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gaywineauntsstuff · 7 months ago

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Arabic in the batfam

@leefail has gotten me obsessed with how arabic would work in the batfamily

because arabic is natively spoken by 230 million people and is taught in any muslim majority to country because its considered poor faith to recite the Quran in any other language.

its also the most inconvenient and stupidly difficult language to learn in human history.

why?

because it is a colonial language

meaning the Arab empire happened and we all switched to arabic but unlike English... there wasn't the internet for people to learn how the 'og Arabs' spoke it and Arabs didn't slaughter and replace like the puritans they just taxed and converted (slaughter optional im not ignoring north Africa but it was region specific)

so that means that arabic which has a collective vocab of about 12.1 million words as well as a nasty habit of giving 100 words the same meaning as well as assigning 1 word like 8 meanings got practiced by these arabic speaking countries differently

so certain words fell out of use or changed meaning in one country while being startlingly popular in another

it also means that a lot of arabic regions maintained their older speech patters

latinised softer letters in levant countries closer to Cyprus due to the presence of Aramaic, syrianic and latin.

harsher more guttural sounds in regions that were closer to Iran.

so what does this mean? and Why does this mean arabic is a bitch to learn

well for one you don't write in your regional dialect, you write in modern standard or fus7a which is a whole other beast. Meaning that you don't really learn to speak in school.

two the dialects are significantly different enough across the region that people who learned arabic in Lebanon won't understand people from morocco.

now we are all SUPPOSed to speak Modern Standard Arabic but you have to understand how little it is used outside of like legal jargon. so you kinda lose it once you leave Arab formal education.

Which means if you immediately default to MSA 99% of Arabs will assume you are a cop like if you know the word for government but not skirt... come on man be less obvious.

Now most us speak 1 -3 dialects and understand 9-10

me personally I speak a levantine dialect and can understand most Egyptian, Jordanian and Gulf dialects. Iraqi and the rest of North Africa (with the exception of Tunisia) not so much.

Now what does that mean for arabic in the batfamily

its too useful for the Bats to not use

so do all of the bats speak arabic 1000%

Do all of them speak different dialects 1000%

Here they are imo

Bruce: Bruce is a cop (MSA) He can code switch and speak all the dialects but he just genuinely likes MSA, its the most complex and intricate form of the language and what's most commonly used for things like poetry and literature. But it does mean that his speech comes off very stilted and cringeworthy to most Arab speakers. The first dialect he learned was definitely Egyptian because its the one that's the most common in music and television as well as having the largest group of people speaking it (110 of the 230 million are from Egypt)

Dick: now I have no evidence for this but Dick Grayson would speak Lebanese arabic. It's notoriously the softest of the dialects and has the most higher pitched and flippy tones. His mother also grew up in France which would Fit for Dick since Lebanese Arabic tends to substitute harsher arabic words with French. the most common greeting in Lebanon is 'Hi, kefak ca va' which is English, arabic and French. And for a cameleon character with such an interesting and convoluted ethnic background I think picking the softest dynamic tongue with the most intersectionality fits.

Jason: Jason todd speaks Jordanian arabic, Jordanians are the most hilariously creative people in the mid east imo. there are turns of phrase from Jordan that kinda make you pause and blink for a second because damn... okay then. I have never met a Jordanian without a degree in the most creative insults you've ever heard. Jordanian arabic is also very close to stereotypical Levant arabic which still maintaining a lot more of the harsher more guttural sounds that countries like Lebanon and Syria tend to exclude. Jordan also has a huge Bedouin population and I just think he'd match that vibe

Tim: Tims parents were archeologist.. Egyptian. Tim has the heaviest Egyptian accent when he speaks arabic. His parents definitely had him learn it in hopes he'd follow their footsteps. Ja become Ga and he works so damn hard to keep the accent out of his words to try and hide any identifiers and he fails miserably. He also uses it the most out of the kids and he can read and understand MSA fluently unlike Dick and Jason who are fine readers but cannot speak it for the life for them. Tim also does the international students Mix and Match where you sometimes just use a word that's country specific to other countries. Tim doesn't tell Damian he understands it and so Damian has the most intense shock of his life when Tim replies back to his angry arabic muttering.

Damian: So I know that talia studied at the university of Cairo but I feel like Ra's speaks a very old form of arabic so I think Damian code switches quite often. I picture him speaking like a Saudi upper court dialect when he's talking with Ra's and I think talia does the same. But I think Damian is most comfortable somewhere in-between Jordan and UAE arabic with more levant terms of endearment (because of the aforementioned softness and ik talia isn't a soft parent in canon but she is one in my heart so there) and more casual speech following GCC speaking patterns. Tho I think Damian can understand and speak all of the dialects including the less popular ones like Moroccan daraji.

Steph: I have zero evidence and not even an elaboration but if steph was Middle Eastern she'd be Iraqi bc vibes so that's what she speaks fuck you im right. It's definitely on the harsher side tonally but idk she gives the energy of using it and teasing Jason and Dick for using frou-frou arabic. Tho I will absolutely make the argument that she learned Syrian arabic for a friend pre her involvement with the bats.

Also Steph, Dick and Jason do sip and bitch sessions and they disagree on the correct way to make coffee. Jason is absolutely a traditionalist, Dick is a Turkish coffee believer and steph adds way too much cardamom.

also also Jasons favorite poet is Darwish, Tims fave is Al-muttanabbi, Dicks is Gibran (ik he spoke mostly in English but tell me Dick Grayson isn't gonna freak over 'your children are not yours they are children of the world') , Bruces is Qabbani. Steph doesn't like poetry but she has absolutely read memoirs of a woman doctor by nasal el saadawi and loved it

#dick grayson #bruce Wayne #tim drake #Damian Wayne #jason todd #batfam #batfamily #nightwing #batman #comics #red hood #arabic info dumps #im so homesick for the Middle East y'all #you don't understand #im writing this instead of studying for my exams #im arab so all my faves are vaguely Arab coded

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high-pot-in-noose · 6 years ago

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Val Rant #IDK&IDC: “Wizards are Ignorant!”

Something I don't understand that seems to be exceedingly common in the Harry Potter fandom is the idea that wizards are ignorant in the ways of what's taught in non-magical schools, that they know nothing of physics and biology, and that they're completely illiterate when they enter Hogwarts. At the very least, this is a common theme in stories with ‘muggle-yay’ Harry and (bafflingly) ‘the-Dark-side-is-right’ Harry. In such stories, Muggles are painted as either technological juggernauts that are way more advanced than wizards or are towering powerhouses of genocidal violence. Not getting into the blatant propaganda against Muggles in these cases despite the ‘proper respect’ the authors are trying to create, I want to explain exactly why the idea of wizarding ignorance is wrong and why it actually puts the characters who spout such ideas in terrible lighting.

First, though, I’d like to preface with the fact that my family is really big on formal education. Every grown relative I know has a Bachelor’s at a minimum, and my mother was a teacher since before I was born. I taught for several years as well. Both my mother and I taught arguably the most mocked subject, English, at university level, and I still do tutoring now. I know very well the value of education, promote it even. This is not railing against education, but the concept of ‘formal’ education and the current standards.

Now, I can’t speak for the entirety of the world or even for other people of similar living standards as myself, but I could already read some basic sentences when I was 2-3 years old. This wasn’t because my parents or teachers forced me to learn at the daycare I went to, but because I was constantly surrounded by some form of written word at all times. Street signs; advertisement; books covers; magazines; packaging; picture books; bedtime stories — words were everywhere, and since I was a regular kid, I was always asking what they said or meant, thus naturally learning.

I’ll admit that I didn’t learn how to read and write English until I was 6-7 years old, but that was because English was my second language; in my native language, I could already read and write like any other child, and could even recognize between dialects as well formal and informal language. I believe any child that has a local dialect different from the proper form of their language would be able to do the same. It’s essentially just putting on accents for whatever reason — we can all do it to some varying degree of accomplishment (I believe it’s called code-switching), and the knowledge of how to do that starts far before we start any sort of schooling.

I am a regular person! If I could already read and write before attending formal schooling, why would any 11-year-old wizard not be able to? I suppose it gets overlooked sometimes, but formal schooling didn’t always start at 6-7 years old. In fact, formal schooling wasn’t actually required for a good chunk of history, but even some girls in ancient Egypt could read and write. Formal schooling is not necessary for a child to be literate. There is absolutely no reason why a modern wizard child who’s just starting Hogwarts would be unable to read and write.

As for physics and biology, I think the same way about them as literacy. It is impossible to be regular living child and not learn certain things about the world.

A wizard child knocks over something and it breaks. They run to tell their parents about it and their parent fixes it with a wave of their wand.

They then might ask, “Why did the thing fall over and break when it never does that when you Summon it?”

The parent, of course, would then explain that it didn’t break or fall because magic was keeping it from falling, and thus letting the child know that magic has to be part of the equation to change things, that things will fall and break if magic is not involved.

Behold: gravity explained in a nutshell; a basic principle of physics taught through the natural course of life.

A variant/derivative of this ‘illiterate wizards’ theme is the supposition that because Hogwarts doesn’t have classes focused on mathematics, sciences, et cetera, the students and alumni don’t know how to calculate things and make scientific hypotheses. To a degree I agree with this — They are very unlikely to be able to do calculus or anything else that requires long and drawn-out formulas — but isn’t that also the same with regular students in real life?

After taking Algebra/Geometry/Calculus/et cetera all through middle school and high school, I can’t name a single person I know from those classes that remember how to do any of those calculations nor have ever needed to do so. How is ‘learned but forgot entirely’ any better than ‘never learned in the first place’? In both instances, there is absolutely no requirement for the material in the first place.

Something I’ve come to realize is that Hogwarts is basically a vocational school. I think all magical schools are functionally vocational schools.

Vocational schools don’t teach general education, they teach things that their students can directly use in whatever career the school specializes in. In Hogwarts’ specific case, it’s the practical application of witchcraft and wizardry; they teach things like self-defense and the cultivation of plants, actual life-skills. That’s why classes like Arithmancy are an extra/elective and aren’t mandatory like Transfiguration — Transfiguration can be used in many fields of work, personal or business, but Arithmancy is more or less like Algebra: it’s not bad to know and is actually extremely useful to the right people, but the average person rarely ever needs to use it.

For the Aurors, sales-clerks, apothecaries, and whatever else that students become after Hogwarts, likely none of them have needed to know the Pythagorean Theorem or how to do long division. I’m not saying knowing such things is useless, I’m just saying that it would be incorrect to blanket declare that Hogwarts students are missing out on vital information because of the lack. Hogwarts students learn things they can actively use in their real lives — knowledge of advanced math and theoretical science is not going to help them with flying a broom. For sure careers like Curse-breaking would need some advanced knowledge, but most magical people are just . . . regular, nine-to-five people who just happen to have magic.

So, then you have a character in this universe — likely a muggleborn or a specifically ‘’intelligent” pureblood because the kind of fics that promote the concept of being magical makes your ignorant tend to be very big into blood-distinction for whatever reason — and they boast about knowing those subjects, or how they think Hogwarts is backwards because of the lack, or how they’re studying those subjects on the side to get their A-levels or whatever it’s called in England. . . it just makes them appear patronizing and ignorant themselves.

How does the person writing the fic believe they are making their character ‘woke’ or forward-thinking or whatever? It has long been accepted in reality that most of the things your learn during general education don’t do shit for you in the real world! It’s a running joke that has spanned several generations at this point! We have long accepted that higher education doesn’t do much more than pile on debt and unnecessary stress.

And yet there are people that say Hogwarts is a shitty school because it doesn’t teach Algebra.

TL;DR: There is too much misplaced importance assigned to the institution of formal general schooling. You don’t have to attend “proper” school to be educated and capable.

#val rant #fandom #fanfiction #Harry Potter #head canons #but also a heavy dose of common sense

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swissschooldubai · 5 years ago

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Does early-life bilingual education cause developmental delays?

Bilingualism is one of the most historically controversial topics in modern education, with a history of debate that goes back to the first half of the 20th century.

In the past, a lot of this controversy was legitimately due to a lack of research, or uninformed education policies being instituted. But now, an ever-growing body of research is pointing to the positives of bilingualism, and it would do well to be informed about them.

Here are seven of the most important questions about bilingualism that can help dispel the widespread misinformation and misconceptions about it.

1. What does it mean to be bilingual?

Bilingual, at its most basic, means that you can speak two languages. Some people believe that to be considered bilingual, one must have equal or native-like proficiency in both languages, but this discounts people who speak a mother tongue natively, and a second tongue effectively, though without the same proficiency. In fact, most bilingual people use their languages for different purposes, and develop their skills in each language according to their needs. Most bilingual people therefore are actually not equally proficient.

The best definition of bilingual is simply someone who uses two languages in their daily life, regardless of their proficiency in either.

2. Does early-life bilingual education cause developmental delays?

This is one of the most popular and enduring myths about bilingual education, and it’s what most frequently gives parents pause when enrolling their child in a bilingual school. The fact is, the research does not support the notion that bilingual exposure results in speech disorders or developmental delays.

Besides – more than half the world’s population already raises its children in bilingual or even multilingual environments!

3. Is there a best time for second language acquisition?

Research by cognitive scientist’s shows that native-like language acquisition should start by the age of 10 for maximum effect, with acquisition tapering off by the age of 18

However, a separate body of research seems to indicate that age is less of a factor than we’ve thought for a long time. The difference in learning styles between adults and children might actually be a bigger determinant than previously thought, because children are more constantly immersed in the classroom and have plenty of opportunity to be quizzed and to interact with other speakers, while adults might only be learning in their free time.

4. Is it bad to mix languages inside sentences?

Many bilingual cultures will know about code-switching, or the phenomenon of alternating between two languages when in conversation. Code-switching gets a bad rap for the potential of sullying development and proficiency in either language. However, research shows that it doesn’t actually have an impact on learning.

While it’s not inherently bad to code-switch, it’s important to be aware of the learning and maintenance styles associated with each language. Budding bilingual children should be given the support they need for both languages at all times.

5. What are the positive effects of bilingualism?

We’ve covered this many times: bilingualism confers many advantages to students. They generally perform better at school and demonstrate improved executive function, memory, and cognitive flexibility, among others. It also makes bilingual speakers more open-minded, and offers a variety of new worldviews – a valuable asset in an increasingly globalised and multicultural world.

6. Do bilingual children have a smaller vocabulary than their monolingual counterparts?

In each language that they know, a bilingual child may not know as many words compared to a monolingual native. However, this is because they learn according to need – they might know the right words for something in the language they use at school, while in their language at home, they have a different vocabulary available to them. Two different studies confirmed this, and also showed that about 30-37% of bilingual children’s vocabulary is composed of double translations – i.e. the same concept expressed in two languages.

7. Do bilingual people translate in their head from one language to another?

Mental cross-translation between two languages is a common occurrence early on when one is just starting to learn a second language. However, as proficiency grows in the second language, speakers start to speak naturally without translation.

8. How can parents support their bilingual children’s language acquisition?

One of the most important ways by which children learn anything is by mirroring their parents, and this holds true for language attitudes. If a child can speak the same two languages that their parents speak, then it falls on the parents to reinforce the weaker language at home. Even if the parents do not speak the child’s second language, it’s important that they provide encouragement and support for learning that language, or else the child may become unmotivated to learn it.

We also provided a list of ways on how to encourage bilingualism at home. Goal setting, gentle mistake correction, and constant exposure to culture in the second language are some of these methods.

9. Do children forgot their learned languages?

Children are very quick to learn new languages, but also very quick to forget them if they’re not maintained. Like an untrained muscle, an unused or unsupported language may wither away. That’s why language support is so important to maintain bilingualism in youth.

10. What approaches should be used to support bilingual children?

Every approach has its own unique advantages and disadvantages. For example, the most popular and easiest to adopt method is the so-called “one person, one language” technique, where the child speaks one language with one parent, and another language with the other. This is very useful for parents with different mother tongues, but it may lead to the minority language not getting as much support.

Another technique involves starting with one language from a young age, and then slowly introducing the new language at the age of 4-5. This is more complex but it ensures strong proficiency in the mother tongue initially.

One of the best ways to learn is to combine home strategies with bilingual education programmers at school. Swiss International School in Dubai’s many bilingual streams are an excellent solution to bilingual support and maintenance, and offer an array of competent mother tongue speakers in many classes who will engage students in their languages of choice.

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Swiss International School in Dubai’s many bilingual streams are an excellent solution to bilingual support and maintenance, and offer an array of competent mother tongue speakers in many classes who will engage students in their languages of choice.

#Primary School Dubai Bi-lingual School in Dubai Schools in Dubai

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gethealthy18-blog · 5 years ago

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8 Income-Building Job Skills You Can Learn at Home

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/8-income-building-job-skills-you-can-learn-at-home/

8 Income-Building Job Skills You Can Learn at Home

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The Internet is an amazing tool for modern families. I have built a business online that helps me balance providing for my family with spending time with them. There are so many ways to use this information at your fingertips to improve your income-earning ability on your own schedule.

If you’re looking for a second income stream for your family, or want to expand your skills for more flexible career options, online learning is a great way to do that.

Job Skills You Can Learn Online

Whether you’re interested in starting a business or want to build marketable skills, online learning is a great way to go. I love learning new skills and encourage my kids to do the same. Here are some ideas for marketable skills you can master, some in just a few weeks or months:

Coding

Our world is becoming more digital every day, and coding is in demand. Even if you don’t plan on being a developer, knowing some basic coding is a great skill to have. It can be especially helpful if you run a website or do business online. Codecademy is my family’s favorite resource for learning to code but there are other resources listed below that also offer coding education.

Blogging

I created Wellness Mama as a way to help more people live healthier lives with my limited time. I couldn’t meet with as many one-on-one clients with little ones at home so the blog became an easier way to reach those clients.

While blogging is certainly hard work, it does offer some flexibility and time freedom that moms (especially) need. If you’re interested in blogging, I recommend this course because it walks you through building a blog from the very beginning.

If you’re curious, read my blogging story or check out my full list of favorite blogging resources.

Photography

If you have an eye for noticing great shots, photography is a great way to make some extra money (or to build a thriving full-time business). But you may need to hone your skills before trying to market them. Luckily there are many options for improving your photography skills in the list below.

There are a lot of ways you can go with photography. From weddings to portraits to stock photos, you’ll be able to find a course or two that will help you learn the kind of photography you are interested in. Try Skillshare or Udemy for reasonably priced self-paced or live courses.

Writing

As online business soars, so does demand for written content. Writing is another great way to make money from home. If you have basic writing skills you can easily learn how to make money writing.

First, you’ll want to decide what kind of writing you like to do. Are you into news, investigative journalism, lifestyle writing, or fiction? Do you have expertise that would lend itself to technical writing? Or, if you have a marketing or sales background, you might consider copywriting.

You may need to take a course (check the list below) on your chosen form of writing to build your skills so you can build a business! Writing skills are also marketable in many traditional jobs as well, putting you ahead of other applicants.

Learn a Language

We live in a global world, so knowing more than one language is increasingly helpful in business and life. Knowing a second (or third!) language can put you at the top of the list for new jobs or promotions at your current job. My family uses DuoLingo for casual (and fun!) language learning. Skillshare also offers a number of language courses (including American Sign language).

We also love The Mimic Method for a fun way to learn by ear that’s very different from traditional classroom learning (I even did a podcast on the method.)

Video Editing

It’s easy to learn how to edit video (using apps like Premiere or iMovie) with all of the online options available. Once you know how to edit video using one app, it’s easy to switch to another if needed. If you have these skills you can edit video for YouTubers and others who need videos edited regularly. You can also teach others how to edit video for another income stream. Linkedin Learning has lots of video editing courses to choose from but you’ll find them on most of the websites listed below as well.

Public Speaking

Learning to speak in front of a crowd is tough for most people, which is why it’s such a great skill to learn! Whether you’re interested in becoming a speaker or just want an additional skill to list on your resume, public speaking is an easy skill to learn at home using Coursera. Public speaking skills can also help if you want to be a video creator on YouTube or a podcast creator.

Finance

There are many ways that gaining finance skills can be helpful in your life and career. Whether you’re just interested in refining your personal finance skills or you want to learn about stocks, bonds, and investment portfolios, financial knowledge is very marketable today. Coursera is a great place to look first since their courses are often free and are provided through many Ivy league schools.

Online Learning for Business

If you have some basic skills in a certain discipline but need to improve to be able to market that skill, I highly recommend using online resources to build your competency. You’re likely to find the exact class you’re looking for on one of these sites:

Udemy

This is one of my favorite homeschooling resources and I’ve taken several of their classes myself (Japanese, anyone?). Udemy is a place where professionals, teachers, and experienced workers create amazing content to share their skills. Udemy uses a pay per course model which is great for people who need extra time to finish each course. Prices are low (some are free) so this is a great place to look to start building new skills. Check them out here.

Skillshare

This subscription site offers 22,000 courses for a low monthly fee. Courses range from minimalist living to coding so you’re sure to find something that suits your interests or goals. Because you pay one price for access to all of the courses, you could potentially take multiple courses for one low fee. Get started here.

Ultimate Bundles

I have loved Ultimate Bundles for years now, where you can purchase the best e-books and digital content on a topic all at once at one low price. They have bundles that focus on business, blogging, productivity, homemaking, and more. The Ultimate Bundles Business Bundle in particular is a collection of e-books and digital resources to help you build your business at a steep discount. The bundle only comes around once or twice a year so you have to keep your eyes peeled for it. But it’s well worth the wait! Follow their bundle calendar here.

LinkedIn Learning (Lynda.com)

LinkedIn Learning has a huge collection of courses in a variety of disciplines. It’s a monthly subscription, and then you have access to any courses you want. These courses are taught by industry leaders so you can grow in your current career or pivot into a new one. Since it’s connected to LinkedIn, one of the most credible networking and job search platforms, you can be sure the skills are relevant and in demand. See what they offer.

Accredited College Courses Online

Many accredited and Ivy league schools are offering their classes online for free or reduced costs. Courses are in a wide variety of topics from child nutrition to Einstein’s theory of relativity.

EdX.org – You can audit the classes for free or get a certification for a small fee. Access classes from universities such as Harvard and UC Berkeley.

Coursera – This website offers courses from a variety of universities. You can audit the classes for free or pay a fee to get full access to graded assignments and certifications. There’s also financial aid available, making Coursera a great option for many people.

Class Central – Similar to the above websites, but Class Central also lists some courses that are housed on other websites. This course website focuses on free courses in particular.

Many universities also have their online classes available directly on their website, so check those out as well.

Job Skills to Learn at Home

It doesn’t take long to find a course or set of courses that can teach you anything you want to know. It can be a tough balance, but as busy parents being able to learn from home in the time we have is so important.

It’s true, sometimes online learning can’t replace the hands-on variety. Still, advances in technology and streaming have made incredible resources available from experts we once would have had to travel or even move to learn from!

Another advantage of learning at home: our kids get to see our example that learning never stops! We encourage our kids to use screen time to research creative interests or build skills that translate into real-life results. They’ve become interested in entrepreneurship right along with us.

If you are looking to build skills so you can start a business or apply for an amazing job, consider learning through the websites listed above.

Have you ever tried any of these online learning options? What business skills are you interested in learning from home?

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/425621/learn-job-skills/

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anewhope4change-blog · 6 years ago

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Speak Up

It can be difficult for a person to rapidly switch the lens through which she views the world. Individuals are molded from an early age to recognize what is generally accepted in their society. When these guidelines are too closely followed, it deters individuals from speaking up lest they are shunned from society. As a result, it can make it nearly impossible for social improvements to be made due to the increased attitude of apathy. To combat this, Allen Ginsberg and Saul Williams express the importance of fighting back against the constructs that control a society.

A common term that many people are familiar with is the idea of the American Dream. It glorifies the concept of an individual “making it on [her] own if [she has] the will power, stamina, and intestinal fortitude to survive and compete” (Banks 168). However, as many have come to find out, this type of concept is not always the easiest one to follow. Even if a person does all that she can, there are usually other extrinsic roadblocks that automatically make certain dreams become impossible. In fact, research states that there is “scientific evidence that this very strategy is driving society into disconnection, despair, and even poor health” (168). This is only one of the examples in which society puts its belief into something that can be detrimental. It is a limiting mindset that controls the actions and behaviors of an individual trying to follow the idea. This type of situation ultimately offers the question about what needs to be done to break free from the social constructs and obstacles that choke America’s culture. It helps to have and to utilize an outlet of expression in order to be heard. Allen Ginsberg begins by demonstrating this through his poetry, most notably in “Howl.”

Following the post-war era in America, there were still instances of social restraints placed upon society due to widespread conformity. It ultimately led to the movement of the Beat Generation. Members of this demonstration were known for paving the road for “a refreshing new age of social and literary freedoms” by denouncing what was wrongfully controlling their culture (Theado 748). As a prominent figure of the Beat Generation, Ginsberg did just that. In “Howl,” he expresses what he has seen happen to his society and how it has affected his fellow members of the Beat Generation.

The poem itself is an example of protest that is broken up into three parts. The first portion explains who is feeling wronged by the forced conformity. He then continues on to the second part, which explains what it is exactly that is causing these feelings. Finally, he manages to finish the poem on more of a hopeful note. However, the overall message that he is hoping to convey is an impactful one. Seen especially during the second part of the poem, he personifies the effects of consumerism through Moloch. Moloch is a “deity associated in biblical sources with the practice of child sacrifice” (“Moloch”). By explaining how Moloch, “whose blood is running money,” is also the “smoke-stacks and antennae [that] crown the cities,” Ginsberg is making the connection that society is the one being sacrificed to consumerism (Ginsberg lines 28-29 and 32-33). Furthermore, consumerism is damaging to the overall culture. Years following Ginsberg’s poem, Saul Williams created a piece that further demonstrates how society should fight back against the standards put into motion by America’s culture.

Similar to Ginsberg’s “Howl,” Saul Williams’ “Coded Language” is a poem that protests against what he sees occurring around him. Highlighting an issue that is seen in modern America today, he expresses his concern with how oversaturated the media has become. It holds society within its hands and essentially has limited the minds of everyone. He states that “the current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the diet of an infant” (Williams lines 32-33). Ultimately, he is arguing that individuals in society are no longer given the tools to accurately stretch and train their minds. There is a certain stopping point in which they no longer are able to freely express their ideas and opinions. Furthermore, he pointedly states that “now is the time to self-actualize” (line 19). The Theory of Self-Actualization “is the process of achieving one’s own full potential or the hidden potentials through creativity, autonomy, spontaneity and vibrant understanding of what one’s desires and wishes” (Tripathi and Moakumla 499). As such, Williams is proclaiming the importance of regaining the drive to want to be better. Especially in the environment seen today in the media, individuals need to remember that they have a voice.

Another important element that both poems utilize is calling out to real instances and people. Ginsberg calls out to the struggles of his fellow Beat members as they were “the best minds of [his] generation destroyed by madness” (Ginsberg line 1). However, most notable in his work is his repeated cry to Carl Solomon, the person to which “Howl” is dedicated to. Similarly, Saul Williams lists many prominent names ranging from Lennon to Nostradamus. Each person or place on Williams’ list is significant in causing change one way or another. By involving real examples into their works, Ginsberg and Williams make it feel more tangible and relatable to the current audience. When readers are able to feel like they connect to a piece, the lesson being told will become more effective in the long run. Perhaps it will motivate the audience to be on the next list of influential figures.

Overall, Ginsberg and Williams were not only poets but also activists wishing to open the eyes of their audience. It can be easy to fall into the monotonous cycle of what the media and culture feeds to its victims, but that is no excuse to become apathetic. Just because something feels familiar does not mean that it is always the best option. If anything, both poems should be a motivating factor for people to want to change the antiquated standards that have been set in motion. Furthermore, learning from past experiences of other individuals allows a society to understand how to continue moving forward. These types of changes will not happen overnight, but it can be gradually worked on.

Works Cited

Banks, Amy. “Developing the Capacity to Connect.” Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, vol. 46, no. 1, Mar. 2011, pp. 168–182. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.2010.01164.x.

Ginsberg, Allen. “Howl.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl.“Moloch.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 26 Feb. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moloch-ancient-god.

Theado, Matt. “Beat Generation Literary Criticism.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 45, no. 4, Winter 2004, pp. 747–761. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/cli.2005.0010.

Tripathi, Nishi, and Moakumla. “A Valuation of Abraham Maslow’s Theory of Self-Actualization for the Enhancement of Quality of Life.” Indian Journal of Health & Wellbeing, vol. 9, no. 3, Mar. 2018, pp. 499–504. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=129285067&site=ehost-live&scope=site.Williams,

Saul. “Coded Language.” Coded Language Lyrics, https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/4811860/Saul Williams/Coded Language

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imagineclaireandjamie · 8 years ago

Note

For FMM- Jamie meets this guy named Murray, that comes from a Scottish family and for the story he tells Jamie he could be a descendant of Jenny and Ian.

Flood my Mornings: Hogmanay

Notes from Mod Bonnie:

This story takes place in an AU in which Jamie travels through the stones two years after Culloden and finds Claire and his child in 1950 Boston.

See all past installments via Bonnie’s Master List

Previous installment: Flood my (Christmas) Mornings

December 31, 1950

“Is it ridiculous that I’m feeling nervous as a girl on the first day of school?” I asked, smoothing my coat with one hand and squeezing Bree’s hand with the other as we waited in the tidy hallway outside the MacAlister’s door.

“You’ve no reason, lass,” Jamie assured me. I knew he wanted to put his arm around my back, but his hands were full of whisky bottles and Bree’s diaper bag. He did manage to lean in and kiss my cheek. “They’ll take to ye just fine.”

This particular get-together was long overdue. I’d been delighted to learn about Jamie’s serendipitous meeting with the Irish hurling group, and the subsequent connection with the lone Scot, Charlie MacAlister. Though Jamie had gone several times since to join the game or else get a drink one-on-one with Charlie (apparently a chap after Jamie’s own heart in many ways), the several times we had tried to schedule a family dinner since Halloween, the fates had always seen fit to intervene, with holidays, birthdays, morning sickness, et cetera, et cetera.

Fitting, though, that at long last, we should be spending this thoroughly Scottish holiday with a thoroughly Scottish (well, Gaelic, collectively) family.

The door opened with a bang and a roar of “A GOOD NEW YEAR TO YE!!”

Even in the first five seconds of our acquaintance, Charlie MacAlister gave me so strong a recollection of a MacKenzie clansman, I felt like I’d been jolted back into Castle Leoch itself. Jocular, irreverent, fiercely protective and loyal to a fault, those men had alternately vexed and delighted and protected and astounded me with their vigor and kindness and overall enthusiasm for living, in all its forms.

Perhaps that’s why it didn’t perturb me in the slightest that Jamie’s friend’s choice greeting was to lift me clear off my feet in a massive rib-crushing hug; and even though it was the first time I was laying eyes on the man, I couldn’t help but laugh and hug him back , brimming with warmth and affection at once. “Well, hello to you too!” I felt Jamie relax behind me: I’d given my permission, so he would not come to my rescue. I thought I could actually sense him grinning.

“I’m so glad to finally meet ye, Claire!” Charlie boomed as he set me back on the ground, taking me in. “From the way Jamie speaks of ye—” His eyes suddenly lit up and he whipped them up to Jamie with a grin. “Why, ye wicked wee dog, Fraser: ye didna say!!” He threw his head back and roared with, “Meal a naidheachd to ye both!” He straightened to give me a wink. “When are ye due, then, lass?”

“CHARLIE!!!” barked a red-haired woman behind him, his wife, Saoirse.

“What? It’s—” Charlie spluttered and made vague gestures between himself and my notably curved belly. “I’m only—”

“You’re only about making a fool of yourself, Charlie Mac. Keep your mouth shut, if you please?” She gave me an apologetic look that was nonetheless warm and kind. “Please be accepting BOTH our apologies for that great gowl over there.” After greeting Jamie, she turned and swatted her husband hard on the shoulder, her eyes blazing as she said between clenched teeth. “Have you no control over that tongue??”

“I do—and ye tend to like my control of it, lass…” and he bent her head back to kiss her thoroughly. She tried to push him away but she couldn’t resist laughing as his hands roamed and she relented and kissed him back.

God, this. THIS I’d missed—to see another couple who loved our same kind of irreverence and warmth and informality. Husbands and wives in these times—at least in post-war America—tended to err on the side of reserve in public, bordering on primness. Even Tom and Marian, as dear as they both were to to us, weren’t free with public displays of affection toward each other. Jamie and I tended to act precisely the way we wished and damn whoever should judge us for it, but it was unbelievably refreshing to not be the only ones in the room who would not be scandalized by lewd jokes.

On top of that, “Pregnancy” was considered a rather rude word, in American culture at present. Considering the massive increase in childbearing after the war, this seemed an enormously ridiculous cultural hangup (“be fruitful and multiply, but pretend the penises and vaginas don’t exist”). Those in the family way —as I now found myself—were treated with a delicate, pointed kind of embarrassment, as if to say, ‘look what she’s been doing…Heavens, what if she actually enjoyed it??’

I was used to the taboo, of course, having experienced it with Bree, and seen it around me, since; but it was an unexpected kind of relief to have it be so singled out with such joy and goodwill by these new friends. In fact, I was grinning like a prize idiot as I assured them both, “It’s quite alright, really.” I felt a rush of joy and pride at finally being able to share our news. I felt Jamie’s hand resting on my back. “You’ve spotted it right: we are expecting!”

Charlie gave a crow of triumph “I thought you’d been a little shifty these last few months about ‘family’ and things happening next year! When will the wean be arriving, then??”

“Late July,” I said, “or it might be the first of August.”

Charlie stepped forward to clap both of us on the back, at which Saoirse looked absolutely mortified. I made a point of reassuring her when she leaned in to kiss me on the cheek and offer her own comhghairdeas.

Jamie accepted the hearty congratulations, grinning like a fool himself, “Let’s keep it between us, aye? We havena told Brianna yet.” He nodded at the children, who were already playing on the living room floor. “Perhaps talk in a wee code if it should come up?”

Saoirse nodded agreement. “Wee Nolan has ears like a hare and a mouth like a magpie.” She gave a pointed roll of the eyes. “Wonder who he could possibly be getting it from…?”

It had all the same modern conveniences as our own house, the MacAlister’s little flat, but something about it—the spices, maybe?—or—no, that wasn’t it….Something about it just felt like Scotland. Like home.

If nothing else, I could see it in Jamie’s posture and manner. As for my own country of birth, I had rarely felt any great attachment to England that went beyond good tea and rolling hills. Home had been wherever I laid my head that night, and between Uncle Lamb, the war, and my experiences in the eighteenth century, I’d certainly spent more of my life amongst strangers than my own proper countrymen. But Jamie was Scotland, through and through, and even this small taste of it—Americanized and quasi-Irish as it might be—was enough to make him glow with an ease that filled my own heart in the seeing. He was happy with our life in Boston, I knew; blissful, even! To have our family together and safe was all he desired; but something about experiencing that deeper home-ness again was a restorative to his soul, and I thanked God for putting Charlie Mac in Jamie’s path. It was pure delight to see the two of them going on in rapid Gaelic, like brothers.

“They’re like two pups together, aren’t they?” Saoirse said fondly, echoing my silent thoughts as she took a seat beside me on the sofa.

“Indeed they are,” I laughed, looking at them through the dining room doorway.

Saoirse was as red-haired as Jamie, freckled and cheery-eyed. “Will you be speakin’ the Gaelidgh yourself, Claire?”

“Very little,” I attempted in that language, my accent horrendous but the words correct, I was fairly certain.

“Very well done,” she replied, laughing before switching back to English, her Irish accent broad and unashamed. “That’s about as much as I know of it, myself. My parents weren’t too keen on my marrying a Scot, but I’ve no regrets. Except maybe Charlie’s tendency to put his fool foot in his fool mouth.”

“It’s rather endearing, actually,” I assured her.

Despite herself, Saoirse grinned. “Damn me if it wasn’t one of the things that had me head-over-heels for the idiot.”

We laughed and settled deeper into the comfy couch, covered over with homey afghans. “So, Charlie tells me you and Jamie met in Scotland, originally? Did ye like it, there?”

“I did!” I paused just for a moment. “Well, to tell it true, a lot of sad things happened there…but we had some of our happiest days, as well,” I added, thinking of those days at Lallybroch before the war.

“Do you think you’ll ever go back?”

I thought about that for a long while. “To visit, certainly. When Brianna and—” I gestured to the baby, “are old enough to see and hear the stories, I think.”

“You’d never think of moving back permanently? Seems to be a dream of Charlie’s—It’d surprise me if Jamie had no similar desire.”

We had indeed talked about it, and I knew Jamie’s very conflicted thoughts on the matter. “Part of him wishes for Scotland, yes—but it’s a Scotland that’s long-gone.”

That surprised her. “How so?”

“Jamie had…a lot of hard things happen to him there. He lost his family, and so doesn’t have anyone left.”

“Not a soul?”

“No one,“ I said, feeling the ache of it. I rubbed the baby absently. “So, he misses it, the land and its people and ways, but there isn’t anyone left in Scotland to make it home for him.”

“That’s very sad,” Saoirse murmured, sparing a glance toward the men in the dining room.

“It is. But you see, it’s easier to have our life in America: to keep Scotland in his mind the way it was, rather than feel the ache of it, seeing always what’s missing.”

“Aye, I understand….At least he has his lady—and his little ones.”

We shared a smile, and I wanted to ask her more about her own family, but just then the children descended, Bree, four-year-old Nolan, and little Will, just barely walking. No impromptu migration, this: the pack of them squealed in, chased by their fathers at their heels.

“You lot are no better than the children!” I laughed.

“Aye, maybe no’,” Jamie agreed, grinning, “But at least we’re old enough to drink, and they’re not.”

“I AM!” Nolan insisted. “I’m plenty grow’d up!”

“Oh, aye, to be sure,” Charlie said with a wink. “I forgot we had a grown wee mannie in our midst.” He went to the kitchen and returned with an armful of ginger ale bottles. “A man needs a stiff drink.” He cracked open a lid and handed the glass bottle to his son, who looked terribly important at acknowledgment of his maturity.

Bree was NOT intending to be overlooked. She put on her hips and insisted, “I’M mannie, TOO!” daring Charlie to say otherwise.

Nor did he, bless him. He already had a bottle ready for her. “Here ye go, wee mannie.”

Bree had never had soda pop before, and she recoiled in surprise at first taste of the bubbly treat, looking as thought she’d rather skip this novelty; but, a true Fraser, she would never admit defeat with Nolan so proudly enjoying his, and so she gamely drank, getting violent hiccups almost instantly.

“A Hogmanay toast?” Saoirse suggested, rising to her feet to pour some whisky. She offered one to me, but I accepted only a ginger ale. Many people drank alcohol regularly during pregnancy, I knew (as had I, in the past) but somehow now it made me feel ill to think of accidentally intoxicating the poor thing.

The toasts flew thick and fast. To our families! To the new year! To a better season on the pitch! To the whisky! And even—

“To our Bonnie Prince!” Charlie said, with an eye to Jamie, making a rude gesture toward the ceiling. “May he sleep wi’ spiders in his grave for the feckless wanker he was.”

“AAA-bloody-MEN!” I intoned with feeling.

“Aye,” Jamie said with a rueful nod as he drank, though he crossed himself.

He promptly choked as Bree squeaked out, “Whatssa WANE-gr?”

Before the rest of us could react, Nolan grinned fiendishly and started in with, “It means a–”

“That’s QUITE enough from you, a blalaich,” Saoirse said sharply. “And what would Great-Gran Murray say if she heard ye were knowing such a word??”

I shook with silent laughter along with Charlie, such that I almost didn’t hear Jamie’s quiet question:

“…Murray?”

My belly tightened and I whipped my eyes up to look at him. He’d schooled his face into a mask of control—a sure bellwether of the deep emotional turmoil within him.

Good Lord….

“My mother’s mam. They live together in Cambridge,” Charlie said blithely as he poured more whiskey all around. “The MacAlisters were none too pleased about my Da’s choice, but even they had to admit in the end what a fine woman she was. Strong and certain and wi’ a mouth on her that could wither fruit. Not one to charm royalty, she, but a damn formidable sort, Murrays.”

Formidable. Like Jenny.

“From, erm, which part of Scotland, is your mother’s family?” I asked casually.

“Roundabout Inverness, mostly.”

My heart quickened with excitement. Not far at all from Broch Morda. I was opening my mouth to ask more questions, to narrow and ascertain, but then I caught Jamie’s eye, his ever-so-slight shake of the head. I closed my mouth.

Later, after supper, while Charlie and Saoirse cleared the table (refusing our many offers of help), Jamie and I took the children into the sitting room again.

I took Jamie’s hand. “Why not, my love?” I asked gently.

He knew what I meant, but he didn’t answer right away, nor did he look me in the eye. He pulled me close and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

“Does it—” I began tentatively, but he was already speaking.

“Tis enough to me,” he said, simply, “that they might be.”

And though it at first struck me as utterly ridiculous, not to wish to know for certain, I did come to understand what he meant, as the evening went on. To KNOW was so final. Jenny and Ian certainly had THOUSANDS of descendants, and even so, the chances that we’d encountered someone from their direct line was highly unlikely, or at the very least, very difficult to prove. To allow himself to believe–that was the gift, here.

And I could see it in his eyes, the soft contemplation of it, the sense of true brotherhood between he and Charlie now even deeper. The tenderness that radiated out from his face as he knelt to speak to little Will about a toy. I could almost see the thoughts rolling through him.

Might some scrap of this lad owe itself to Ian?

To Jenny?

To Ellen of Leoch or Black Brian Fraser?

Aye…it might.

“Bree, a leannan, do ye want to come sit wi’ Da?”

“No,” she said, shrugging back and rubbing her face, “I wan’ Mama.”

“Fair enough,” he laughed. “I would want your Mama, too.”

“Come here, baby,” I beckoned, groaning a bit as I gathered her up against my chest. “Oof, there’s my sweet girl.” I savored the feeling, as I always did, of holding Bree in my arms and the baby in my body. The sounds around us were muffled and distant as we settled into a warm heap of love.

The radio was switched on at 10:00, detailing the new year’s celebrations happening around the country. We’d arrived late in the evening, with the little ones having taken naps late in the day to stave off sleepiness, but the late hour was still wearing on them. Hot chocolate and slices of Black Bun cake at 11:00 were enough to rouse them temporarily, but it still took a great deal to get them all conscious for the big moment as we all got to our feet for the final seconds of 1950.

5…4…3…2…1!!!!

And as it always did, Auld lang syne began to play. It meant absolutely nothing to Jamie, of course. He had predated Robert Burns and his lyrics, and couldn’t have discerned the tune in any case, but he listened to the words with eager interest. Charlie was drowning out the radio with the traditional scots rendition, though I only knew the same anglicized version that was playing.

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and auld lang syne?

And for the first time in my life, with my children held close and Jamie’s arm around my back, the song gave me chills:

We two have run about the slopes,

and picked the daisies fine;

But we’ve wandered many a weary foot

since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,

from morning sun till dine

But seas between us broad have roared

since auld lang syne.

And both of us had tears running down our faces as we locked eyes. No, we wouldn’t ever forget the things of our past: neither the daisies of our life, nor the weary feet from the trampings of war, nor the roaring seas of tragedy that had indeed once swept us apart.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!

And give me a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

And as we moved toward the front door for the first-footing, I kissed my trusty friend, and didn’t need to see any dark stranger outside to know that 1951 would be the best year of our lives.

#Anonymous #;mod bonnie #Flood my mornings

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nic-and-annie-in-france · 6 years ago

Text

Normandy

(long post warning)

It was a short train ride from Paris to Rouen, but the atmosphere completely changed from one city to another. Instead of the stately Haussmannian apartments and broad, straight boulevards, Rouen had narrow cobblestone streets and rickety-looking half-timbered houses. Our Airbnb studio adhered to Rouen’s dress code: it had exposed beams, exposed brick, and wide windows. It was as cozy as a hobbit hole and perfect for the carryout pizza dinner we ate there on our first night.

We got up early to begin exploring Rouen the next morning. It was sunny but chilly and foggy. Because of our visit to the Monet museum in Paris, we knew that Monet had painted a cathedral in Rouen several times. Within five minutes, we found a church that looked just like the paintings we had seen. We strolled around the quiet courtyard, enjoying the hint of mystery that the fog gave the church. After consulting our map, though, we realized the cathedral that Monet painted was still a half-mile away. We felt silly for the mistake, but still really enjoyed this church (which was actually an abbey), and wondered how the cathedral could be any more awe-inspiring than this place. When we visited the actual cathedral, we didn’t fully appreciate it because we were spending all our attention on avoiding an aggressive panhandler who was accosting each and every person in the square. So, the abbey holds a fonder place in my memory than the cathedral does.

In my preparation for the trip, I learned that Joan of Arc spent some time in Rouen, and that she played a significant role in Rouen’s tourism industry. But apart from the vague memory of a Wishbone episode about her, I knew next to nothing about Joan of Arc before coming to Rouen. We saw a few plaques around the city inscribed with things like “This is where Joan of Arc’s abjuration happened,” and “This is where Joan of Arc was imprisoned,” so little by little we learned more about her story. Then, we went to a museum (for lack of a better word) about her life. The building itself was where part of her trial took place, but that was the only thing about the museum that was authentic to the time period. Her story was told by videos of reenactors, projected so that they looked like they were really moving about the space. The idea was that we were watching Joan of Arc’s posthumous second trial, where witnesses were called and arguments were made to determine whether she was really a heretic or just wrongfully sentenced. I almost always prefer authentic artifacts over copies or reconstructions in history museums. But I thought this “museum” did a great job of compensating for its lack of extant artifacts from Joan of Arc’s life with engaging storytelling. I left the museum wanting to know a lot more about her life. I guess Nicolas did too, because he checked out an ebook about her that same night.

Our second full day in Rouen was dedicated to hiking and enjoying the outdoors. After spending our Christmas break in exclusively big cities, I realized that hiking is one of my very favorite types of sightseeing, and it was something I wanted to try to do more of in this trip. The trouble, though, is transportation. Before the trip, I spent more time and energy than I care to admit poring over maps and timetables to try to find the simplest way to some trailheads near Rouen. Every bit of the preparation was necessary. Two of the four bus stops we used were displaced from their normal spot because of construction going on nearby. Once we were riding the bus, I obsessively switched between Rouen’s public transit app and my hiking app to make absolutely sure that we got off on the right stop. We made it through the whole day with no transportation crises, which felt like a major accomplishment. And the hikes were wonderful! We walked up a hill to see a panoramic view of the city, and as we were going up the path, I realized that it had been quite a while since my feet had walked on grass. On our second hike, we walked through the cutest village, passing a chapel, horse farms, and bed and breakfasts until we entered some nearby woods. We could almost trick ourselves into believing that we were walking through a slightly flatter Kentucky.

Towards the end of our hike, we entered a still-smaller village composed solely of very expensive-looking homes. As we walked by a hedgerow, a prissy little dog bounded through a gap in the hedges to greet us. We said hi to the dog as we passed, and kept walking. But the little dog followed us, all the way to the next house. I thought the dog would eventually return home, but Nicolas was worried that the dog would get lost, or that we would be accused of dog-napping. We decided to turn back and try to quietly coax the dog back into its yard. The dog, smiling stupidly all the time, refused to acquiesce at first, but we finally got the dog to go home.

This dog episode, and the few other times I have interacted with people’s pets in France, always reminds me that I have no clue how to talk to dogs in a foreign language. Surely “Bonjour” is too formal to say to a dog? But then again, if I’ve never met the dog before, is “Salut” or “Coucou” too presumptuous? Of course, a dog can neither speak French nor English, so what difference does it make? But if a French person hears me, will they be weirded out to hear me speaking English to their dog? It’s a conundrum.

After Rouen, our next stop was Le Havre. It was much less charming than Rouen, but then again, it was a beach town in the off season. We stayed in a slightly shabby beach condo, which we especially appreciated for its free washer and dryer. We spent one of our days in Le Havre sightseeing: we visited its impressive modern art museum and its public library, which looks exactly like a giant roll of toilet paper.

The other day we spent taking a daytrip to the nearby town of Étretat, known for its white cliffs immortalized in some Monet paintings. Étretat was quaint and tiny; we saw most of it in a 30-minute walk around town. We brought a picnic to the rocky beach and ate it under the watchful eyes of the seagulls. We spent a lot of time staring up at the sheer white cliffs. Several times now we’ve recognized a building or landscape from a famous painting, and it’s an experience that never gets old for me. I especially enjoy seeing the places depicted in impressionist paintings. So much of impressionism is based in the idea of representing a fleeting moment in time—the weather, the time of day, the effect of the wind and the light—rather than a thing or a place. So in this sense, I still can’t say I’ve seen what Monet or Pissarro saw and painted, because I wasn’t present for that exact moment 100 years ago. Nevertheless, it feels very special to have captured my own fleeting moment in my brain, a moment that still has an element in common with something Monet saw with his own eyes. After lunch, we took the trail up the hill to the top of the cliffs. It was a beautiful, breathtaking walk. And the weather was better than we could ever have asked for. We even felt the need to put on sunscreen!

The last place we stayed was Caen. Nicolas was feeling a little dizzy and nauseous the day we arrived there, and we were both tired of constantly walking around, so we scrapped our itinerary for the day and stayed in our Airbnb. It was a tiny loft under the eaves of an old apartment building in the historic district. We kept hitting our heads on the sloped ceilings, but the views from the skylight windows were amazing. We spent the day relaxing on the pullout couch. Given my overachiever, workaholic tendencies, it pains me sometimes to deviate from the plan, or to not do all the things in a new place. But it felt good to be a little spontaneous and listen to our bodies’ need for rest. Because of this change of plans, I can’t say I know very much about the city of Caen. But when we went out to buy some groceries for dinner that evening, we got to see two abbeys built by William the Conqueror. These religious buildings were a lot different from the ones we had seen elsewhere in France. The stone looked orange in the evening sunlight and the steeples were really, uh, steep. According to the sign in front, William wanted to marry his first cousin, but the Church didn’t like that, so he offered to build the abbeys in exchange for the Church’s approval of the marriage. The marriage happened, and the abbeys survive to this day. I’m sure there’s more to Caen than one-limbed family trees and bribery, but that’s all we got the chance to learn about.

The next day, we set of for the train station early in the morning, and we took a 15-minute train ride to Bayeux, a neighboring small town. There, we saw a medieval tapestry recounting the story of William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings (why does that sound like a Harry Potter spinoff?). From what I had been exposed to at UK, I knew that I wasn’t super interested in medieval studies, but the tapestry (as well as some medieval things we saw in Paris that I didn’t write about) rekindled my interest in that time period. It’s worth mentioning first that the tapestry is less of a tapestry—there’s no weaving involved—and more of an embroidered comic strip. It was displayed in a dimly lit, V-shaped room long enough to display all 230 feet of the embroidery. An audioguide explained what each panel depicted, occasionally drawing our attention to certain details of the construction of the embroidery. At the end, there were more exhibits explaining the context of the “tapestry”: how it was made, how it is preserved today, what else was going on in France in the time period, etc. All in all, it was much cooler than I expected. The embroidery itself is an impressive work of art, and it tells the story of William the Conqueror in a dramatic fashion. The novelty of it was part of the fun, too. No disrespect to altarpieces, but we’ve seen enough of them to last us a long time; a thousand-year-old history text in the form of a proto-comic book, by contrast, was quite the sight to behold.

After lunch in Bayeux, we took a guided tour to the nearby beaches of Normandy. The tour was intended for Americans, as it was conducted in English and went to three main American points of interest: the American cemetery, the Pointe du Hoc, and Omaha Beach. On the tour, we met three women from Tampa who were taking a “girls trip” around Europe. We had been hearing snippets of American tourists’ conversations all around Paris, but it felt good to finally socialize with some of our own for a few hours. Our guide was a Dutch-Indonesian man who told us a little bit about the Battle of Normandy and told us a lot about the moderately successful Dutch hip-hop group he was in during the 80s and 90s. I did learn some new things, though, especially at Pointe du Hoc. It was the site of a German stronghold that American Rangers captured by scaling the seaside cliffs and taking out German heavy artillery stationed there. When we visited, we got to explore an underground German bunker, something I never expected to be able to do in my life. Above ground, the craters left by aerial attacks were still there, but grass and yellow wildflowers had regrown over them, giving the place the sloping, manicured look of a golf course rather than a battlefield. Together with the seaside and the cliffs, the whole place was eerily beautiful. To me it was a physical representation of the axiom that time (maybe with the help of tourism money) heals all wounds.

Our final day of sightseeing was spent at Mont-Saint-Michel, the village that becomes an island at high tide. We took a Flixbus there from Caen. It was hard to see the road from our seats, but based on the amount of times the driver honked at other people on the road, I think our lives may have been in danger a time or two. We arrived safely, however, then walked about 45 minutes from the parking lot to the town itself. We stopped several times as we walked to admire the view: a rocky hill jutting up from the flat floodplain into the sky, the spire of the abbey at the top reaching ever upward. The view was stunning, but the strong winds on the plains carried the even stronger smell of cow patties with them. After a few minutes the smell became overpowering, but at least it reminded us of home.

The commune itself was a quirky place. The narrow streets, lined with quaint-looking but overpriced little restaurants and shops, spiraled upwards to the abbey at the top of the mount. My favorite part was walking around the ramparts, which allowed us a little more room to breathe, and gave us views of the farms on one side and the English Channel on the other. There were seagulls everywhere, and they sometimes flew against the wind so that they hovered in place like a kite. We spent the first little while wandering around and enjoying the atmosphere: whimsical, as if such an impossible place could only exist by magic…and yet, intentionally made to seem that way. I did my best to suspend my disbelief.

Our day at Mont-Saint-Michel was, amazingly, our only rainy day in our two weeks of traveling. We spent as much time as we could indoors as we explored the abbey, but eventually we ran out of inside activities we could do that we were willing to pay for. We decided to head back a little early to the welcome center on the mainland. We took the opportunity to sit somewhere soft, decompress, and use some free wifi (which our Airbnb in Caen lacked). Rivers in the desert.

Our day of travel back to our home in the Alps was supposed to be a long one, but I didn’t mind this because we enjoy reading, writing, or watching Netflix on the trains. I had also planned for us to arrive back in Cluses early enough that we could take a bus back home rather than walking. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men. Halfway through our first train ride, we were delayed because of an electrical malfunction at a station further down the line. The conductor came on the loudspeaker several times telling us several different estimations of waiting times. We transferred to trains on parallel tracks four different times as the plan changed. When all was said and done, we arrived in Paris two hours and 46 minutes later than we had anticipated, which meant that we had missed our train going from Paris to the Alps. Our train was not the only one to be delayed, so we waited in many lines to talk to many customer service representatives about getting home. Because it was winter vacation—high season for alpine skiing—our options for returning home weren’t great. Eventually, we decided to wait two hours for the next train, where I would get a seat but Nicolas would have to stand. On this second train, there was yet another delay of about 20 minutes. This put us in danger of missing our connection to our third train. Fortunately, however, the conductor let us know as we approached our stop that the third train was guaranteed to wait at the station for people with connections. This was the last of the difficulty, and we arrived at Cluses safe and sound. Needless to say, we missed the last bus home by a long shot, so we had to walk the two miles to our apartment instead.

This last day of vacation was clearly not my favorite day we’ve spent in France so far. But I was very thankful that this whole ordeal happened towards the end of our time here and not at the beginning. At this point, I have a good understanding of how trains and train stations work here, and I’m more comfortable using my French in complicated situations. Several times throughout the day I tried to imagine my reaction if this had happened on our first day in France while we were lugging around our big suitcases and trying to get to our town for the first time. I probably would have cried, died, and/or gotten on the next plane back home. We had a bad day, but at least it showed me the ways I’ve learned and grown.

#annie #tapif #travel #france

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years ago

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THE COURAGE OF ATTITUDE

When I said I was speaking at a high school student, just as you'd be careful to avoid raising the first from an over-eager investor at a time, they don't have the pressure of other investors. So I seem to have begun by trying to solve.1 You can measure this in your growth rate.2 It should be a lot more money than a job, but it's an everyday thing in Lisp.3 Nearly all your attachment to it comes from it being attached to you. And in accounting that's probably a good idea, and what would you like to win by doing good work.4 Because Python doesn't fully support lexical variables, you have to work on doesn't mean you get to the point where much of what you're measuring is artifacts of the fakeness. I was only going to use the Internet twice a day. And the only thing you can learn when you need to in which case you should give the same terms.5 And the combination is not as critical as it used to be.6

I could only keep one. Sometimes it's because the writer only has very high-level language. Like a lot of implications and edge cases. And they'll help people they haven't invested in too. This is yet another problem that afflicts the sciences: math envy. So why do universities and research labs continue to judge hackers by publications? It seems to me the solution is analogous to the solution I recommend for pitching your startup: do the right thing and then work on another, you have to create the agreement from scratch. In server-based applications on Windows. They don't define what evil is, but how fuzzy it is. Code size is important, because the practice is now quite common. But the good thing about that is that no one now even remembers, and so on. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a media company instead of a technology company.

We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups. All these guys starting startups now are going to be good at what you do? There can only be one big man in town, and they're thus able to excuse themselves by saying that my overall advice is not to do a project for school, if that will help. Just make sure that you and the startup should have lawyers.7 There is actually some data out there about that.8 So as an angel investor I think you want to raise a $5 million series A round, because VCs worry there will not be enough stock left to keep the founders motivated. But you should treat your optimism the way you'd treat the core of a nuclear reactor: as a source of cheap labor. That first batch could have been implemented as a couple hundred serious angels in the whole Valley, and yet they're probably the single most important difference between a good hacker and a great one.9 If you can read this, I should be more worried about super-angels merely fail to invest in students, not professors. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to make Web sites for galleries—that's the ticket!

But in fact you shouldn't. Many investors will ask how much you can raise. If you subject yourself to that constraint, it will rot your brain.10 Without the prospect of an actual job was on the horizon. They feel as if they're doing something completely unrelated.11 Instead treat school as a day job as a waiter. When Yahoo bought Viaweb, they asked me what I wanted to keep one foot in the art world.12 Who are all those people? And then at the other makers. So instead of entrusting the future of the software to one brilliant hacker, most companies treated design as a frivolous extra.13 But you have to carry your weight.

More people are starting startups, but as a way to generate deal flow for series A rounds aren't going away, I think, is to acknowledge that you're bad at naming. There's plenty of empirical evidence: armies, religious cults, and so on. That was not, in Leonardo's time, as cool as his work helped make it.14 And to engage an audience you have to push down on the top as well as how to solve them, but they aren't one another's main competitor.15 We were after the C programmers. But if they don't, the US could be seriously fucked.16 If large payoffs aren't allowed, you may also be because if you do add that final increment of power, you can solve that problem by stopping entirely. Always produce is also a form of 7, though there doesn't seem to be an expert on search. Switching to a new idea every week will be equally fatal.

Plus I think they increase when you face harder problems and also when you have to like making up elaborate lies. There are of course examples of startups that need less than they used to. And he has to do is write checks. In fact, it may be slightly misleading to say that you despised your job, but a greedy algorithm is simply one that doesn't do much of anything—the one we never even hear about new languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be the stars. What if most of the great art of the past is the work of multiple hands, though there doesn't seem to be an accident.17 To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. What you don't often find are kids who react to challenges like adults. It's exciting that there even exist parts of the world where you win by doing good work.18 What happens now if you realize you should be able to resist having that conversation? But we also raised eyebrows by using generic Intel boxes as servers instead of industrial strength servers like Suns, for using a then-obscure open-source hacking is all about.

Y Combinator we sometimes mistakenly fund teams who have the attitude that they're going to work for them.19 He just wanted to talk to you about investing. Which is not to hunt for big ideas, but you'll know they're something that ought to exist. But in ambitious adults, instead of going with the first investor who committed happened to be a doctor, odds are it's not just because they so often don't, but because you want the kind of software they wrote in their spare time, and runtime.20 But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as Micro-soft. But if you're in the same department. How much should you take? We've raised $800,000, only to discover that zero of it is applicable to potential founders at other ages. Now I know a number of people with the necessary skills.21 The easiest program to change is one that's very short. Work with people you like and respect.

Notes

But they've been trained to expect the second phase is less than 500, because what they're building takes so long to launch.

Make sure it works well to show them how awful the real world is boring. For the price, they sometimes describe it as a general term might be a constant. Ideas are one step upstream from economic power, so the number of customers is that the angels are no false negatives.

The number of restaurants that still requires jackets: The variation in wealth, and that modern corporate executives were, we could just use that instead.

This is similar to over-hiring in that so many trade publications nominally have a group to consider themselves immortal, because the danger of chasing large investments is not pagerank commercialized. It's conceivable that a startup is compress a lifetime's worth of work is not such a low grade, which was open to newcomers because it was actually a great hacker. According to Sports Illustrated, the best approach is to carry a beeper? You'd think they'd have something more recent.

Source: Nielsen Media Research. At the time they're fifteen the kids are probably not do that.

It's hard for us. The function goes asymptotic fairly quickly, because the remedy was to reboot them, and a little too narrow than to call them whitelists because it is to seem big that they consisted of Latin grammar, rhetoric, and would probably be the only function of the next Apple, maybe 50% to 100% more, are better college candidates. There may be the more educated ones.

Watt reinvented the steam engine.

Associates at VC firms regularly cold email startups. Startups Condense in America consider acting white. When you fix one bug happens to compensate for another.

Family and Fortune: Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, would increase the size of a placeholder than an actual label—like putting NMI on a hard technical problem. I'd say the rate of improvement is more like Silicon Valley. Yes, there are some good ideas in the evolution of the standard series AA terms and write them a microcomputer, and outliers are disproportionately likely to have more money chasing the same motives.

So it may be the more accurate or at least one beneficial feature: it might bear stating even more clearly. And that is exactly my point. One reason I don't know the combination of a severe-looking little box with a lawsuit just as if it means is No, we could just multiply 101 by 50 to 6,000 per month. More precisely, while the more corrupt the rulers.

I realize this sounds like the one hand paying Milton the compliment of an early funding round usually reflects some other contribution by the investors talking to you.

The first alone yields someone who's stubbornly inert. Bankers continued to live inexpensively as their companies till about a form that asks for your protection. But the change is a fine sentence, but to do that.

Robert Morris points out, First Round excluded their most successful startups looked when they talked about before, but since it was one cause of poverty are only locally accurate, because the ordering system and image generator and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen. Some genuinely aren't. Everything is a meaningful idea for human audiences. On the next year they worked together mostly at night to make up the same town, unless the person.

If you want to sell services than a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and when you say is being able to raise five million dollars in liquid assets are assumed to be significantly pickier. Even now it's hard to game the system? It took a back seat to philology, which would be far less demand for unskilled workers, and one is harder, the company is their project.

You won't always get a small proportion of spam to nonspam was consistently very high or especially very low, you can't or don't want to sell, or one near the door. Publishers are more repetitive than regular email.

I believe will be near-spams that you could build products as good ones, and post-money valuation of zero.

Ii.

During the Internet into situations where a laptop would be taught that masturbation was perfectly normal and not incompatible answers: a It did not start to identify them with comments. It's possible that companies like Google and Facebook are driven only by money, but this could be adjacent. What's the connection?

What has changed over time. I'm not saying option pools themselves will go away. 339-351. Ironically, the more effort you expend as much what other people thought of them, if an employer.

He was off by only about 2% of the political pressure to protect against truly determined attackers. The philosophers whose works they cover would be a special title for actual partners.

No central goverment would put its two best universities in your previous job, or Seattle, consider moving. That case the money. The ironic thing is, it was so violent that she decided never again. But while such trajectories may be a startup to an investor who merely seems like he will fund you one day have an edge over Silicon Valley, the best metaphors for hackers are in a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds.

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swiss-school-blog · 5 years ago

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Does early-life bilingual education cause developmental delays?

Bilingualism is one of the most historically controversial topics in modern education, with a history of debate that goes back to the first half of the 20th century.

Here are seven of the most important questions about bilingualism that can help dispel the widespread misinformation and misconceptions about it.

1. What does it mean to be bilingual?

The best definition of bilingual is simply someone who uses two languages in their daily life, regardless of their proficiency in either.

2. Does early-life bilingual education cause developmental delays?

Besides – more than half the world’s population already raises its children in bilingual or even multilingual environments!

3. Is there a best time for second language acquisition?

Research by cognitive scientist’s shows that native-like language acquisition should start by the age of 10 for maximum effect, with acquisition tapering off by the age of 18

4. Is it bad to mix languages inside sentences?

5. What are the positive effects of bilingualism?

6. Do bilingual children have a smaller vocabulary than their monolingual counterparts?

7. Do bilingual people translate in their head from one language to another?

8. How can parents support their bilingual children’s language acquisition?

We also provided a list of ways on how to encourage bilingualism at home. Goal setting, gentle mistake correction, and constant exposure to culture in the second language are some of these methods.

9. Do children forgot their learned languages?

10. What approaches should be used to support bilingual children?

#Best schools in Dubai #dubai school #dubai international school

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templified · 6 years ago

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How Many Web Sites are There Anyway? How Many Websites Use WordPress? | Templified

New Post has been published on https://templified.com/how-many-web-sites-are-there-anyway-how-many-websites-use-wordpress/

How Many Web Sites are There Anyway? How Many Websites Use WordPress?

I started wondering to myself this morning about just how popular how many websites are there in the world anyway? What percentage of them use WordPress as their content management system? And why is it so popular? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that WordPress is popular, you run across WordPress websites everyday, including top-notch themes. I know why I use WordPress, but what is it about WordPress that makes it so popular? Is there anything that we can glean from these numbers to learn more about this content management system and what its future might hold? Those are some of the questions that I asked myself before writing this post and hopefully, I have done a good enough job of explaining all of the answers.

But before he gets all of that, let’s take a step backward and think about just how many websites there are in the world and how we got to this point so quickly. Geologically speaking anyway. The internet moves pretty fast, I guess 30 years or so is quite a long time to build up to the Staggering number of websites that are currently are on the web.

We’ve come a long, long way since the very first website was launched on the world wide web. The year was 1991, late summer specifically, when info.cern.ch was launched. Pretty crazy, right? For the first couple of years, nothing much happened. Then, the British physicist Tim Berners-Lee made the WWW technology available as a public domain code, which is a lot of why the web began to flourish in the early to mid 90s.

Before that, the same Mr. Berners-Lee had created the World Wide Web in March of 1989. He also created the first web server, the first browser and the first code editor for the web. Berners-Lee created hypertext markup language, HTML and Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP. That’s quite a bit of stuff and all of it laid the groundwork for what would become the modern internet.

So, that’s a little bit of a background. Now then, have you ever taken a moment to think about just…

How Many Websites are There in the World?

According to Internet Live Stats, there are just over 1.7 billion sites in total, as of July, 2019 at least. The numbers are pretty fluid though. That number keeps ticking up though, so by the time you read this, it’s probably a lot more. Check out the live count here.

That sure is a lot of websites. Can you imagine how much work has gone into creating nearly 2 billion sites?

Here’s a fun note, the total number of websites reached the magic milestone of 1 billion sites way back in 2016, but it’s really taken off since then, adding the around 700 million new sites in just three years or so.

Here’s another interesting little tidbit. This graph shows the rapid rise in the total number of sites over the last few years.

You can see, it’s not always a straight line upward, there are some years in there where the number actually went down for a while, including 2018, where it dropped to around 1.6 billion. But, you can’t keep the web down, it’s up over 100 million this year alone.

Wow!

What’s the Total Number of Active Sites in 2019?

That’s sort of the catch. This count is really just registered domains. The actual number of websites that are actively being used at any given time is significantly lower than 1.7 billion.

So these websites all have an IP address and they use a server, each of them has a unique domain name and TLD, they can even be accessed using any browser and sometimes, found via a search on the web.

But none of that means that the site is actually being used. In fact, nearly 90% of all websites are currently inactive. Many of them are parked, redirected to a different domain or completely static and I’m used.

That means that only about 10% of all the websites in the world are being actively used for some sort of function. That lowers the number two about 170 million active websites. That’s still a heck of a lot.

According to Netcraft, the official number as of April, 2019, there were over 185 million active sites online. Back to our other question…

How Popular is WordPress?

You should keep in mind, we are not talking about wordpress.com websites. WordPress.com is a Blog platform, one of the three biggest out there. Currently, it’s second behind Blogspot, Google’s blogging platform. What we were talking about is wordpress.com, the content management system that is used exclusively for self-hosted websites, whether it’s a blog or an e-commerce site, a business site or something else entirely.

WordPress.org makes up about 60% of the world share of content management systems. That means that all of the other CMS’s, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Shopify and all of the other content management systems that you’ve never heard of, they make up less than half of the global share. WordPress is the most popular content management system for the seventh year in a row.

Impressive!

And while WordPress continues to grow in popularity, many of these other content Management systems are losing market share, slowly becoming less relevant over time. One thing that’s very important about that, you don’t want to get stuck with the content management system that isn’t being updated to keep it cutting edge, getting your new features and working out old bugs. That’s one great thing about WordPress, so many people are working on the project that it is as fresh as ever. Everyday is better than the last.

What’s more, WordPress is also the fastest-growing CMS. There are over 500 new WordPress sites being built every day. This is just for websites that are in the top 10 million. Compare that to Squarespace or Shopify which add about 60 to 80 per day.

That is quite a difference.

WordPress is Googled about 2.8 million times every month. That makes it among the most popular keywords ever. There are 17 posts published every second on WordPress sites around the world, that is a really crazy number. 22% of the top 100,000 websites use WordPress. Around 30% of the top 1 million websites use WordPress.

In addition, just about 20 million websites on the web use WordPress.

So, you can see by the way these numbers just how popular WordPress it is.

Here’s the total market share graph, from Kinsta.

And according to Kinsta again, the total percent of websites using WordPress is a staggering 34% overall. So, more than one in three websites is using WordPress to build their site.

And as of July of 2019, that number is closing at all on 35% market share.

That trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down either.

While other content Management Systems seem to be falling by the wayside, their market share is dropping rapidly. WordPress continues to grow. For example, over the last year, Joomla has decreased from 3.1% to 3% total. Drupal has dropped 3% to 1.9%. That means that Joomla shrank by about 3% overall Andrew Powell Buy almost 15%. Meanwhile, WordPress continues to grow.

How about some of the new are tools that people or experimenting with? I’m talking about site building services like Wix or Squarespace, or blog sites like Medium. (Find out more about how to switch over from medium.com to WordPress in this handy article). These tools or not really pretty good popular overall, despite how much they are advertised on TV and on the web. They comprise just a tiny percentage of the total number of websites out there.

That said, they are increasing in popularity. Squarespace and Wix of both cracked 1% total market share over the last year. Their growth is up over 100% each, which is strong. That means that while WordPress is still the king of the hill so far, some of these website builder services are growing at an even faster rate.

But, it’s going to take a long time to catch WordPress.

Why is WordPress so Popular?

Well, it’s the most popular content management system on the web for good reason. It doesn’t get any more popular than that, right? But why?

I think the reasons why WordPress is so popular are pretty clear. For one thing, WordPress is probably the most flexible content management system out there. With WordPress, you can set up any type of sight, not just a traditional blog. There are thousands of great looking WordPress themes on the market to help you get your site up and running quickly and give your website the look that you need. There are awesome minimalist WordPress themes that can help you create a slick, engaging blog or portfolio. You’ve got WooCommerce WordPress themes for building an online shop. There are plenty of WordPress magazine themes that let you speak your mind and reach a really wide audience. The list goes on and on.

Also, you can’t overlook the price. WordPress is free and open source, all you need to do is get yourself a hosting account and purchase a well-designed WordPress theme and you can be up and running quickly, on a budget. Want to know more about how expensive it is to start a WordPress website?

Being open source certainly has its advantages as well. The WordPress Community is huge and it’s growing every day. It’s more than just WordPress themes that are being developed, there are plugins and add-ons that can really extend the functionality of your website. No matter what you want to do, adding portfolios or creating an e-commerce site, blogging or generating leads for your business, there’s probably a plugin available that can help you get the job done.

WordPress has plugins for handling SEO, for making your website more secure, for getting in touch with customers and clients, plugins for building an online community or social network, the list goes on and on.

And, it’s not just for blogging anymore. With free tools like WooCommerce, WordPress is starting to take over the e-commerce industry as well. It does have a ways to go to catch Shopify, Shopify still powers about 18% of eCommerce sites. WooCommerce is a close second at 7%.

But among the top 1 million sites on the web, WooCommerce actually outperforms Shopify Buy 4%. So, larger sites still seem to be drawn to WooCommerce over Shopify. And it’s not just WooCommerce, Easy Digital downloads is another Rising superstar that is only available for WordPress.

No matter whether you have a small personal blog or a massive website like the New Yorker or BBC. WordPress works great either way. WordPress is a publishing platform that allows everyone to create content easily. Even if you’re a beginner, you can get started really quickly and have a great looking site up and running in about an hour. If you want to get a little bit more in-depth, WordPress can handle it. As a Content management system, it’s easily the most adaptable that I have used.

Widgets, plugins, themes. It’s all there. It allows even one person operations to compete with the big boys, no one will know it’s just you if you have a professional-looking website all the features that much larger sites offer. And it’s all possible with WordPress.

Beyond that, there’s another reason I think that WordPress is so popular. It’s a little bit more of a squishy thing that’s hard to Define, but having your own website I content management system like WordPress is really satisfying. Of course, you can use a managed page builder like Wix or Squarespace, but you are not going to have the flexibility or control over the website like you can with WordPress. There’s something really satisfying about building a side from the ground up using content management system like WordPress and I think that that is no small part and why it has become so popular over the last decade or so.

So, That Just About Does it for this little bit of information. Hopefully we have giving you the information that you wanted, if you were trying to find out just how popular WordPress is and why it has become so popular, that’s the answer. Will be back soon with more awesome content for WordPress so bookmark us and check back often. Thanks for reading.

#WordPress

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henriettacarpent-blog · 7 years ago

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On the other hand, if you have a niche market, if, perhaps, you're in the baby room business and you view the end results from your work making the world a lot better ... If you're aiding people produce and also build their artistic capacities, or if you're supplying your very own artistic abilities to ensure you make the planet a lot better ... now, this might be exactly what I categorize as purposeful job. To live a genuinely purposeful life implies that you know the various parts that make you 'You' which you worth as well as regard who you are and all that you have actually ended up being. Ultimately for work to become meaningful you need to check out it in a more comprehensive situation to see that you are making a payment to culture all at once. This version carries out not confine the volume from phrases or kind of terms, yet merely the quantity from speech sounds. 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Words this author usages are actually woven together to create highly effective and emotionally asked for tales that test the viewers to really consider the planet, and motivate all of them to do something about it in beneficial methods. Your lifestyle is no different; the energy you are actually throwing away on trying to construct relevant link along with 1000s of people using your various social media platforms is actually wasted. Some guys could feel ashamed regarding this, yet possessing a culinary skill-set is a wonderful conveniences. Real estate investors have to wow upon candidates that they expect meaningful change throughout the income tax code, which a second condition merely will not occur without it. This is clear off everything mentioned above, that building a successful business concerns creating significant hookup along with a targeted group from people. There are number of present sites in the Net where you can look for picking a significant and also suitable gift based on various classifications. Xmas quotes and x-mases sayings are actually the greatest method to celebrtae this divine celebration, Below uniquechristmas cards expressions for your treasured and also service x-mases expressions for your colleagues. To possess purposeful communication along with youth, moms and dads must possess the correct perspective.

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tatiltutkusu-blog · 7 years ago

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myongfisher · 7 years ago

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9 ways to build better contact forms and boost conversions

If you want people to reach you, it just makes sense to have a contact form, right? Well, you’d be surprised at how many sites have the annoying habit of not including one. Luckily, we’ve got 9 ways you can build better contact forms and get those leads rolling in.

Despite living in a modern society where a lot of us have shucked face-to-face meetings in lieu of connecting through various digital platforms, being able to contact a person directly is still important. Sometimes we need a real person to answer our questions.

But just having a contact form doesn’t guarantee those conversions. There’s a lot more it than that. We’re talking good design, functionality and submission analysis. Here’s how you can make it happen.

1. Make it easy to find —

If you don’t have to be told to look both ways before crossing the street why do you need to be told you need to have a contact form? Just because it’s 2018 doesn’t mean out-with-the-old and in-with-the-missing-contact-form. It’s just plain old common sense.

A simple yet beautiful contact form design by Mike Barnes. It’s easy to find and unmistakably named.

Though it’s tempting, avoid naming your contact form in the navigation menu something vague or confusing. Playing hide-and-seek is also a general no-no. Your contact page should be like a bright neon sign saying “click me!” so keep the wording simple. Calling it simply “Contact” eliminates the annoying guessing game. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

And despite what some may think, using social media accounts in lieu of a contact page is not an acceptable substitute. Not everyone has social media believe it or not.

What to do

Get a contact form if you don’t already have one. Remember that not everyone will understand that your “High Five!” button is actually your contact form, so make sure you use clear language. If you want to get fancy, use communication words like “Touch” or “Talk” instead of “Contact”.

2. Be personal —

Sadly, ugly designed websites are not a thing of the past (after all, there are still sites without contact pages). A poorly designed contact page can have your visitors wondering how legit your business actually is and might decide to skip contacting you altogether.

A website design for Steel House Labs by CreativeAliens that makes it easy for clients to reach out and ask questions.

What to do

Avoid impersonal design by channeling your brand personality into your layout. A sparsely designed or sterile looking page could give users the wrong idea about you. Instead, use your brand colors to emotionally connect with your target market. Ask yourself: “Would I contact me if I saw this design?” And naturally get a second, third and fourth opinion.

3. Make it work everywhere —

A mobile-friendly contact form for 99designs clients looking for design advice.

If you have a form, then it better work. Over 50% of web page views come from mobile devices, so make sure your form is mobile-friendly and responsive. Oh—and this might sound basic—but make sure your form is actually in working condition. Every checkbox, form field and CTA button must function.

What to do

If your site isn’t responsive or mobile-compatible, switch to a template that is, or work with a developer to get your current site up-to-code. Test form functionality over multiple days to make sure your form is delivering messages—especially if your submissions have randomly declined. If you find an error, contact your form’s host platform or a developer to request help.

4. Don’t leave out the copy —

As any copywriter will tell you, great words will inspire great action. Copy works as the greeting and direction marker for your audience, reassuring them that they’re indeed where they want to be. Copy also gives you a chance to show your brand personality.

Snask’s contact page copy provides you with all the information you need. Via Snask

Your contact form copy should inform and direct. Tell your audience how and why they should contact you. Is your contact information only for potential customers? Can they contact you to offer feedback? Do you accept business inquiries? When will they hear back from you?

What to do

Even a simple sentence like “Hey! Get in touch with me by using this form” can encourage users to actually reach out. Use your brand’s voice to extend the invitation clearly to your audience.

InVision’s contact form lets their brand voice shine through. Via InVision.

Take InVision’s contact page, for example. They only need two sentences to illustrate their brand’s friendly and relaxed personality.

5. Think about reCAPTCHA —

Google’s reCAPTCHA is a great alternative to those annoying old CAPTCHAs. Via Google.

CAPTCHA is the lady in front of you at the supermarket parking lot going 5 miles per hour with her shopping cart and blocking where you want to go. This technology helps tell robots and humans apart, but it’s no friend to the impatient.

Yes, CAPTCHAs do have a purpose, but when you consider 8.66% of users mistype their first CAPTCHA (not to mention they can cause trouble for those with visual or intellectual disabilities), you have to wonder if it’s worth it. Impatient users may abandon filling out the contact form if they see or fail deciphering a CAPTCHA resulting in a loss in conversions.

What to do

Security and spam bot prevention is definitely important, but try viable alternatives like Google’s reCAPTCHA, which simply has users check a box to confirm they’re human.

6. Keep forms short —

People dread the idea of going to the DMV, so why would you think a 25-field form is a great idea? Convenience should be at the forefront of your mind when you are designing any form. Long forms increase the risk of visitors giving up and taking their business to the competition. No one wants that.

A short and sweet contact form designed by Adam Zdara.

What to do

Follow the KISS method. You know, keep it simple stupid.

Generally, a form should take no more than 1-2 minutes to fill out, so strive for including only 3-6 fields. If a field doesn’t serve a purpose to your communication, then you probably don’t need it. But make sure your form will allow visitors to explain exactly what they need.

7. Beware the form killer! —

You might run into a form killer without even knowing it. These are the elements that have you saying “nope” before you even finish a form. Make sure to check for these form killers and consider getting rid of them. Here are some of the biggest killers:

CAPTCHA

Phone number

Age

Location

Auto sign-ups to newsletters (with no way to opt out)

Robotic copy

Hard-to-read text

No conversion killers in sight here! This is what a clean and simple contact form looks like. Design by AbdooElhamdaoui.

What to do

Look at your form and see if there are any fields that you might be hesitant to answer. The same goes for any potentially invasive fields (e.g. if you must ask for a phone number, consider making it optional). Make your form as pain-free as possible, then finish up with creative CTA copy that encourages users to actually submit their form.

8. Provide alternate contact information —

Forms are a great way to easily collect information, but they should never be your only method of contact. In fact, you can’t increase your conversion rate without offering multiple methods. There’s a reason customers are trying to get in touch with you—and not everyone has the same communication style.

This page provides clients not only with a contact form but also with an email address, phone number and social media handles to get in touch. Design by Acolle.

What to do

Provide a phone number (or two), whether it’s a private, business or mobile app number (e.g. WhatsApp or Google Voice). Consider a secondary email that people can use instead of your form or a live chat option for instant communication.

If you have a physical building and accept office visitors, mention it. And don’t forget to include links to your social media pages.

9. Always follow-up —

You got the conversion! But that doesn’t mean your job is over. In fact, it’s just beginning.

No one likes to be ignored. This doesn’t reflect well on you, and the last thing you want is for people to start speaking negatively about your company. Yes, messages sometimes don’t deliver because of system errors, but most of the time it’s just because they’re not being monitored. Conversions and communication management go hand-in-hand.

What to do

Make sure your contact form delivers to an address or communication platform that you routinely check so you can manage all submissions. If you’re too busy for this, consider hiring someone to do the job for you. Remember that someone took the time to contact you, so it’s only right to respond.

Build better contact forms and get those leads! —

Now you’ve got some work to do… Pull up your contact form, and start at the top of this list. Follow these nine steps, and make changes as necessary. Then, watch those submissions start pouring in!

Need someone to design a beautiful contact page for you?

Find a designer to make it happen.

Yes please!

This article was written by Gabrielle Gosha

The post 9 ways to build better contact forms and boost conversions appeared first on 99designs.

9 ways to build better contact forms and boost conversions published first on https://www.lilpackaging.com/

0 notes

pamelahetrick · 7 years ago

Text

9 ways to build better contact forms and boost conversions

1. Make it easy to find —

A simple yet beautiful contact form design by Mike Barnes. It’s easy to find and unmistakably named.

And despite what some may think, using social media accounts in lieu of a contact page is not an acceptable substitute. Not everyone has social media believe it or not.

What to do

2. Be personal —

A website design for Steel House Labs by CreativeAliens that makes it easy for clients to reach out and ask questions.

What to do

3. Make it work everywhere —

A mobile-friendly contact form for 99designs clients looking for design advice.

What to do

4. Don’t leave out the copy —

Snask’s contact page copy provides you with all the information you need. Via Snask

What to do

Even a simple sentence like “Hey! Get in touch with me by using this form” can encourage users to actually reach out. Use your brand’s voice to extend the invitation clearly to your audience.

InVision’s contact form lets their brand voice shine through. Via InVision.

Take InVision’s contact page, for example. They only need two sentences to illustrate their brand’s friendly and relaxed personality.

5. Think about reCAPTCHA —

Google’s reCAPTCHA is a great alternative to those annoying old CAPTCHAs. Via Google.

What to do

Security and spam bot prevention is definitely important, but try viable alternatives like Google’s reCAPTCHA, which simply has users check a box to confirm they’re human.

6. Keep forms short —

A short and sweet contact form designed by Adam Zdara.

What to do

Follow the KISS method. You know, keep it simple stupid.

7. Beware the form killer! —

CAPTCHA

Phone number

Age

Location

Auto sign-ups to newsletters (with no way to opt out)

Robotic copy

Hard-to-read text

No conversion killers in sight here! This is what a clean and simple contact form looks like. Design by AbdooElhamdaoui.

What to do

8. Provide alternate contact information —

This page provides clients not only with a contact form but also with an email address, phone number and social media handles to get in touch. Design by Acolle.

What to do

If you have a physical building and accept office visitors, mention it. And don’t forget to include links to your social media pages.

9. Always follow-up —

You got the conversion! But that doesn’t mean your job is over. In fact, it’s just beginning.

What to do

Build better contact forms and get those leads! —

Need someone to design a beautiful contact page for you?

Find a designer to make it happen.

Yes please!

This article was written by Gabrielle Gosha

The post 9 ways to build better contact forms and boost conversions appeared first on 99designs.

via 99designs https://99designs.co.uk/blog/business-en-gb/build-better-contact-forms/

0 notes

susaanrogers · 7 years ago

Text

9 ways to build better contact forms and boost conversions

1. Make it easy to find —

A simple yet beautiful contact form design by Mike Barnes. It’s easy to find and unmistakably named.

And despite what some may think, using social media accounts in lieu of a contact page is not an acceptable substitute. Not everyone has social media believe it or not.

What to do

2. Be personal —

A website design for Steel House Labs by CreativeAliens that makes it easy for clients to reach out and ask questions.

What to do

3. Make it work everywhere —

A mobile-friendly contact form for 99designs clients looking for design advice.

What to do

4. Don’t leave out the copy —

Snask’s contact page copy provides you with all the information you need. Via Snask

What to do

Even a simple sentence like “Hey! Get in touch with me by using this form” can encourage users to actually reach out. Use your brand’s voice to extend the invitation clearly to your audience.

InVision’s contact form lets their brand voice shine through. Via InVision.

Take InVision’s contact page, for example. They only need two sentences to illustrate their brand’s friendly and relaxed personality.

5. Think about reCAPTCHA —

Google’s reCAPTCHA is a great alternative to those annoying old CAPTCHAs. Via Google.

What to do

Security and spam bot prevention is definitely important, but try viable alternatives like Google’s reCAPTCHA, which simply has users check a box to confirm they’re human.

6. Keep forms short —

A short and sweet contact form designed by Adam Zdara.

What to do

Follow the KISS method. You know, keep it simple stupid.

7. Beware the form killer! —

CAPTCHA

Phone number

Age

Location

Auto sign-ups to newsletters (with no way to opt out)

Robotic copy

Hard-to-read text

No conversion killers in sight here! This is what a clean and simple contact form looks like. Design by AbdooElhamdaoui.

What to do

8. Provide alternate contact information —

This page provides clients not only with a contact form but also with an email address, phone number and social media handles to get in touch. Design by Acolle.

What to do

If you have a physical building and accept office visitors, mention it. And don’t forget to include links to your social media pages.

9. Always follow-up —

You got the conversion! But that doesn’t mean your job is over. In fact, it’s just beginning.

What to do

Build better contact forms and get those leads! —

Need someone to design a beautiful contact page for you?

Find a designer to make it happen.

Yes please!

This article was written by Gabrielle Gosha

The post 9 ways to build better contact forms and boost conversions appeared first on 99designs.

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