Q & A: The Death of Languages

From the New York Times blog, "Schott's Vocab: A Miscellany of Modern Words and Phrases":

Q & A: The Death of Languages

PB's picks for winter break.

Books:

• White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
• Flight, Sherman Alexie
• Cruddy, Lynda Barry
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
• Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
• The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
• The Road, Cormac McCarthy
• If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home & Going After Cacciato, Tim O’ Brien
• Netherland, Joseph O’Neill
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
• Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
• Franny & Zooey, J.D. Salinger
• Old School, Tobias Wolff
• Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates

Music (albums):

• Merriweather Post Pavillion, Animal Collective
• Two Suns, Bat for Lashes
  
• Blood Bank, Bon Iver
• Us, Brother Ali
• My Maudlin Career, Camera Obscura
• Bitte Orca, The Dirty Projectors
• Album, Girls
  
• Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear
• Blood of Man, Mason Jennings
  
• A Strange Arrangement, Mayer Hawthorne
  
• Middle Cyclone, Neko Case
• Never Better, P.O.S.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Phoenix
• Far, Regina Spektor
• It’s Blitz!, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Movies (listed with director):

• Precious, Lee Daniels
• The Road, John Hillcoat
• A Serious Man, Joel & Ethan Coen
• Up, Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
• Up in the Air, Jason Reitman

Q2, week 7 skedj.

Monday.
In class: Finish The Things They Carried.
Homework: None.

Tuesday.
In class: Practice graded discussion.
Homework: None.

Wednesday - Friday.
No class; exams.

On women in combat.

• G.I. Jane Breaks the Combat Barrier
• Women in Combat: An American Story

"Mad beauty in unorthodoxy."

verisimilitude

the appearance of being true or real.
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Latin verisimilitudo, from verisimilis ‘probable,’ from veri (genitive of verus ‘true’ ) + similis ‘like.’

Q2, week 6 skedj.

Monday.
In class: Steeped in symbolism.
Homework: "Speaking of Courage" & "Notes," pp. 137-161 (25).

Day 2.
In class: Norman Bowker.
Homework: "In the Field" & "Good Form," pp. 162-180 (19).

Day 3.
In class: "I have a story that will make you believe in [war]." (With debt and gratitude to Yann Martel.)
Homework: "Field Trip" & "Night Life," pp. 181-188, 219-224 (15).

Friday.
In class: TBD.
Homework: "The Lives of the Dead," pp. 225-246 (22).

"The Things They Carried" acronyms and other terms.

AK-47: automatic assault rifle
AO: area of operation
ARVN: Armed Republic of Vietnam or Army of the Republic of Vietnam
Booby-trapped 105 round: artillery round that proved a dud or misfired, then set to explode if touched
C-130: a large aircraft cargo plane
CO: conscientious objector (one who for religious or other valid reasons did not serve)
CID: intelligence people
Claymore: a type of mine
EM Club: Enlisted Men’s Club
HE: high explosive
KIA: killed in action
LP: listening patrol
LZ (Gator): landing zone (each had a code name for the location)
M-16 and M60: automatic rifle and machine gun
MIA: missing in action
MP: Military Police
NCO: Non-commissioned Officer
NVA buildup: North Vietnamese assault buildup
Psy Ops leaflets: psychological operations (warfare) leaflets
RTO: Regimental Training Officer, or Radio Technical Officer
SOP: standard operating procedures
Toe Poppers and Bouncing Betties: land mines
VC: Vietcong
Willie Peter: white phosphorous (a form of firepower, ignites easily and quickly)