Breeze

Grammar is glamorous? For many people, that would be an impossible association of ideas, remembering a time when they were taught English grammar in school, trying to analyse complicated sentences into parts, and learning rules and terms whose purpose was never clear. Glamorous it wasn't. For others. the association would be pointless, for they were never taught any English grammar at all.

This was a great shame, as grammar, when taught properly, is indeed an exciting and stimulating subject. It's the study of the way we compose our sentences, of how we say what we mean and of the different effects we convey by varying the order of our words. In short, grammar shows us how we make sense. And the more we know about grammar, the more we understand how language works.

But this book isn't about grammatical constructions; it's about words. And when we explore the origins of the word grammar, we find some real surprises. Would you expect an encounter with magic and the supernatural? Just listen.

Grammar comes from a Latin word, grammatica, which in turn derives from gramma, meaning a written mark, or letter. It originally included the study of everything that was written - literature as well as language - and eventually this sense was extended to mean the knowledge that a person acquires through literacy. But people who could read and write were an elite. They included not only monks and scholars but also those who dealt in astrology and magic. This is where the supernatural comes in. In medieval Europe, the word grammar was often used to talk about the study of the occult. And when the word arrived in English, in the 14th century, it brought in those associations. A new word emerged: people would talk about gramarye, meaning 'occult learning', 'necromancy'. It's this magical sense that leads to glamour. In the 18th century in Scotland, people took up the word grammar, meaning 'an enchantment ' or 'a spell', but they changed the pronunciation. Devils and wizards were said to cast the glamour over the eyes of onlookers. From here it was a short step to the meaning of an alluring charm surrounding someone or something. And in the 20th century, we see the word arriving at its present-day sense of 'charm ' and 'attractiveness'.

In the 1930s, people talked about glamour boys - a phrase given popular appeal when it was used to describe the handsome young airmen of the wartime RAF. Eventually the adjective came to be used chiefly for women, especially after the movies popularised the phrase glamour girls, and the pin-up photograph became widespread. The word took an unexpected direction in the 1950s, when it began to be used as a euphemism for nude or topless modelling. If you were offered glamour photographs, you wouldn't expect to see much clothing. Girls, such as those gracing page 3 in The Sun newspaper, were described as glamour models, and the agencies and events promoting them were said to be on the glamour circuit. The term is still widely used in this way. The unexpected link between grammar and glamour illustrates a general point about the history of words. Often, a source word develops meanings that are so different from each other that we don't suspect they have a common origin. Who would ever guess that there's a common origin for salary, sausage, sauce and salad? And who would ever have predicted that grammar would one day give birth to such a flamboyant and publicity-seeking child as glamour? Grammar hasn't yet achieved such a vivid popular presence - but I live in hope.

https://youtu.be/LHQ00JZ4q0o

Walking has inspired all sorts of creativity, "The moment

my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow,"

said Henry David Thoreau. William Wordsworth's

poem "Tintern Abbey" was written during a long

walk, as well. "Only thoughts reached by walking

have value," was how Friedrich Nietzsche put it.

But why does walking have this effect? The answer,

as you might have guessed, lies in your brain.

Your brain has two modes: an active mode and a de-

fault mode. When your brain is in active mode, it's

vital for keeping your brain in order and your

thinking sharp.

Evidence suggests that creativity occurs when

these two modes of thinking occur

simultaneously. And walking is a great way to encourage the brain to do exactly that. Walking - or

more specifically, spatial navigation - stimulates

the part of the brain around the hippocampus,

which is also the part of the brain that's active in

memory.

Walking might not help with uncreative problems

like mathematical calculations. But for creative

problem-solving, like coming up with a novel

mathematical formula, walking can help greatly.

The author calls it active idleness - letting your mind

wander freely, yet still retaining a sense

focus. You've probably heard people say you should "sleep

on" a difficult question - but why not also try

"walking on" it? Next time you have a challenging

problem to solve at work, give it a go.

"I went into the barbershop as usual, with the pleasant sensation of entering a familiar place, easily and naturally. new things are distressing to my sensibility; I'm at ease only in places where I've already been.

after I'd sat down in the chair, i happened to ask a young barber, occupied in fastening a clean cool cloth around my neck, about his older colleague from the chair to the right, a spry fellow who had been sick. i didn't ask this because i felt obliged to ask something; it was the place and my memory that sparked the question, 'he passed away yesterday,' flatly answered the barber's voice behind me. The whole of my irrational good mood abruptly died, like the eternally missing barber from the adjacent chair. A chill swept over all my thoughts. I said nothing.

Nostalgia! I even feel it for people and things that were nothing to me... Faces I habitually see on my habitual streets -if I stop seeing them I become sad. And they were nothing to me, except perhaps the symbol of all of life..."