensic Anthropologist and is the inspiration for the TV show "Bones." This is the first book that I have read of hers, though this installment is her ninth book. I will definitely have to read the first eight!

I give it a good solid B+ for mystery novels! And it's pretty clean too: no gratuitous sex scenes and the language is cut down to a minimum!

I find crime drama fascinating this is a great one to try!

Klingon

As a special tribute to the new "Star Trek" movie I thought I would talk a little bit about that wonderful language Klingon! Even though I hear that none is actually spoken in the new film...oh well!

Klingon was first introduced in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," which James Doohan- who played Scotty- came up with a few lines of dialogue. Two movies later for "Star Trek III" they hired Marc Okrand to come up with more lines of dialogue for Klingon.

Marc Okrand, who is a linguist, used the lines created by James Doohan to build the rest of the Klingon language. He has written a dictionary which includes full grammar and pronunciation of Klingon. There is even an institute called the Klingon Language Institute for the promotion and support of Klingon! Shakespeare's "Hamlet" has even been translated into Klingon!

Languages are fascinating no matter what, but made up languages are just as fascinating! For more on Klingon read this article "There's No Klingon Word For Hello" by Akira Okrent.Or you can look it up on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language.
yIn nI' DaSIQjaj 'ej bIchepjaj -- Live long and prosper!

Love

Love. We all know what it means....or at least we should! But where does our English word love actually come from?? I thought that would be the topic of my little entry today.

English is a part of the language family called Indo-European. We don't actually have any written record of this language, but linguists can reconstruct what possible words were in this language. Indo-European breaks down into other categories such as the romance languages, which includes Spanish and French, and Germanic languages such as English and German. We know they are related because there are many words in across languages that are similar and love just happens to be one of those many words. Love in Russian is l'ubov, in Sanskrit lobha- and historical linguists have reconstructed the word in Indo-European to be leubh-

It dates from Old English lufu and is also the root of the word believe! From Indo-European to Latin the u became an i and so from Latin we get roots of love in our words like libido!

It's crazy how love works!! I find word histories or etymology fascinating and I hope you do too! The book I used was More Word Histories and Mysteries from the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries.

My Love of Language

Isn't it amazing??!! Language! It's how we communicate with the world! We are the only species on the planet that are able to manipulate language, to think for ourselves. Every day we speak and think sentences that have never been thought of before or even spoken. Look at how we learn our first language; it seems so flawless. I wish we could all learn a second language like we learned our first! There are over 6,000 languages in the world and all of them different and unique.

I earned a degree in Linguistics due my love of language and thought that I would share some thoughts on language in my life and in the world at large. I will include references to check as well when I need to!

I learned Spanish when I spent about 18 months in Spain and the Canary Islands and when I returned home I decided to keep on studying it at school. One of the classes I elected to take was Introduction to Linguistics. I loved it! It was an amazing class and taught me so much about how language influences our lives. And thus began my studies and love of language (I ended up getting my degree in both Spanish and Linguistics). Not that I actually use these degrees at the moment...I may eventually get my Master's in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at the college level for adults. But since I still love it and am not in school anymore these blog entries will help me keep up on language and refresh what I've already learned! I hope you enjoy!