Monday, November 21, 2016

Tenses for First Semester

INTERCHANGE OF VERBS IN TENSES

Tenses
Positive verb
Negative verb
Simple present tense
write / writes
do / does not write
Present continuous tense
am / is / are writing
am / is / are not writing
Present perfect tense
have / has written
have / has not written
Present perfect continuous tense
have / has been writing
Have / has not been writing



Simple past tense
wrote
did not write
Past continuous tense
was / were writing
was / were not writing
Past perfect tense
had written
had not written
Past perfect continuous tense
had been writing
had not been writing



Simple future tense
will / shall write
will / shall not write
Future continuous tense
will / shall be writing
will / shall not be writing
Future perfect tense
will / shall have written
will / shall have not written
Future perfect continuous tense
will / shall have been writing
Will / shall have not been writing

SUBJECT AND VERB AGREEMENT (present tense)

First person singular
present
continuous
perfect
perfect continuous
I
write
am writing
have written
have been writing





First person plural




We
write
are writing
have written
have been writing





Second person




You
write
are writing
have written
have been writing





Third person singular




He, she, it, any name of a person
writes
is writing
has written
has been writing





Third person plural




They
write
are writing
have written
have been writing



SUBJECT AND VERB AGREEMENT (past tense)

First person singular
past
continuous
perfect
Perfect continuous
I
wrote
was writing
had written
had been writing





First person plural




We
wrote
were writing
had written
had been writing





Second person




You
wrote
were writing
have written
had been writing





Third person singular




He, she, it, any name of a person
wrote
was writing
had written
had been writing





Third person plural




They
wrote
were writing
had written
had been writing


SUBJECT AND VERB AGREEMENT (future tense)

First person singular
past
continuous
perfect
Perfect continuous
I
shall / will write
will / shall be writing
will / shall have written
will / shall have been writing





First person plural




We
shall / will write
will / shall writing
will / shall have written
will / shall have been writing





Second person




You
will write
will be writing
will have written
will have been writing





Third person singular




He, she, it, any name of a person
will write
will be writing
will have written
will have been writing





Third person plural




They
will write
will be writing
will have written
will have have been writing

****

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle - Sir Arthur Canon Doyle

Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle - Sir Arthur Canon Doyle

In four novels and fifty-six short stories Sir Arthur Canon Doyle developed the characters Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his trusted friend Dr. John Watson. The creation of brilliant sleuth and his partner, who, although not possessing genius, stimulated it in his friend, was a masterstroke. The adventures, memories, return, last bow, and case book of Sherlock Holmes, as well as the four famous novels, are stories of sheer delight. Readers of English literature may not have everlasting charm of Holmesian characters and adventures, or even a famous resident of Baker Street, but there is much in his methodological approach to the solving of criminal cases that is of relevance to applied econometric modeling. Holmesian detection may be interpreted as accommodating the relationship of theories, specification and re-specification of theories, re-evaluation and reformulation of theories, and finally reaching a solution to the problems at hand. With this mind, one can apply reason to learn from the master of detection. This provides an outline of Holmesian deduction through the various stages of deduction through the various stages of accommodation, namely problem solving, theorizing before data, examining the quality of data, the meaning of truth, reconciliation with data, and testing of theories, Testing procedures, especially the use of diagnostic, are the most common in research method used in common in research method used in examining a number of specifications within a modeling cycle of specification, estimation and evaluation. A diagnostic approach to the evaluation or empirical approach models is outlined through testing the key assumption, which defines the parameter space for purposes of inference.
Summery:

At about 4 o’clock on Christmas morning a row broke out between the stranger, who was carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder and a little knot of roughs. The stranger raised his stick to defend himself and smashed the shop window behind him. On hearing the broken sound Mr. Peterson, the honest police officer rushed to spot in order to save the stranger from his assailants, but seeing an official-looking person in uniform, dropped and white goose and his felt hat the stranger and his assailants vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets of the town.

Mr. Peterson collected both goose and the felt-hat on the spot and handed them to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and asked him to find out any clue about the owner of the lost property to restore. The old and patched hat did not produce any clue except the letters H.B. indicates Henry Baker. But it is very difficult to establish the real owner of the hat and the goose among several Henry Bakers of the town. Finally Holmes decided to give an advertisement in the local newspapers about the lost property thinking that if anybody may come to contact him and claim the property.

On 26th morning Mr. Peterson came to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and showed him a small scintillating blue diamond with the size of a small bean that was found in the crop of the goose. Immediately, Sherlock Holmes recollected about the news published on 22nd of December telling about the theft that had taken place in Hotel Cosmopolitan and John Horner, the plumber, was accused in that connection.  Further the news says that the blue carbuncle belonged to the Countess of Morcar.

The next day when Dr. Watson approached to Sherlock Holmes flat a person was waiting to meet Mr. Holmes in order to recover his lost property, the goose and the hat advertised in the newspapers. He did not show any particular interest in goose though he was told that the goose was fried for the supper. Even he did not give any importance to the leftovers of the goose like crop, feathers and legs etc. Holmes came to a decision that the person who came to him in the name of Henry Baker is proved his innocence in smuggling of the diamond.  Later, the stranger told that he had bought the goose in Alpha goose club.   


Sherlock Holmes learnt that Alpha goose Club was supplied the same geese by Mr. Breckinridge. When he went to Breckinridge, Holmes came to know the geese actually supplied by Mrs.Oakshott, 117 Brixton Road.  As he is approaching Mrs.Oakshott  to find out  the secret how the blue stone had come into the crop of a goose James Ryder met Holmes on the way and asked about the white goose advertised in the news paper. He told every thing about the blue gem how it was stolen by Catherine Cusack, the maid servant to the Countess Morcar, and handed over him to convert it into money. He went to his sister’s farm and put the stone into the gullet of the white goose with cross-barred tail. He requested his sister, Maggie to sell one fat goose for the Christmas but he had chosen another bird with same plumage. After knowing that he had chosen a wrong bird he ran to his sister’s farm and learnt that all the geese have been sold to Mrs. Oakshott. As he ran to Oakshott she sold them Breckinridge and Breckinridge to Alpha Club. From Alpha Club, Henry Baker had bought the goose with out knowledge of the gem within its crop.  Finally Holmes decided that John Horner, the plumber, is innocent in this connection of the theft that had occurred in the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Plainly James Ryder was asked to get out of the Holmes’ place because it was the season of excuse.  

*****

MENDING WALL - Robert Frost

 MENDING WALL - Robert Frost

Mending wall, is one of the most widely quoted poems of Robert frost, published in 1914. It is a lyric in the form of dramatic monologue. The speaker in the poem is a young man, presumably the poet himself. The lyric is an expression of his views and attitudes. The other character in the poem is the poet's neighbour, an old farmer. He does not speak even a single word, but we know of his views and attitudes, of his conservation and orthodoxy, from what speaker says about him.

The poet and his neighbour get together every spring to repair the stone wall between their respective properties. The neighbour, an old New England farmer, seems to have a deep-seated faith in the value of walls and fences. He declines to explain his belief and only reiterates his father's saying "Good fences make good neighbours". But the speaker is of the opposite opinion. As he points out:

                                There where it is we do not need the wall;
                                He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

To him the neighbour's adherence to his father's saying suggests the narrowness and ignorance of the primitive:

                                He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
                                Not of woods only and shade of trees.

Yet the speaker's own attitude is also enigmatic and in some respects primitive. He seems to be in sympathy with some elemental spirit in nature, which denies all boundaries. It is suggested that there is some supernatural power at work in Nature that is always against all fences and walls,

                                Something three is that doesn't love the wall,
                                That sends the frozen ground swell under it,
                                And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
                                And makes gaps even two can pass abreast….
                                It might be some mysterious fairy:
                                Something there is that doesn't love a wall
        That wants it down. I could say Elves to him,
        But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
        He said it for himself.

The poem portrays a clash between these two points of view, and it may, therefore, seem that its meaning Is the solution. Frost offers to the conflict. The poem leads one to ask, which of the two is right. The speaker or his Yankee neighbour? Should man tear down the barriers which isolate individuals from one another., or should he recognise the distinction and limits are necessary for human life? "Frost does not provide an answer, and the attempt to wrest one from his casual details and enigmatic comments would falsify us a lesson in human relations." Though the poem presents the speaker's attitude more sympathetically than the neighbour's, it does not offer this as the total meaning. Frost's intention is to portray a problem and explore the many different and paradoxical issues it involves. He pictures it within an incident from rural life, and in order to reveal its complex nature he develops it thorough the conflict of two opposed points of view.

*****


Saturday, November 19, 2016

Hard Times - Charles Dickens

Hard Times - Charles Dickens 

Examine Hard Times as a social novel. / Discuss Dickens as social reformer with special reference to Hard Times.

J.W. Beach points out, Dickens's Hard Times, attacks the very basic assumptions and the characteristic ideology of industrial England. This novel, says Beach, is a dramatization of what Carlyle took to be the meaning of utilitarianism and of the orthodox liberal system of Laissez-faire. This novel clearly shows the role of Dickens as a critic of social structures and as a social reformer.

“Utilitarianism” owes its full theoretical development to Jeremy Bentham, who said that society should aim at the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Bentham held that the aim of life was happiness; and this happiness-philosophy made an immediate appeal to the superficial kind of thinking which is known as “utilitarianism” because this philosophy emphasized the importance of material goods and seemed to ignore completely the moral and spiritual needs of human beings. According to this philosophy, if the amount of happiness secured was equal, then gambling was as good as poetry. It also meant that the happiness of thoroughly selfish life was equal to or even grater than the happiness of greatest number, Bentham added a second principle namely that every man was the best judge of his own interests. This second principle led to the formulation of a policy that came to be called Laissez-faire, meaning that ‘people should be left free to act for themselves’.

The theory of utilitarianism was severely criticized by philosophers like Carlyle who were believers in the moral and spiritual values of life. The principle of Laissez-faire became in course of time during the Victorian Age, a term of abuse in the vocabulary of socialism because it stood for governmental refusal to intervene in the cause of social justice, to protect the weak against the strong, and to allow individuals to pursue their own selfish interests. Hard Times shows Dickens’s antagonism to both utilitarianism and laissez-faire. Dickens attacks the Victorian Society which has characteristic of the greed for money that he regarded as the root of all evils.

The utilitarian principle finds its exponents and champions in the two leading characters of Hard Times, Thomas Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby. Grandgrind’s theory of education is evidently an offshoot of his utilitarian attitude to life. This man emphasizes the importance of facts, and fails to attach any importance of feelings and emotions. He wants to develop the reasoning faculty of the pupils in his school and, to that end; he exhorts the new schoolmaster to teach the boys and the girls in his model school facts, and facts alone, and to root out everything else. Gradgrind is man of realities, man of facts and calculations. He always proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four and nothing more. This “eminently practical man” goes about with rule, a pair of scales and the multiplication table always in his pocket, because life and human beings are matters of facts and figures for him.   

Bounderby, banker and industrialist, is another embodiment of the utilitarian principle; he illustrates the principle of Laissez-faire. Bounderby is described as a “man perfectly devoid of sentiment”: while Gradgrind does show signs of human feeling by taking the abandoned sissy under his protection and he certainly changes his outlook upon life by the time the story ends, Bounderby shows no signs of any human feeling and remains till the end what he is at the beginning. Bounderby is a man “made out of a coarse material”. He constantly boasts of his being a self-made man; he looks upon his workmen as tools by using which in the proper manner he can enrich himself. He is frankly contemptuous of the needs, requirements, and demands of his workmen; because he thinks that these people would not be satisfied with anything less than turtle soup and venison, with gold spoon. He shamelessly regards industrial smoke as “meat and drink” for the workers and for the factory-owners; this smoke is in his opinion the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. Dickens’s portrayal of Bounderby is as severe a condemnation of utilitarianism as could be imagined from the pen of a great satirist.

Thus Hard Times is considered a social novel or of Dickens as a social reformer in this novel. Dickens’s criticism of the hypocrisy and false pride of the upper classes as represented in the portrayal of Mrs. Sparsit, Slackbridge, and Harthouse and his unemotional pursuit of Louisa.   


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Active voice and Passive voice

Tense
Active voice (verb)
Passive voice (verb)
Simple present
write/ writes (any transitive verb)
is/are written
Present continuous
am/is/are writing
is/ are being written
Present prefect
has/have written
has/have been written
Present perfect continuous
has/have been writing
No passive voice



Simple past
wrote
was/ were written
Past continuous
was/ were writing
was/ were being written
Past perfect
had written
had been written
Past perfect continuous
had been writing
No passive voice



Simple future
will/shall/may/can/ought/would/should
/ could/might write
will/shall/may/can/ought/would/should / could/might be written
Future continuous
will/shall/may/can/ought/would/should / could/might be writing
No passive voice
Future perfect
will/shall/may/can/ought/would/should / could/ might have written
will/shall/may/can/would/should/could /might have been written
Future perfect continuous
will/shall/may/can/ought/would/should
/ could/ might have been writing
No passive voice

Model sentences

Rama kills Ravana                             Ravana is killed by Rama

I wrote a letter.                                     A letter was written be me

He is drawing a picture                       A picture is being drawn by her

Do it yourself

I have written a letter.

I can do it.

She hunts a deer.

He drove a car.

She has read a novel.

I bought this book.

We have done this job.
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