Torch Damn Brain

10 Great Ways to Quickly Boost Traffic to Your Web Site or Blog

2007-10-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

Creating traffic just takes a little work and the web does the rest!

1. Provide your visitors with free content, that is, articles or blog posts. Your content will be more attractive to your visitors if it's up-to-date or original. You could also offer people the option to reprint the content in their e-zine, blog, or web site. Always add your URL at the end of the articles so people can find you. This further attracts new and returning visitors, and, submit your original articles to directories such as this one - ArticleCentric.com!

2. Give people a free subscription to your e-zine. Almost everyone is publishing a e-zine nowadays so it's important to give something extra with the free subscription. You could offer a free gift or advertising when people subscribe. If you do not have an ezine, there is a free program on one of my blogs (see Author Box).

3. Offer a free online directory or page of links to helpful resources like I do with my Newsman's Favorite Links Blog. The directory should be full of interesting ebooks, e-zines, web sites, etc. If people find your directory to be a valuable resource they will visit it over and over (see my Author Box).

4. Give your visitors a free ebook. I give links to these throughout my 15 blogs. I love Free! Some ebook writers even allow you to include your own ad or website URL in the ebook and allow other people to give it away when they get it from you. This is called Viral Marketing. Another way to spread the word about you! Hey, you could even write your own ebook and give it away! There are programs for this as well at My Links Blog.

5. Hold free online classes or seminars. They could be held in your web site's chat room. The idea of "live" information will definitely entice people to visit your web site. You will become known as an expert on the topic. You can even offer courses or classes via email to people who sign up.

6. Give visitors a free entry into your contest or sweepstakes. The prizes should be something of interest or value to your visitors. Most people who enter will continually revisit your web site to get the results. This does not have to be cash. It can be a valuable ebook that you got free from a Viral Marketer.

7. Let visitors download free software. It could be freeware, shareware, demos etc. You could even turn part of your site into a free software directory. If you created the software, include your ad inside and let other people give it away.

8. Offer free online services or utilities from your web site. They could be on search engine submitting, copy writing, article proofreading, etc. The service or utility should be helpful to your target audience.

9. Give free consulting to people who visit your web site. You could offer your knowledge via e-mail or by telephone. People will consider this a huge value because consulting fees can be very expensive. In fact, you can give them links or ebooks covering their area of interest but sign them up for email to get access to the information.

10. If you have an online Club, give your visitors a free membership for one year. People want to belong to something that benefits them, why not your online club. It could be a game club, video club, music club, writing club, etc. You could also give away a free e-zine for club members only. If your content is really unique, think about charging a monthly membership fee.

100 English Language Books of Fiction

2007-10-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

Larry McCaffery's "20th C. Greatest Hits"
(100 English-Language Books of Fiction)
[Larry McCaffery teaches American literature at San Diego State University and is co-editor of the journal Fiction International. Thanks to Carl Molina for contributing this list. --Ed.].

1. Nabokov, Vladimir. Pale Fire (1962)
The most audaciously conceived novel of the century--and the most perfectly execute--this is also the book whose existence could have been the most difficult to anticipate in the year 1900.

2. Joyce, James. Ulysses (1922)

Not so much the beginning of anything as the culmination of the great 19th century symbolic realist tradition

3. Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
Like Ulysses, Pynchon's masterpiece has cast an enormous, intimidating shadow across the entire literary landscape.

4. Coover, Robert. The Public Burning (1977)
A book controversial enough that its publisher almost immediately took it out of print (where stayed for over 15 years), this novel featured a surprisingly sympathetic Richard Nixon as its principle narrator and used the Rosenberg case as a means of examining just about everything worth examining about America during the McCarthy era; excessive and encyclopedic, dazzling in its range of styles, bitterly angry and bitingly humorous, this is the most brilliant and original "political novel" ever published in America.

5. Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury (1929)
Along with raising Southern gothic to an art form, this book ranks with Pale Fire in terms of its audacious treatment of point of view and created in Jason Compson perhaps the most memorable villain of the century.

6. Beckett, Samuel. Trilogy (Molloy 1953 , Malone Dies 1956, The Unnamable 1957).
Beckett took self-consciousness, solipsism, ultimacy, and minimalism to the brink of silence--where he, thankfully, retreated just in time.

7. Stein, Gertrude. The Making of Americans (1925)
Stein's prose is Stein's prose is Stein's prose. This sprawling novel is still one of the most perceptive examinations of American life and values. Like her other mature work, this book is rich with puns, rhythmic phrases, and word repetitions; it is also a vibrant, breathtaking expression of Stein's lifelong love affair with individual words and a demonstration that the music, rhythm, and repetitive power of words matters just as much as their representational qualities. As with Burroughs' experiments a half century later, Stein's methods were so truly radical that it would take several generations before authors got around to figuring out how they might be applied to their own writing.

8. Burroughs, William. Nova Trilogy (The Soft Machine 1962, Nova Express 1964, The Ticket that Exploded, 1967).
Space odysseys, Uranium Willy and the Heavy Metal Kid, image banks and silence viruses, protopunk "wild boys" engaged in an apocalyptic guerrilla-warfare, body and mind invasion, the Nova Mob matching wits with the Nova police (hampered by the corrupt Biologic Courts) for control of The Reality Studio--these hallucinatory SF elements interact with shards of poetry by Rimbaud, Shakespeare and Eliot (and much, much more) to fuel Burroughs' atomic powered strap-on, which probes the asshole of society with more glee and wicked humor than anyone since Swift.

9. Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita (1955)
A richly humorous, satiric look at American life in the late 40s, a profound (and profoundly disturbing) commentary about the ability of the creative mind to transform the monstrous into breathtaking art, Lolita is above all this century's most passionate and most memorable lover story.

10. Joyce, James. Finnegans' Wake (1941)
The greatest unreadable novel ever written.
11. Federman, Raymond. Take It or Leave It (1975)
The first--and still the definitive--poststructuralist novel written in English, Federman's crazed journey to chaos and erasure ranks, along with Kerouac's The Open Road , and Wright's Going Native, as the greatest of all American road novels.
12. Morrison, Toni. Beloved (1986)
A poetically rendered cry of pain and a plea for forgiveness and understanding, this book won for Morrison a Nobel Prize (though not a place in the Modern Library List).
13. Wright, Stephen. Going Native (1994).
Robert Coover's blurb says it all: "A sensational, prime-time novel. Imagine a pornographic twilight zone of beebee-eyed serial killers, drug-stunned pants-dropping road warriors and marauding armies of mental vampires, a nightmarish country of unparalleled savagery, where there is no longer any membrane between screen and life and the monster image feed in inexhaustible and the good guys are the scariest ones of all."
14. Lowery, Malcolm. Under the Volcano (1949)
The hell of alcoholism and the self has never been rendered more passionately or convincingly.
15. Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse (1927)
The most extreme and poetic of Woolf's treatments of the stream of consciousness motif
16. Gass, William H.. In the Heart of the Heart of the Country (1968)
Gass is arguably America's greatest living prose writer, and this collection includes two stories--"The Pederson Kid" and "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country"--which rank among the finest achievements in the short story form.
17. Gaddis, William. JR (1975)
Gaddis's humor, his ear for the music of American idioms, his brilliant orchestration of materials, and his sure-handed treatment of the ways capitalism controls every aspect of our lives insures that JR will be one of the most discussed novels during the 21st century.
18. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man (1952)
Ellison's blues-drenched, symbol-and-idiom rich depiction of the development of youth into maturity, disillusionment, and self-realization not only sums up the ways that black people have been preyed on by whites throughout American history but illuminates the process that transforms us all into invisible people.
19. DeLillo, Don. Underworld (1997)
The best novel by the author who has produced the most significant body of work of all post-WWII American writers, Underworld is at once a brilliant analysis of the fate of America's hopes and dreams as it approaches the millennium and a haunting, lovingly presented lament for the lost lives and words the 50s.
20. Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. (1926)
Employing a startlingly innovative method of rendering the lives and attitudes of a "lost generation" of Americans seeking some sort of substitute for the values and meanings had been destroyed by WWI, this novel would also have a decisive impact on Raymond Carver and other American "minimalists" later in the century.
21. Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
Probably the most taught novel of them all, still one of the great initiation novels, and also one of the most expressive descriptions of what all great writers must leave behind in order to follow the muse, Portrait's early experimentations with stream-of-consciousness helped lay the groundwork for Joyce's far grander forays into human consciousness in Ulysses .
22. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby (1925).
A novel whose gorgeous flights of lyricism is matched only by its ability to tease out what is most debased about the American Dream--and what is most enduring as well.
23. James, Henry. The Ambassadors (1903).
The style found in the late-James novels was as intricate, psychologically nuanced, and attuned to the inner workings of the mind as those developed somewhat later in the stream-of-consciousness techniques employed by Joyce, Faulkner and others.
24. Lawrence, D.H.. Women in Love (1921)
The book where Lawrence finally achieved his goal of finding a means of rendering the non-verbal operations determining the interactions of men and women.
25. Barthelme, Donald. 60 Stories (1981).
Barthelme's surrealist, avant-pop treatments of life in a media-drenched Manhattan are still unrivaled in their ability to suggest how an aesthetics of trash could effectively conjure up a convincing vision of American life generally.
26. Vollmann, William T.. The Rifles (1993)
Vollmann leads readers into a labyrinthine, nightmarish descent into madness, cannibalism, death, and self-confrontation--all depicted by in excruciatingly vivid and emotionally honest detail; we also become witness to one man's ability to test what is best about himself, to confront the personal weaknesses most people deny, and the ways that even what is best in ourselves--our desire to seek the truth about ourselves and the world, to know and help others--can frequently lead to unmitigated disaster for everyone concerned.
27. Gaddis, William. The Recognitions (1955)
Gaddis' grand encyclopedic portrait of the (counterfeiting) artist quest-narrative managed to incorporate just about all the major 20th century motifs, while also evoking (among other things) every major era of history, as well as the history of literature, painting and music; little read when it appeared, The Recognitions was a major influence on the young Thomas Pynchon and thus on postmodern fiction generally.
28. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness (1902).
This short, prismatically told odyssey transcends its colonial context to become one of the century's most compelling studies of the permeable membrane separating the bestial from the noble.
29. Heller, Joseph. Catch 22 (1961)
More than any other book, this novel's arrival signaled that a new generation of innovative American authors had arrived; things were never quite the same afterwards.
30. Orwell, George. 1984 (1949).
Orwell's prophecies concerning life under Big Brother didn't come true by 1984, but stay tuned.
32. Hurston, Zora Neal. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
For all those readers who were moved by the passion , brutality, and intimacy of Alice Walker's widely hailed The Color Purple, Hurston's novel should be required reading.
32. Faulkner, William. Absalom Absalom! (1936)
Faulkner combines Quentin Compson's search for himself with a reconstruction of the myth of the Southern past, and in the process confronts the racial hierarchy and abuse that shapes both the actual and imagined historical South. Among other things, this novel has been convincingly cited by critic Brian McHale as marking the dividing line between modernism and postmodernism.
33. Delany, Samuel R.. Dhalgren (1975)
This massive (nearly 900 pages), ambitious, unclassifiable novel transfers the exoticism of other worlds to a surreal, nightmarish urban landscape, a twisted, disrupted vision of Harlem and America's other decaying inner cities; part myth, part dream, part verbal labyrinth, Dhalgren's central character is an artist whose doomed efforts to make sense of the chaos surrounding him become an emblem of all our similar attempts.
34. Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
Steinbeck's famous novel about the migration of the Joad family from the Dust Bowl to broken dreams, misery, and a stubborn endurance in California; what may surprise readers today are the many innovative features Steinbeck employs to render this odyssey.
35. Ducornet, Rikki. The Four Elements Tetrology (earth: The Stain 1984, fire: Entering Fire 1986, water: The Fountains of Neptune 1992, and air: The Jade Cabinet 1993).
Using each of the four primal elements as central controlling metaphors, this ambitious tetrology are many different things: vivid and often hilarious portraits of malice, depravity and evil in the tradition of Bosch or Brueghel; ecological and political parables about the 20th century's predilection for war and mass extinction; allegories about mankind's fear of transmutation, chaos, and death and the devastation and misery these fears engender; deeply moving meditations about the mysteries of sex, time, and consciousness; metafictional investigations about the perils and attractions of fabulating, creating, and remembering.
36. Gibson, William. Cyberspace Trilogy (Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).
Neuromancer's was the novel that not only launched a thousand cyberpunk literary ships but which first found a means of metaphorizing a means of successfully navigating through the "space" of data.
37. Miller, Henry. Tropic of Cancer (1934).
Miller's blend of autobiography and fiction, his refusal to indulge in interpretations or in creating full portraits of his characters, his receptivity and openness to experience generally--not to mention his unabashed, exuberant exploration of sexuality--all helped open up the form and content of novelistic experimentation for postmodernist writers in the second half of this century.
38. Keroac, Jack. On the Road (1957)
Keroac's classic saga of youth adrift in the gray-flannel-suited America, traveling the highways, exploring the midnight negro streets of the cities, passionately searching the vast expanse of America in search of themselves; the novel was literally mind-expanding and helped turn on the generation of youths who would be out on the streets creating the counter-culture revolution of the 60s.
39. McElroy, Joseph. Lookout Cartridge (1974)
McElroy is most important of all "unknown" postmodernist American authors; vaguely analogous to Antonioni's Blow Up, Cartridge is a fascinating, gigantic mystery novel that demonstrates the cross fertilization that has been recently occurring between film and prose fiction.
40. Ballard, J. G.. Crash (1973)
The colonization and seduction of our subconscious by the mediascape, the erotic thrill of violence, the secret satisfactions of watching machines go hay-wire, and the numbing power of mass-produced imagery have never been presented more convincingly.
41. Rushdie, Salmon. Midnight's Children (1981)
A grand romp across the history of that populous and multicultural Mother India, Children draws from sources ranging from myth, to Tristram Shandy, to Bombay's rich film industry.
42. Barth, John. The Sot-Weed Factor (1960).
The greatest of all 18th century novels written in the 20th century, Barth's monumental farce is also a brilliant commentary about the slippery nature of identity.
43. Metcalf, Paul. Genoa (1965)
Metcalf invents a narrative structure--part mosaic, part history, part genealogy, part invention--which appropriates generous selections of materials drawn from the Christopher Columbus myth, Moby Dick, a myriad other sources to develop a narrative that reveals a whole host of connections between the greed and blood-lust of our founding fathers and contemporary Americans.
44. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World (1932)
In this greatest of all 20th century dystopian novels, Huxley develops a chillingly accurate forecast about a civilization which willingly gives itself over not to preestablished human goals but to the self-augmenting, self-perpetuating needs of new technologies which, in his words, "tend always to obey the laws of its own logic."
45. Forster, E. M.. A Passage to India (1924)
In his last and best-known novel, Forster takes the relationships between the English and Indians in India in the early 1920s as a background against which to erect his most searching and complex exploration of the possibilities and limitations, the promises and pitfalls, of human relationships.
46. Federman, Raymond. Double or Nothing (1972).
This obsessive, hilarious, sad, unreadable, wildly inventive metafictional novel-in-the-form-of-200+ concrete-poems (i.e., every page has a different typographical design) is also the most original Holocaust novel yet published.
47. O'Brien, Flann. at swim two birds (1951).
This is a book about a book about a man writing a book about characters who write a book about him; not even Borges or Nabokov ever matched the richness, preposterousness, humor, and linguistic bravado of O'Brien's treatment of the Chinese boxes narrative structure.
48. McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian (1965),
Rendered in a blood-stained prose style that is as unique and instantly recognizable as that of Hemmingway's or Faulkner's, McCarthy's unrelentingly horrific Sam Peckinpah-meets-Hieronymus Bosch novel deconstructs not only the familiar Western archetypes of cowboys and Indians but also the revisionist versions that transform white men into villains and red men into good-guy victims.
49. Hawkes, John. The Cannibal (1949)
Nowhere has the nightmare of human terror and the deracinated sensibility been more concisely analyzed than in this groundbreaking novel (Hawkes' first), which helped usher in the postmodern era of literary experimentalism.
50. Wright, Richard. Native Son (1940)
No other black author of this century took greater risks than Wright in this harrowing novel, where he creates a protagonist (Bigger Thomas) who murders a white woman--and then demands that we understand and even empathize with this act.
51 West, Nathaniel. The Day of the Locust (1939)
This remains the Hollywood novel, as well as one of the finest apocalyptic/millennial works of the 20th century.
52. Barnes, Djuna. Nightwood.
In this haunting, dream-like novel, Barnes uses homosexuality as a metaphor for the condition of the human soul.
53. Robinson, Marilynn. Housekeeping (1981).
In this haunting, lyrical ode to loss, the eruption of the past into the present and the illusory nature of any attempt at permanence help shape the personality of one of contemporary fiction's most memorable narrators.
54. Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. Slaughterhouse Five (1969).
Vonnegut here reinvents his own experiences, both as witness to and novelistic chronicler of the greatest massacre in human history (the fire-bombing of Dresden). So it goes. As much as any other novel from the 60s, Slaughterhouse Five established metafiction as the postmodernist literary form capable of offering writers an escape from the stifling fantasies of traditional "realism."
55. DeLillo, Don. Libra (1986)
This novel depicts the ambiguous personalities and events that culminated in the central mythological event that lies at the heart of the mystery of postmodern America: the assassination of Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald.
56. O'Conner, Flannery. Wise Blood (1952).
O'Conner explores the twisted longings, violence, religious fervor, and derangements of life in America's rural South in a manner that reminds one of Kafka, Carver, and (inevitably) Faulkner.
57. LeGuin, Ursula K.. Always Coming Home (1985).
Part initiation story, part political allegory, part philosophical mediation, this book introduces a rich variety of cultural artifacts of an imaginary culture, including recipes, music (some editions included an audiocassette), drama, folktales, descriptions of native flora and fauna, and drawings.
58. Dos Passos, John. USA Trilogy (The 42nd Parallel 1930, 1919 1932, and The Big Money 1936).
These "collective novels" depict the vast panorama of post WWI American life by describing the destinies of the masses of men and women rather than individuals; Dos Passos relied on an array of innovative formal devices influenced by the rise of mass media, Camera eyes, newsreels, quick flash techniques, capsule biographies and other mixtures of news stories, bits of song lyrics, and newspaper headlines.
59. Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook (1961)?
Metafictional impulses are evident in many of this century's great novels, and Lessing's is one example which demonstrates that writing-about-writing need not preclude psychological investigation or an active engagement in politics.
60. Salinger, J.D.. The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Still holding the record for the book responsible for the most firings of American high school teachers, Salinger's memorable and poignant initiation novel evoked the emptiness and phoniness of post WWII American life with conviction and humanity; it also captured the poetry of American teenage lingo better than any book since Huckleberry Finn.
61. Hammett, Dashiell. Red Harvest (1929)
The Maltese Falcon is the best known of Hammett's work, partly due to the great film version, but it was Red Harvest which almost single-handedly shaped the premises of hard-boiled fiction that would be endlessly reworked by authors throughout the rest of the century.
62. Carver, Raymond. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)
Carver writes about troubled people on the outs--out of work, out of love, out of touch--whose confusions, turmoils, and poignancy are conveyed through an interplay of surface detail; here he pushed this elliptical, spare style to its most extreme form--and created a collection that would have a decisive impact on the short story form during the last quarter of this century.
63. Joyce, James. Dubliners (1915)
These intricately intertwined stories are not only vividly drawn, meticulously accurate sketches of turn-of-the-century Dublin but collectively allowed Joyce to come directly to terms with the life he had rejected and the ways this rejection might be figured in art; like his later, more ambitious books, Dubliners is also a book that transcends its immediate focus to become microcosms, small-scale models of all human life, of all history, and geography.
64. Toomer, Jean. Cane (1925)
Blending poetry, theater, and fiction, this landmark experimental novel of the 20s movingly portrayed the rootlessness of black life in white America and made Toomer a leading figure of the Harlem Literary Renaissance.
65. Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth (1905)
While Wharton raises questions about American capitalism, class structure, and gender relations that would endure throughout the century, it is her artistry--her eloquence and control as a stylist, her nuanced employment of the comedy of manners mode that only James rivals that makes this book, in its own time and ours, such a broad and major accomplishment.
66. Hoban, Russell. Ridley Walker (1982)
Set in a nightmarish post-nuclear British landscape and presented in one of the most memorable and original voices conceived in this century, this novel is also, along with Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, the closest contemporary counterpart to Twain's Huck Finn
67. William Eastlake Checkerboard Trilogy (Go in Beauty 1955,The Bronc People
1958, Portrait of the Artist with 26 Horses 1962).
Back in the late 50s and early 60s, William Eastlake was single-handedly changing the scope, poetic range, thematic assumptions, and treatment of character--especially that of Native Americans--of the Western genre. His surreal, humorous, was a decisive influence on later novelists such as Larry McMurtry and Tom McGuane.
68. Elkin, Stanley. The Franchiser (1976).
This novel perfectly embodies Elkin's greatest literary accomplishment: the creation of wonderfully rich and excessive language which serves to unmask the beauty and wonder that is normally locked within the vulgar, disheartening, and ordinary aspects of contemporary life.
69. Auster, Paul. New York Trilogy (City of Glass 1985, Ghosts 1986, The Locked Room 1986).
Auster's Trilogy introduced a new literary figure (described by Dennis Drabbelle as the "post-existential private-eye") and a form of storytelling emphasizing the formal peculiarities and epistemological quandaries of the genre while simultaneously presenting a haunting evocation of the noisy, bewildering and crowded anonymity of New York City--the only constant character in the Trilogy.
70. Robbins, Tom. Skinny Legs and All (1986)
Robbins uses the Dance of the Seven Veils as a kind of elaborate framing device to examine many of the most basic issues that define our existence: what is the nature of sexuality, and what is the relationship between the male a female aspects we all share? how can people break free of the systems (political, spiritual, social) that repress our natural passions and sense of play, that rigidify belief into dogma, that encourage us to stop personal exploration?
71. Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest (1995).
This unwieldy but very highly engaging novel ambitiously explores themes encompassing politics, philosophy, gender roles, and personal identity. These themes are presented through a range of unusual and poetic voices and narrative structures designed to model the difficulties involved in distinguishing pop-cultural appearance from reality or establishing meaningful connections between media-generated images and their referents.
72. Marcus, Ben. The Age of Wire and String (1996).
The first full replenishment of the language since the works of Burroughs and Gass in the 1960s and the most completely original work of fiction to appear in the 90s.
73. Mathews, Harry. Tlooth (1966).
Along with Frank Norris' McTeague, this is the greatest of all "dentist novels." Like his French counterpart, Georges Perec, Mathews has been heavily influenced by his involvement in the OULIPO group of radical European avant-gardists; and as with Perec, there is a great deal more going on here than the brilliance of his elegant language, word play, and intricate formal design.
74. Coover, Robert. Pricksongs and Descants (1969)
The most exuberant display of innovation using the short story form of any collection of fictions from the first wave of postmodernism, this collection ultimately had an even greater impact on writers in the 70s and 80s than Lost in the Funhouse or Barthelme's Unspeakable Practices.
75. Dick, Phillip K.. The Man in the High Castle (1962)
Working as he did on the treadmill of genre SF, Dick never wrote a single work which can be termed a "masterpiece," although this alternate world novel--with its many surprising twists and equally surprisingly
and surprisingly subtle treatment of Asian themes--comes close.
76. Ellis, Brett Easton. American Psycho (1988)
The most notorious and widely denounced American novel of the 80s, American Psycho is also a brilliantly inventive , wickedly funny novel whose monumentally excessive depiction of media imagery becomes a devastating critique of the horror and banality that characterizes an American life dominated by the cultural logic of hyperconsumer capitalism.
77. Fowles, John. The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969).
At once a meticulously rendered Victorian novel and a metafictional deconstruction of such novels, this work also used its 19th century materials as a means of exploring gender, class and existential dilemmas that were as common in the 60s as they were when Charles Dickens was writing.
78. Wolfe, Gene. The Book of the New Sun Tetrology (The Shadow of the Torturer 1980, The Claw of the Conciliator 1981, The Sword of Lictor 1982, The Citadel of the Autarch 1982), Gene Wolfe
In this sprawling series of interrelated novels set in some distant future Wolfe conjures up an epic adventure that unfolds as a series of sensuously rendered, fabulous micro-quests and mock summaries of cultural artifacts reminiscent of Borges or Calvino.
79. Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange (1962)
Burgess invents a marvelously appropriate language to depict a nightmarish, dystopian version of an England populated by the same sort of angry, nihilist "ultra-violent," figures that Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols would later celebrated during punk's mid-70s heyday.
80. Albany Trilogy (Legs 1976, Billy Phelan's Greatest Game 1978, Ironweed 1983), William Kennedy
Kennedy's Trilogy is a remarkable fusion of a real landscape of loud, swinging speakeasies, all-night diners, and hobo jungles--with the landscape of his imagination, where the dead walk side by side with the living, and a bowling alley or pool hall can become a scene of truly epic proportions; like the Dublin of Joyce's imagination, Kennedy's Albany is recreated with meticulous attention to detail but is also imbued with a universality that allows us to recognize something of our own fears, guilt, passions, and ambitions.
81. Gass, William H.. The Tunnel (1995)
As this monumental novel's narrator digs into his own past, his own loves and hatred, and that of Nazi Germany, he creates a hole driven into both language and the book's central theme: the fascism of the heart.
82. Gass, William H. Omensetter's Luck.
From page one until its conclusion, Gass delights and amazes by reeling off one sensuous, loving constructed sentence after another.
83. Bowles, Paul. The Sheltering Sky (1948)
Bowles plunges his readers into a desert landscape whose awe inspiring beauty and indifference to humanity has never been rendered so lovingly--or so harrowingly.
84. Theroux, Alexander. Darcanonville's Cat (1981)
Theroux uses love the way Melville used his white whale-- a metaphor to be exhausted, improvised, played with, and otherwise endlessly explored until it eventually reveals the utter inexhaustibility and mystery of life itself.
85. Sukenick, Ronald. Up (1968)
This wildly inventive, comic novel unfolds as collages of desperate elements: surreal depictions of alienation in the manner of Kafka and Orwell, didactic commentaries about politics, metaphysics, culture, and (of course) literature, flights of fantasy that included numerous outrageous sexual episodes, and reflexive metafictional asides about the book we're reading and the status of the novel generally in the era of post realism; Up's wit and intelligence, its formal extremity--and the appropriateness of its experiments for allowing Sukenick to investigate his own life and the larger context of the disruptions occurring in America during the 60s--made this book among the most daring books of the first wave of pomo innovation.
86. Reed, Ishamel. Yellow Back Radio Broke Down (1972)?
Reed's brash, hoodoo-meets-horse-opera approach to the Wild West signaled the arrival of the first major Black voice in postmodernism.
87. Anderson, Sherwood. Winesberg Ohio (1919)
One of the first books to convincingly employ Freudian psychology to revealing the inner workings of ordinary characters, this collection used a small-town setting as a means of examining the neuroses and obsessions of American life in a manner that has only been rivaled by Flannery O'Conner for sheer intensity and insight.
88. Vollmann, William T.. You Bright and Risen Angels (1987)
In the most ambitious and original debuts since Pynchon's V., Vollmann develops a dense, sprawling novelistic "cartoon" in which bugs and electricity become motifs used to explore the revolutionary impulses that have arisen in response to the evils of industrialism. Moving across vast areas of history and geography, filled with arcane information and surrealist literalizations of sexual longings and violence, and blending together autobiography and fictive invention in a typically po-mo manner, this book's wild flights of improvisational prose and intensity of vision signaled the arrival America's most gifted novelist of the century's last 25 years.
89.Mailer, Norman. The Naked and the Dead (1948)
As is well known, Mailer departed for WWII convinced that his experiences would provide him with the ingredients for writing the great novel about this century's greatest conflagration. This novel proved him to be right.
90. Coover, Robert. The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (1968).
The greatest "sports novel" of the century (only Don DeLillo's End Zone is even in the same 'ballpark") , The UBA used baseball as an elaborate framing device that allows him to explore American culture, history, and politics from various fascinating angles; along the way, he also develops an elaborate and brilliantly conceived metaphor of the relationship of man to God and the fictional systems man has created (myth, literature, philosophy, religion) to make sense of the world.
91.Katz, Steve. Creamy and Delicious (1971).
The most extreme and perfectly executed fictional work to emerge from the Pop Art scene of the late 60s, this collection also includes one of the great undiscovered treasures of the postmodern short story form, the Raymond Roussel-influenced gem, "3 Satisfying Stories"; also notable for Katz's success in creating po-mo's first successful literary analogue to "the Big Crunch"-see p. 43.
92. Coetzee, J. M.. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
Narrated by a middle-aged magistrate of an unspecified colonial outpost, this hallucinatory allegory of imperialism poetically chronicles the interconnections existing between power-wielders and their victims.
93. Sturgeon, Theodore. More than Human (1951)
Anyone who isn't aware that SF has produced some great prose writers need only go to page one of this Sturgeon classic evocation of "homo gestalt" to educate themselves.
94. Sorrentino, Gilbert. Mulligan Stew (1979)
Sorrentino's epic, obsessive, metafictional "tour de farce" includes bits of detective fiction, a masque, letters (including a generous selection of the dozens of rejection letters the book piled up), poetry, porn, and a great deal else; in the end, the book becomes a fascinating, humorous meditation on the comic possibilities of the modern literary imagination-- well as an angry denunciation of the ways these possibilities are subverted in today's publishing industry.
95. Wolfe, Thomas. Look Homeward, Angel (1929).
In an age of hard-boiled realism, this enormous, rough edged beast of novel was a lyrical, uncontrolled, Whitmanesque cry of yearning that remains of the most important statements of American's sense of hope, alienation, memory, and (above all) voracious appetite for new experiences.
96. Dreiser, Theodore. An American Tragedy (1925)
This novel's significance lies partly in Dreiser's ability to use Clyde Griffith's soul-hunger and eventual destruction to describe a uniquely American form of tragedy while also suggesting something about the more universal plight of individuals caught up in vast socio-economic forces which they are only dimly aware of.
97 Mooney, Ted. Easy Travels to Other Planets (1981).
Blending mainstream's emphasis on psychological depth with an eerie ambiance of SF (an impending war in the Antarctic, information sickness) this haunting, lyrical novel perfectly exemplifies the blend of the postmodern mainstream and SF to be found in the other two novels (i.e., DeLillo's White Noise and Gibson's Neuromancer) which best captured the vast, media-driven transformations at work in American life during the 80s.
98.Erickson, Steve. Tours of the Black Clock (1989)
This novel combined Faulkner's mesmerizing ability to explode time and space with Marquez's magical realist ability to magically exaggerate aspects of the familiar until they can be seen clearly once again; the result is a haunting and grotesque evocation of the shattered nature of 20th century life and its ongoing love affair with fascism and violence.
99. Acker, Kathy. In Memorium to Identity (1990)
By the time this--her most moving and effective novel--appeared, Acker had already published nearly a dozen books whose punk-influenced, demolition derby approach to writing fiction had already had the greatest impact on writing by women of anyone of her generation.
100. Delany, Samuel R.. Hogg (1996)
The most shocking novel published in the 20th century.

French Grammar

2007-10-08T23:27:00.001-07:00

ADJECTIVES, ARTICLES & DETERMINERS

Agreement of adjectives (GCSE French)

Adjective (Adjectif)

French Adjective Agreement (Quia java games)

Les adjectifs (Orthogram)

Les adjectifs de couleur

La place des adjectifs qualificatifs

Adjectives that preceed the noun

Les adjectifs (placement exercise)

Les adjectifs qualificatifs (placement exercise)

Placement of the Adjective

Les Adjectifs (interactive exercise)

Adjectifs interrogatifs et exclamatifs

Interrogative adjectives (leçon 25 quel etc)

Accorde de l'adjectif qualificatif épithète

L'accord des noms et des adjectifs qualificatifs au pluriel - Pour le 2e cycle du premier

Expressions de la comparaison

Exercise de TennesseeBob - Une comparaison de quatre individus

Comparatifs

Superlatif

Adjectives and Plural: Lesson 4 of "You Too Can Learn French"

Les articles (Grimoire FRE)

PARTS OF THE BODY DEFINITE ARTICLES VS. POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES

Leçons de grammaire - Les articles

Articles-1 (interactive exercise)

Ecrivez l'article approprié (interactive exercise)

Du/de/des... (Au restaurant, exercise)

Les Articles-3 (interactive exercise)

The Definite and Indefinite Articles

Les Articles définis - Definite Articles (About.com)

FRENCH ARTICLES (Definite vs. Partitive + exercise)

Demonstrative adjectives (leçon 25 ce etc)

Déterminants

GRAMMAIRE: II.Les mots de la phrase/L1adjectif/Adjectifs qualificatifs

GRAMMAIRE: II.Les mots de la phrase/L1adjectif/Adjectifs non qualificatifs

Participe présent et adjectif verbal

Pluriel des noms et des adjectifs qualificatifs qui se terminent en "AL"

Adjectifs possessifs - Possessive Adjectives (About.com)

Adjectifs possessifs (Synapse-fr)

Les adjectifs possessifs (interactive quiz)

EXERCICE ADJECTIFS POSSESSIFS

Les adjectifs possessifs (interactive translation exercise)

Possessive adjectives (leçon 24 mon ma mes etc)

le mot "tout"

Tout/toute/tous/ toutes/tout le monde

Tout, Toute, Tous, Toutes - Test

The use of articles to express referring cases: towards a mentalist explanation

ADVERBS AND ADVERBIAL NOTIONS

L'adverbe

Les adverbes

Introduction to adverbs

Adverbs: formation and placement

Formation of Adverbs (exercise)

Adverbes

Adverbes (Français en affaires)

L'adverbe et la locution adverbiale

Adverbes et locutions adverbiales

[Exercice sur les] Adverbes

EXERCICE - ADVERBES DE MANIERE

Adverbes de négation

Les Négatifs [exercices interactifs]

Adverbes n�gatifs - French Negative Adverbs (About.com)

Les Négations (interactive exercise)

Les Phrases négatives (interactive exercise)

Les expressions négatives (interactive exercise)

The Syntax of French Adverbs without Functional Projections

CONJUNCTIONS

Conjonctions

Conjunctions Les conjonctions

Conjonctions - French Conjunctions (About.com)

Conjonctions (le français en affaires)

Les conjonctions (exercice 1)

Conjunctions and Linking Phrases (Conjonctions et Phrases Conjonctives)

Français 230 - CONJONCTIONS

French Conjunctions requiring the Subjunctive

MIXED & GENERAL

A propos de la correction grammaticale et des correcteurs informatiques

About.com - The French Language

ANALYSE : table des matiegrave;res

Bonjour de France - Index grammaire

BOF - Bréviaire d'orthographe française

101 questions du fran�ais vivant

Connectigramme

COMPLEX SENTENCES REVIEW (+ exercise)

CyberProf au service de l'apprentissage du français

Cours de français

Descriptive Grammar of the Standard French Language

Didactique de la grammaire

Le dossier grammaire

EDUCASERVE - plus de 200 leçons de français, 1000 exercices et jeux

L'enseignement de la grammaire

Exercices de français

EXERCICES DE GRAMMAIRE (Vassar College, self scoring)

EXERCICES DE GRAMMAIRE UTILES

Fiches pratiques de grammaire française

Foire Aux Questions du forum fr.lettres.langue.francaise

FORME GRAMMATICALE (Ce qui varie selon le contexte: genre, nombre, personne et temps.)

Forme grammaticale. Elle se fond avec la personne

Le Français en immersion - Le roman policier (grammar in context)

Le Français et la grammaire - une conjugaison compliquée

FRANÇAIS: GRAMMAIRE - FRENCH: GRAMMAR

Français intermédiaire (grammar site)

Le français sans prétention ou le Petit Imbeau

Français 232 -- Exercices supplémentaires

Français 300 exercices de corrigés

French Grammar (Univ. of Victoria)

French Grammar (Directory.co.uk))

French Grammar Exercises (realfrench.net)

French Grammar for Speakers of English

French grammar guides and exercises

French Grammar Help Online

French Grammar Lessons and Resources

French Grammar Modules

French Grammar Sites

French Language Exercises

French Language Course

FrenchLesson.org - TUTORIALS WITH INTERACTIVE PRACTICE (grammar included)

French Online Grammar Quizzes to Accompany Allons-y (30 of them!)

FREN 215: Introduction à la linguistique française

French Resources

French Revision

The French Tutorial (Helio.org)

La grammaire

Grammaire [exercises]

La grammaire à l'écrit en réseau

Grammaire au CM

Grammaire - Classe de CM1 de Blain

La grammaire en deuxième secondaire

La grammaire en questions

Grammaire française

Grammaire française (Voilier)

Grammaire française en quatre pages

Grammaire française interactive

La Grammaire Française (Zac's French Grammar Review)

La Grammaire Virtuelle (PROTIC3)

Grammar Exercises and References (realfrench.net)

Grammar Guidebook - French

Grammar help for French for Erasmus students

Grimoire FLE - Grammaire

Guide de la phrase complexe

Le Jeu de l'oie

Langue au Chat

Langue Française

Langue Française (Ministère de Culture)

Learning French and French grammar

Le module de grammaire

La monstration - Leçons de grammaire

Office de la langue française du Quebec - foire aux questions linguistiques (grammaire/vocabulaire)

Des outils pour améliorer l'orthographe

Pages de grammaire anglaise

Parallel Grammar Project

PolarFLE

The Part 2 Grammar Course (Department of French Studies)

Les pôles d'influence pour l'analyse des unites de la phrase

Practice Your French On-line

PROJET: COURS DE F.L.E. - GRAMMAIRE

Quelques Eléments de Grammaire

Quia French Grammar exercises (210)

Quia French Top 20 exercises

REALLY USEFUL FRENCH TEACHING SITE

Répertoire des ressources en français

Resources for Learning French (John Walker)

Le Site de l'Orthographe

STP CALL: French

La Subordination en grammaire prédicative: Le Proposition relative en fran&ccedilais

Tex's French Grammar

Table des exercices sur l'analyse grammaticale (des mots) - 14

Testez vos connaissances - Dictées et Dictées à trous

Traité d'analyse grammaticale, par César Jouannet

235 - FRENCH GRAMMAR REVIEW

YAHOO! France - Grammaire, usage et stylistique

MORPHOLOGY

L'analyseur de Langues d'Emmanuel (French, English, Spanish, German)

Bibliographie sur les Préfixes

ARTFL Project: Morphological Analysis Using the INFL Analyzer

French Morphology (About.com)

French Morphology (in Language-Master Downloads)

French Writing and Morphology

Guide de la grammaire française: Morphologie

Chapitre 4: La morphologie

NOUNS

Compound Nouns - Noms composés

L'écriture des toponymes

French Gender: Logical Gender

Gender [French Grammar Help Online]

Le genre des noms

Leçons de grammaire - Le genre grammatical (FRE 180Y)

Le Nom

Noms composés

LES NOMS DES LIEUX ET DES PEUPLES

Noun (Nom)

Nouns (Standard Grade French Revision)

Nouns and adjectives -- gender

Le pluriel des noms composés

Le pluriel des noms composés (cyberprof)

Rectifications de l'orthographe et pluriel des noms composés

SEXUAL DIFFERENCE, GENDER, AND THE FRENCH LANGUAGE

"Le Truc de Genres", par John Walker

PREPOSITIONS

Contez fleurette sans faire de faute (exercise)

Les Etats-Unis et les prépositions de lieu

D'honnêtes Prépositions)

Prepositions (Les Prépositions)

Les Prépositions

Les Prépositions (Point FLE)

Les Prépositions (interactive exercise)

LES PREPOSITIONS

PREPOSITIONS DE LIEU

prépositions de lieu

prépositions de lieu (Cary Academy)

Prépositions avec pays et continents (About.com)

PRONOUNS

Les différentes catégories de pronoms

La Carte des Pronoms

Pronoms

Les pronoms personnels

Pronouns (French Grammar Help Online)

La Carte des Pronoms (ressource BEPP/Laval)

LES PRONOMS DEMONSTRATIFS ET LES PRONOMS RELATIFS (+ exercise)

PEOPLE OR THINGS INDIRECT OBJECT EN and Y, DISJUNCTIVE PRONOUNS

Les Pronoms d'Objet Direct-1 (interactive exercise)

Les Pronoms d'Objet Direct-2 (interactive exercise)

Ordre des pronoms avant le verbe

Ordre des pronoms après le verbe

Interactive exercises on direct & indirect object pronouns

Les pronoms compléments

Les Pronoms d'Objet Direct (activity)/A>

Les pronoms interrogatifs

INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS

Pronoms négatifs - French Negative Pronouns

Les Pronoms personnels (object pronoun exercise)

Pronoms réfléchis - French Reflexive Pronouns

Pronoms relatifs - French Relative Pronouns

Exercice de trous [pronoms relatifs]

Les Pronoms relatifs

Les Pronoms relatifs (PROPOSITIONS RELATIVES)

Les Pronoms relatifs

RELATIVE PRONOUNS I Dont, Ce dont + exercise

RELATIVE PRONOUNS III (A + qui, A+lequel, A + quoi + exercise)

RELATIVE PRONOUNS IV ("Pour qui," "dans lequel," and "(ce) sur quoi" + exercise)

RELATIVE PRONOUNS V - REVIEW (with exercise)

RELATIVE PRONOUNS I Dont, Ce dont

Pronoms Relatifs-1 (interactive exercise)

Les Pronoms Relatifs: Qui ou Que (interactive exercise)

Les pronoms relatifs

Les pronoms relatifs (review exercise)

Les pronoms sujets(interactive exercise)

RG13 - Les pronoms sujets et compléments

Tonic / Disjunctive pronouns

Pronoms disjoints - French Stressed Pronouns

Disjunctive (tonic) pronouns

[Subject] Pronouns and Verbs (lesson 3 of You too can learn French)

TERMINOLOGY

DICO (French/English glossary, with parts of speech)

FICHES DE TERMINOLOGIE GRAMMATICALE

Glossaire des principaux termes orthographiques, grammaticaux et lexicaux

Glossary of Grammatical Terms

Lexique-Grammaire

HyperGrammar

LEXIQUE GRAMMATICAL (Cliquez sur "lexique grammatical")

Lexique grammatical (cursif)

Listes de mots communs (300,000 avec indications grammaticales, sans définitions)

On-line English Grammar

LES PARTIES DU DISCOURS

Jean Veronis, Liliane Khouri, "Etiquétage grammatical multilingue: modèle"

VERBS (INDIVIDUAL)

aller, être, avoir, faire, prendre

Expressions avec aller

Avoir and Etre -- Meanings

Avoir expressions

connaître vs. savoir

connaître" ou "savoir" [exercise]

connaître et savoir [exercise]

le verbe "connaître" [exercise]

Etre et Avoir - Pratiquez deux verbes irréguliers!

-er stem change verbs

Etre

Faire

Faire expressions

Exercice 2 - Expressions avec le verbe "faire"

Causitive "faire"

Special uses of "faire" and "rendre" (with exercise)

mettre, permettre, promettre

Pouvoir, Vouloir, Devoir (interactive exercise)

-re verbs (irregular) like prendre

present tense of prendre, comprendre, apprendre

le verbe "savoir" [exercise]

Les Verbes Comme Vendre (interactive exercise)

Verbes irréguliers: être, avoir, aller, faire, prendre

Chapitre 4 - Le verbe "vouloir"

VOULOIR + INFINITIVE vs. VOULOIR + QUE (+ exercise)

VERB CONJUGATORS

ARTFL Project Verb Conjugation

Ça peut servir: conjugaison

BIBLIOZONE conjugaison automatique

La conjugaison (Grammaire, Momes.net)

Conjugaison en ligne

Conjugaison automatique

Conjugaison verbale

Conjugaison française

Conjugaison verbale

Le Conjugueur

Conjuguez n'importe quel verbe...

Conjuin(s) - Online French Verb Conjugator

Le Devoir conjugal [French verb conjugator+, well designed]

French VerbBasic

French verb conjugation reference

FRENCH VERBS INDEX (8469)

John's Home Page French Verbs (conjugator at the bottom)

OEF conjugaison

Temps littéraires - French Literary Tenses

Verba Universal Conjugator

Le Verbe Français

Verbix - Kreyol Louisianne verb conjugator

Verbix - French verb conjugator

VERBS IN GENERAL

WORD ORDER

Adjectifs irréguliers - La bonne place (exercise a)
Adjectifs irréguliers - La bonne place (exercise b)
Adjectifs irréguliers - La bonne place (exercise c)
Les adjectifs qualificatifs: Place - Détails
Analyse Syntaxique Automatique
Une brève introduction aux concepts de la syntaxe générative
Centre d'analyse de texte par ordinateur
Cours de Syntaxe Formelle et de Syntaxe Générative du Français
Etudes portant sur la syntaxe
French Word Order and the Word Phrase Distinction
French Word Order and Lexical Weight
Introduction à la syntaxe du français
La maturité syntaxique
PERMUTATION DE MOTS DANS UNE PHRASE
La place des adjectifs qualificatifs 1 (excercise)
La place des mots dans la phrase: la phrase négative et la phrase interrogative
"Langue: Et la syntaxe?", Raymond CUBY
"Ordre des mots - French Word Order (About.com)
L'ordre des mots dans la phrase..(Exercice 1)
L'ordre des mots dans la phrase..(Exercice 2)
L'ordre des mots dans la phrase..(Exercice 3)
L'ordre des mots dans la phrase..(Exercice 4)
Ordre des pronoms personnels
Quel est l'ordre des pronoms personnels dans une phrase ?
Questions with inverted word order (French)
Syntaxe à la une : la structure des titres de journaux français et britanniques
Chapitre 7: La syntaxe (Introduction à la linguistique française)
Syntaxe française [12 pp., 2-column course bibliography]
Syntaxe française - French Syntax
SYNTAXE - PHRASE SIMPLE [320-330]

10 Bad Things That Are Good For You

2007-09-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

Beer quells heart disease and chocolate staves off cancer? Though often tagged with a disclaimer, studies that tell us to eat, inhale and generally indulge in "bad stuff" is music to our ears. So go ahead and enjoy these bad-for-you remedies--everything in moderation, as they say--until the next study inevitably overturns the research. Heather Whipps
10 Beer

The newest bad kid on the block, beer has long been overshadowed by its healthier alcoholic cousins. While no one's suggesting you switch that glass of antioxidant-rich Pinot Noir for a tall glass of lager--there's still that beer gut to worry about--new research has suggested that moderate beer intake can actually improve cardiovascular function. Now if only a scientist will discover the health benefits of ballpark franks and chicken wings. Heaven.
9 Anger

If you're one of those people who tends to bottle things up, only to explode ... don't hold it in so long. Studies show that bursts of anger here and there are good for the health, and can be an even more effective coping mechanism than becoming afraid, irritated or disgusted. Anger, like the consumables in this list, however, is best in moderation: stay angry for long periods of time and you'll be plagued with a host of health issues, like blood pressure, sleep disorders and lung damage.
8 Coffee

Java is one of the most debated substances around. Is it good for you? Is it bad for you? Both? The consensus, now anyways, seems to favor those who enjoy their morning jolt--unrelated studies claim coffee is a major source of antioxidants in our diet and can help lower your risk of diabetes. Something in the beans is also thought to ease the onset of cirrhosis of the liver and pancreatitis, good news for those who like to party hard all night before their morning caffeine boost.
7 LSD

We're definitely not in the business of advocating drug use. But check out this interesting science: In heavy drinkers, small doses of LSD have been thought to help bypass the rock-bottom stage of alcoholism and prevent relapses. These studies--some decades old--were done in closely monitored, clinical settings; many patients haven't had a drink in the many years since. It's an interesting finding that needs a lot more investigation, and not a remedy that should ever be tried at home. Meantime--and this may come as no surprise--a recent study of 36 volunteers who took an LSD-like drug in a lab setting had them reporting mystical experiences and behavior changes that lasted for weeks.
6 Sunlight

Exposure to the sun's rays is necessary to survive, but can also kill you in gross, cancerous quantities. Asthmatics, at least, could benefit from measured doses of ultraviolet rays, according to scientists. Sunlight suppressed the immune reactions that cause asthma in some lab studies with mice and could be used to treat humans afflicted with the disease in the future. And sunlight--even if indirect, such as on a shaded porch--is known to boost the mood. Extra sunlight can help office workers avoid afternoon drowsiness, a recent study found. There's still no excuse to head outside and bake, however.
5 Maggots

They're creepy, slimy and altogether ooky, but maggots can save your life. These squirmy larvae are science's newest wonder-cure and were approved in 2003 as the Food & Drug Administration's only live medical device. Placed on serious wounds, maggots mimic their "wild" lifestyle and munch on bacteria and dead tissue, stimulating healing and helping to prevent infection.
4 Marijuana

It's medicinal, we swear! Marijuana, often associated with memory loss, is ironically now being hyped as a way to stave off the ultimate form of memory loss--Alzheimer's. Recent studies on mice suggest that anti-inflammatories found in the drug prevent the clumping of brain proteins, one major cause of the disease. So when should you start preventative therapy? We suggest waiting for the human studies to wrap up.
3 Red Wine

A crucial ingredient in the diets of the world's heart-healthiest populations--like those Bordeaux-guzzling French--red wine has long been known to have potent anti-cancer and artery-protecting benefits. The key, some studies indicate, is an antioxidant found specifically in the skin of red wine grapes, called resveratrol. The latest studies even link resveratrol to greater endurance, a reduction in gum disease and Alzheimer's. White wine, which is fermented after the skins are removed, is less beneficial according to some studies.
2 Chocolate

Chocolate lovers rejoice: study after study lately has touted the magical benefits of the indulgent treat, which is packed with the antioxidant flavonols that prevent certain cancers and keep your arteries from clogging. The most recent news? These powerful chemicals may even increase blood flow to the brain, warding off dementia. Just stick to the highest cocoa content possible--the bars packed with sugar don't help your health one bit.
1 Sex

Scientists have found that the benefits of sex go beyond immediate, ahem, gratification and satisfying the goal of procreation. Besides the obvious evolutionary purposes, we can all take pleasure in the news that having sex is an easy way to reduce stress, lower cholesterol and improve circulation throughout the body. As if you needed another excuse.

Love, Lust and Marriage

2007-09-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

Valentine Humor

Love: When you take a bubble bath together
Lust: When you take a bath in Jell-o together
Marriage: When you give the kids a bath

Love: A romantic candle-light dinner for two
Lust: "Do I have to buy you dinner first?"
Marriage: 4 McDonald's Happy Meals . . . to go

Love: Giving your love some candy
Lust: Thinking you are the candy
Marriage: Scraping the kids' candy off of the carpet

Love: Sex every night
Lust: Sex 5 times a night
Marriage: What's sex?

Love: A night out at the symphony
Lust: A night out at the Holiday Inn
Marriage: A night out at Sesame Street On Ice

Love: French perfume
Lust: Brut aftershave
Marriage: "The baby needs changing. . ."

Love: Lending your jacket to your love when he/she is cold
Lust: "I can think of a way to stay warm . . ."
Marriage: Your teenaged daughter has borrowed all of your jackets

Love: Talking and cuddling
Lust: Rolling over and falling asleep
Marriage: Getting up to wash your hands . . .

Love: Finding the "Fell in Love on AOL" room
Lust: Finding the "Blonde Dominatrix" room
Marriage: Finding the "Married and Looking" room

Love: Long drives through the countryside
Lust: Long parking sessions at Lover's Lookout
Marriage: Long drives with the kids screaming in the backseat

If one day you feel like crying...Call me.

2007-09-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

If one day you feel like crying...Call me.
I don't promise you that..
I can make you laugh
But I can cry with you

If one day you want to run away-
Don't be afraid to call me
I don't promise to ask you to stop
But I can run with you

If one day you don't want
to listen to anybody;
Call me and...
I promise to be very quiet

But... If one day you call
and there is no answer
Come fast to see me...
Perhaps I need you

10 Silly Website Names

2007-09-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

There are many legitimate sites that, on first reading, appear to be using rude domain names. Often it is not until you take a second look that you realise that they can also be innocent. This is the list of the top 10.

1. Whorepresents
A site called Who Represents where you can find the name of the agent that represents a celebrity. Their domain name wait for it is www.whorepresents.com.

2. Expertsexchange
Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com.

3. Penisland
Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net.

4. Therapistfinder
Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com.

5. Powergenitalia
Then of course, theres the Italian Power Generator company www.powergenitalia.com.

6. Molestationnursery
And now, we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales: www.molestationnursery.com.

7. Ipanywhere
If youre looking for computer software, theres always www.ipanywhere.com.

8. cummingfirst
Welcome to the First Cumming Methodist Church. Their website is www.cummingfirst.com.

9. speedofart
Then, of course, theres these brainless art designers, and their whacky website: www.speedofart.com.

10. gotahoe
Want to holiday in Lake Tahoe? Try their brochure website at www.gotahoe.com.

Pieces of Great Song Lyrics

2007-09-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

And as we wind on down the roadour shadows taller than our soulthere walks a lady we all knowwho shines white light and wants to showhow everything still turns to goldand if you listen very hardthe tune will come to you at lastwhen all are one and one is allto be a rock and not to roll.- - - Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven"
All you touch and all you see,Is all your life will ever be.- - - Pink Floyd, "Breathe"
All of us get lost in the darknessDreamers learn to steer by the starsAll of us do time in the guttersDreamers turn to look at the cars- - - Rush "The Pass"
Amazing grace! How sweet the soundThat saved a wretch like me!I once was lost, but now am found,Was blind, but now I see.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,I have already come:'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,And grace will lead me home.- - - John Newton, "Amazing Grace"
And Honey, I miss you and I'm being good.And I'd love to be with you if only I could.- - - Bobby Goldsboro, "Honey"
And if I can't be with you I would rather have a different faceAnd if I can't be near you I would rather be adrift in spaceAnd if the gods desert us I would burn this chapel into flamesAnd if someone tries to hurt you I would put myself in your place- - - Neil Finn "Try Whistling This"
And if she asks you why you can tell her that I told youThat I'm tired of Castles in the AirI've got a dream I want the world to share in castle wallsJust leave me to despair
Hills of forest green where the mountains touch the skyA dream come true, I'll live there 'til I dieI'm asking you, to say my last good-byeThe love we knew, ain't worth another try- - - Don McLean "Castles in the Air"
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoonLittle boy blue and the man in the moon.- - - Harry Chapin, "Cat's In the Cradle"
And the seasons, they go round and round,And the painted ponies go up and down.We're captive on the carousel of time.We can't return, we can only lookBehind from where we came,And go round and round and round in the circle game.- - - Tom Rush, "The Circle Game"
And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls,And tenement halls,And whispered in the sounds of silence.- - - Paul Simon, "Sounds of Silence"
And though you want to last forever,You know you never will,You know you never will,And the good-bye makes the journey harder still.- - - Cat Stevens "O Very Young"
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking.Racing around to come up behind you again.The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older.Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.- - - Pink Floyd, "Time"
Are you lonesome tonight?Do you miss me tonight?Are you sorry we drifted apart?Does your memory stray to a bright sunny day?When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight? - - -Roy Turk and Lou Handman, "Are You Lonesome Tonight"
Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take you toBermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mamaKey Largo Montego, baby why don't we goOoh I wanna take you down to Kokomo, we'll get there fast and then we'll take it slowThat's where we wanna go, way down in Kokomo. - - -Beach Boys, "Kokomo"
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee.- - - Stephen Foster, "Beautiful Dreamer"
Because you're mineI walk the line.- - - Johnny Cash, "I Walk the Line"
Blue Moon, you saw me standing aloneWithout a dream in my heartWithout a love of my own- - -Lorenz Hart, "Blue Moon"
But of all these friends and loversThere is no one compares with you. And these memories lose their meaningWhen I think of love as something new. Though I know I'll never lose affectionFor people and things that went beforeI know I'll often stop and think about themIn my life, I love you more. - - -Beatles "In My Life"
Come on baby, light my fireTry to set the night on fire- - -Robbie Kreiger , "Light My Fire"
Day is donegone the sunfrom the lakefrom the hillfrom the skyall is wellsafely restGod is nigh- - - Anonymous "Taps"
Doesn't anybody stay in one place any more?- - - Carole King, "Far Away"
Don't go changing, to try and please meYou never let me down before.- - - Billy Joel, "Just the Way You Are"
Don't want to close my eyesI don't want to fall asleep'Cause I'd miss you, baby, and I don't want to miss a thing. 'Cause even when I dream of you, The sweetest dream would never doI'd still miss you baby, and I don't want to miss a thing. - - - Aerosmith "Don't want to miss a thing"
Down the street the dogs are barkingAnd the day is getting dark. As the night comes in a-falling, The dogs´ll lose their barkAnd the silent night will shatterFrom the sounds inside my mind, For I´m one to many morningsAnd a thousand miles behind. From the crossroads of my doorstep, My eyes they start to fade, As I turn my head back to the roomWhere my love and I have laid.... - - - Bob Dylan "One Too Many Mornings"
Driving that train, high on cocaineCasey Jones you'd better watch your speedTrouble ahead, trouble behindAnd you know that notion just crossed my mind- - - Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead) "Casey Jones"
Every breath you take and every move you makeEvery bond you break, every step you takeI'll be watchin' you
Every single day and every word you sayEvery game you play, every night you stayI'll be watchin' you- - -Sting, "Every Breath You Take"
Every time I look in the mirrorAll these lines on my face getting clearerThe past is goneIt goes by, like dusk to dawnIsn't that the wayEverybody's got their dues in life to pay- - - Aerosmith, "Dream On"
Fly away, to the rainbow in the skyGold is at the end for each of us to findThere the road begins, where another one will endHere the four winds know who will break and who will bendAll to be the Master of the Wind- - - Manowar, " Master of the Wind"
Fred Jones was worn out from caring for his oftenscreaming and crying wife during the day, buthe couldn't sleep at night for fear that she, in a stupor from the drugs that didn'tease the pain would set the house ablazewith a cigarette- - - Ben Folds Five, "Cigarette" (that's the whole song)
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free. - - - Kris Kristofferson, "Me and Bobby McGee"
Happy days are here again,The skies above are clear again:Let us sing a song of cheer again,Happy days are here again!- - - Jack Yellen "Happy Days Are Here Again"
He goes along just as a water lilyGentle on the surface of his thoughts his body floatsUnweighed down by passion or intensityYet unaware of the depth upon which he coastsAnd he finds a home in meFor what misfortune sows, he knows my touch will reap- - -Fiona Apple, "Pale September"
He not busy being born is busy dying. - - - Bob Dylan, "It's Alright, Ma"
Hear that lonesome whippoorwill?He sounds too blue to fly.The midnight train is whining low,I'm so lonesome I could cry.- - - Hank Williams, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"
How can I be surein a world that's constantly changing? How can I be sure where I stand with you? Whenever I, whenever I am away from youI wanna diecause you know I wanna stay with you. How do I know? Maybe you're trying to use me; flying too high can confuse me; touch me but don't take me down. - - - The Young Rascals, "How Can I Be Sure?"
How I wishHow I wish you were here.We're just two lost souls,Swimming in a fish bowl,Year after year
Running over the same old ground.What have we found?The same old fearsWish you were here- - - Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"
How many times can a man turn his head,and pretend that he just doesn't see?- - - Bob Dylan "Blowing in the Wind"
I come to you defenses down with the trust of a child.- - - Peter Gabriel "Red Rain"
I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time...I'll give it right back to you, one of these days- - - Jimi Hendrix
I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fateI don't believe in forever, or love as a mystical stateI don't believe in the stars or the planetsor angels watching from aboveBut I believe there's a ghost of a chance we can find someone to loveand make it last. - - - Rush "Ghost Of A Chance"
i like a tombstone, cuz it weathers well, and if it stands or if it crumbles, only time will tell.
and you can carve my name in marble, you must cut it deep; there'll be no dancing on the gravestone, you must let me sleep.---suzanne vega, "tombstone"
I met a girl who sang the bluesand I asked her for some happy news,but she just smiled and turned away.And the three men I admire most,The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost,They caught the last train to the coastThe day the music died.- - - Don McLean, "American Pie"
I sing my heart out to the wide open spacesI sing my heart out to the infinite seaI sing my vision to the sky-high mountainsI sing my song to the free.- - - Pete Townshend "Song is Over"
I want to stand with you on a mountainI want to bathe with you in the seaI want to lay like this foreverUntil the sky falls down on me- - -Savage Garden, "Truly Madly Deeply"
I woke up this morning, Smiled at the rising sun, Three little birds, Sat on my doorstep, Singing sweet songs- - -Bob Marley "Three Little Birds"
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saintsSinners are much more fun.- - - Billy Joel, "Only the Good Die Young"
I'm going, I'm going, where the water tastes like wine,We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time- - -Canned Heat, "Going Up The Country"
I'm just a soul whose intentions are good,Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.- - - Joe Cocker, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"
I'm not scared of dyin' and I don't really careif it's peace you find in dyin'well then let the time be near.
And when I dieand when I'm gonethere'll be one child bornand a world to carry on.- - - Laura Nyro, "And When I Die"
I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to looseClinging to a past that doesn't let me chooseOnce there was a darkness, deep and endless nightYou gave me everything you had, oh you gave me lightAnd I will remember youWill you remember me? Don't let your life pass you byWeep not for the memories - - - Sarah McLachlan, "I Will Remember You"
I'm wild again,Beguiled again,A simpering, whimpering child again - Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I. - - -Lorenz Hart, "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"
I've been trying to get down to the heart of the matterbut my will gets weakand my thoughts seem to scatterbut I think it's about forgiveness... forgiveness, even if you don't love me anymore. - - -Don Henly "Heart of The Matter"
If I should stay I would only be in your way So I'll go, but I know I'll think of you each step of the way And I will always love you I will always love you Bitter sweet Memories That's all I am taking with me Good-bye. Please don't cry We both know that I'm not What you need But I will always love you I will always love you. - - -Dolly Parton "I Will Always Love You"
If the future's looking darkWe're the ones who have to shineIf there's no one in controlWe're the ones who draw the lineThough we live in trying timesWe're the ones who have to tryThough we know that time has wingsWe're the ones who have to fly. - - -Rush "Everyday Glory"
If you said good-bye to me tonight,There would still be music left to write.- - - Billy Joel, "The Longest Time"
If you want my body and you think I'm sexycome on sugar let me know. - - -Rod Stewart, "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy"
In every heart there is a roomA sanctuary safe and strong To heal the wounds from lovers pastUntil a new one comes along"- - - Billy Joel "And So It Goes"
In the clearing stands the boxer, and a fighter by his trade.And he carries a reminder of every glove that laid him down...or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame"I am leaving! I am leaving" but the fighter still remains.- - - Paul Simon, "The Boxer"
In the rain the pavement shines like silverAll the lights are misty in the riverIn the darkness, the trees are full of starlightAnd all I see is him and me forever and forever- - - "On My Own" from Les Miserables
in your eyes the light the heat in your eyes I am complete in your eyes I see the doorway to a thousand churches in your eyes the resolution of all the fruitless searches in your eyes I see the light and the heat in your eyes oh, I want to be that complete I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes - - - Peter Gabriel "In Your Eyes"
Is this the real lifeIs this just fantasyCaught in a landslideNo escape from realityOpen your eyes, look up to the skies and seeI'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathyBecause I'm easy come, easy go; little high, little lowanyway the wind blows doesn't really matter to meTo me- - -Queen, "Bohemian Rhapsody"
It came upon the midnight clear,That glorious song of old,From angels bending near the earthTo touch their harps of gold:"Peace on earth, good will to menFrom Heaven's all - gracious King" -The world in solemn stillness layTo hear the angels sing.- - - Edmund Hamilton Sears, "The Angels' Song"
It's the heart afraid of dying, that never learns to dance;It's the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance;It's the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give;And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live.- - - Bette Midler, "The Rose"
I've looked at life from both sides nowFrom up and down, and still somehowIt's life's illusions I recallI really don't know life at all.- - - Joni Mitchell "Both Sides Now"
I've seen fire and I've seen rainI've seen sunny days that I thought would never endI've seen lonely times when I could not find a friendBut I always thought that I'd see you again- - - James Taylor "Fire and Rain"
It was your song that made me singIt was your song that gave me wingsIt was your light that shined guiding my heart to findThis place where I belongIt was your song
Dreams can come true With God's great angels like you- - -Garth Brooks "Your Song"
Joy to the worldAll the boys and girls nowJoy to the fishes in the deep blue seaJoy to you and me- - -Hoyt Axton, "Joy to the World"
Late at night a big ole house gets lonely, I guess every form refuge has its priceAnd it breaks her heart to think her love is onlyGiven to a man with hands as cold as ice. - - - Eagles "Lyin' Eyes"
Life it seems, will fade awayDrifting further every dayGetting lost within myselfNothing matters no one elseI have lost the will to liveSimply nothing more to giveThere is nothing more for meNeed the end to set me free- - - Metallica "Fade to Black"
Like a circle in a spiralLike a wheel within a wheelNever ending or beginningOn an ever-spinning reelAs the images unwindLike the circles that you findIn the windmills of your mind. - - - Michel LeGrand "Windmills of Your Mind"
Little drops of rainWhisper of the painTears of loveLost in the days gone by.- - - Robert Plant, "Thank You"
Love can touch us one timeAnd last for a lifetime And never let go till we're gone- - - Celine Dion "My Heart Will Go On"
Love is a rose But you better not pick it. It only grows When it's on the vine. Handful of thorns And you'll know you missed it. You lose your love When you say the word MINE. - - - Neil Young, "Love Is A Rose"
Lovin' you has made my life so beautifulAnd every day of my life is filled with lovin' youLovin' you I see your soul come shining throughAnd every time that we ooooh I'm more in love with you- - -Minnie Riperton, "Lovin' You"
Mama may havePapa may haveBut God bless the child that's got his ownThat's got his own.- - - Arthur Herzog and Billie Holiday, "God Bless the Child"
Maybe I will never beAll the things that I'd like to beNow is not the time to cryNow's the time to find out whyI think you're the same as meWe see things they'll never seeYou and I are gonna live forever- - - Oasis "Live Forever"
Memory. All alone in the moonlightI can smile at the old daysI was beautiful then.- - - Trevor Nunn, "Cats"
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.- - - John Howard Payne, "Home, Sweet Home"
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheelsThe dizzy dancing way you feelAs every fairy tale comes realI've looked at love that way.- - - Joni Mitchell, "Both Sides Now"
Morning has brokenLike the first morning.Blackbird has spokenLike the first bird.- - - Eleanor Farjeon, "A Morning Song"
My eyes adored yaThough I never laid a hand on youMy eyes adored yaLike a million miles away from me you couldn't see how I adored yaSo close, so close and yet so far- - -Frankie Valli, "My Eyes Adored You"
My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue.An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view.- - - Carole King "Tapestry"
Nights in white satin never reaching the endLetters I've written never meaning to sendBeauty I'd always missed with these eyes beforeJust what the truth is I can't say any moreCause I love you Yes I love youOh how I love you- - - Justin Hayward, "Nights In White Satin"
Now some they do and some they don'tAnd some you just can't tellAnd some they will and some they won'tWith some it's just as well.- - - Supertramp, "Good-bye Stranger"
Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are callingFrom glen to glen, and down the mountain side.The summer's gone and all the flowers are dyingYet you, yet you, must go and I must bide.- - - Traditional Song "Danny Boy"
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear,And he shows them pearly white.Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear,And he keeps them out of sight. - - -Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, "Threepenny Opera"
Oh you are in my blood like holy wine You taste so bitter and so sweet Oh I could drink a case of you, darling And I would still be on my feet Oh I would still be on my feet. - - -Joni Mitchell, "A Case Of You" - Blue album
Oh, no, it can't be teardrops'Cause a man ain't supposed to cry. - - - Dee Clark
Old black water, keep on rollin'Mississippi moon won't you keep on shinin' on me?- - - Patrick Simmons, "Black Water"
One look at loveand you may seeit weaves a webover mystery, all ravelled threadscan rend apartfor hope has a place in the lover's heart. Hope has a place in a lover's heart.- - - Enya "Hope Has a Place"
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,Under the shade of a coolibar tree,And he sang as he sat and waited for his billy-boil,You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me.- - - Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, "Australia's National Song"
Para bailar la bambaPara bailar la bamba se necesita una poca de graciaUna poca de gracia para mi para ti y arriba y arriba,y arriba y arriba con ti sere con ti sere, con ti sere.
Yo no soy marineroYo no soy marinero, soy capitan, soy capitan.
Bamba, bamba, bamba, bambaBamba, bambaBamba- - -Los Lobos "La Bamba"
People talking without speaking,People hearing without listening,People writing songs that voices never share,and no one dare disturb the Sound of Silence.- - - Paul Simon, "Sounds of Silence"
People, people who need peopleAre the luckiest people in the world.- - - Bob Merrill, "People Who Need People"
Pink it was love at first sightPink when I turn out the light, andPink gets me high as a kiteAnd I think everything is going to be all rightNo matter what we do tonight- - -Aerosmith, "Pink"
Place a name upon the nightOne to set your heart alightAnd to make the darkness brightPaint the sky with stars. - - -Enya "Paint the Sky with Stars"
Quick to judge, quick to anger Slow to understand Ignorance and prejudice And fear walk hand in hand - - -Rush "Witch Hunt"
River gonna take me, Sing me sweet and sleepy,Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home, It's a far gone lullaby sung many years agoMama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home- - -Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead) "Brokedown Palace"
Row, row, row your boatGently down the stream.Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrilyLife is but a dream.- - - Traditional Song
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy.I said, "Be careful, his bow tie is really a camera."- - - Simon & Garfunkel, "America"
She's got a way about her,And everywhere she goes, a million dreams of love surround her,everywhere.- - - Billy Joel "She's Got a Way"
See the stone set in your eyesSee the thorn twist in your sideI wait for youSleight of hand and twist of fateOn a bed of nails she makes me waitAnd I wait . . . without you
With or without youWith or without you- - -U2, "With or Without You"
She wore blue velvetBluer than velvet was the nightSofter than satin was the lightFrom the starsShe wore blue velvetBluer than velvet were her eyesWarmer than May her tender sighs- - -Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris, "Blue Velvet"
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,And never brought to mind?Should auld acquaintance be forgot,And auld lang syne?- - - Robert Burns, "Auld Lang Syne"
Shower the people you love with loveShow them the way that you feelThings are gonna work out fine if you only will.- - - James Taylor, "Shower the People"
Sing us a song you're the piano man.Sing us a song tonight.Cause we're all in the mood for a melody,And you've got us feeling all right.- - - Billy Joel
Sing with me, sing for the yearSing for the laughter, sing for the tearsSing with me, if it's just for todayMaybe tomorrow, the good lord will take you away- - - Aerosmith, "Dream On"
So excuse me forgetting, but these things I doYou see I've forgotten, if they're green or they're blueAnyway, the thing is, what I really meanYours are the sweetest eyes, I've ever seen.- - - Elton John / Bernie Taupin
Someday when we meet up yonderWe'll stroll hand and hand againIn a land that knows no partingBlue eyes crying in the rain.- - - Fred Rose, "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" sung by Willie Nelson
Somewhere over the rainbowBluebirds fly.Birds fly over the rainbow -Why then, oh why can't I?- - - E. Y. Harburg, "Over the Rainbow"
Stars shining bright above youNight breezes seem to whisper, "I love you"Birds singing in the sycamore treeDream a little dream of me- - -Gus Kahn, "Dream A Little Dream of Me"
Starry Starry nightPaint your palette blue and grayLook out on a summer's dayWith eyes that know the darkness in my soulShadows on the hillsSketch the trees and the daffodilsCatch the breeze and the winter chillsIn colors on the snowy linen land.- - - Don McLean "Vincent"
Summer breeze makes me feel fineBlowing through the jasmine in my mind.- - - Seals & Crofts, "Summer Breeze"
Summers going fastNights growing colderChildren growing upOld friends growing olderFreeze this moment a little bit longerMake each sensation a little bit stronger- - - Rush "Time Stand Still"
SummertimeAnd the livin' is easy,Fish are jumpin', and the cotton is high.- - - Ira Gershwin, "Porgy and Bess" DuBose Heyward wrote the lyrics th "Summertime"
Thanks for the joy that you're givin' me I want you to know I believe in your songRhythm and rhyme and harmonyYou help me along, makin' me strong, Give me the beat boys and free my soulI wanna get lost in your rock n' rollAnd drift away . . .- - - Dobie Gray "Drift Away"
The hypocrites are slanderingThe sacred halls of TruthAncient nobles showeringTheir bitterness on youthCan't we findThe minds that made us strongCan't we learnTo feel what's right and wrong- - - Rush "A Farewell To Kings"
The love you take is equal to the love you make.- - - The Beatles, "The End"
The moon upon the oceanis swept around in motionbut without ever knowingthe reason for its flowingin motion on the oceanthe moon still keeps on movingthe waves still keep on wavingand I still keep on going- - - Enya "Anywhere Is"
There are many here among uswho think life is but a jokebut you and I, we've been through that;this is not our fate.Let us not speak falsely now, the hour's getting late.- - - Bob Dylan, "All Along the Watchtower"
There are places I'll rememberAll my life though some have changed.Some forever not for betterSome have gone and some remain.All these places have their momentsWith lovers and friends I still can recall.Some are dead and some are living,In my life I've loved them all.- - -Beatles "In My Life"
There's beauty in the silver singing riverThere's beauty in the sunrise in the skyBut none of these and nothing else can match the beautyThat I remember in my true love's eyes - - -Bob Dylan, "Tomorrow is a Long Time"
They say that these are not the best of times,But they're the only times I've ever known.And I believe there is a time for meditationin cathedrals of our own. - - - Billy Joel, "Summer, Highland Falls"
Time it wasand what a time it wasit was...a time of innocencea time confidenceslong ago it must beI have a photographpreserve your memoriesits all that's left you.- - - Paul Simon / Art Garfunkel
To dream the impossible dream,To reach the unreachable star!- - - Joe Darion
Tonight you're mine completelyYou give your love so sweetlyTonight the light of love is in your eyesBut will you love me tomorrow? - - -Gerry Goffin and Carole King, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?"
Unforgettable, that's what you areUnforgettable though near or farLike a song of love that clings to meHow the thought of you does things to meNever before has someone been more
Unforgettable in every wayAnd forever more, that's how you'll stayThat's why, darling, it's incredibleThat someone so unforgettableThinks that I am unforgettable too- - - Irving Gordon, "Unforgettable"
What do you want me to do,To watch for you, To see you through? A box of rain will ease the pain, and love, will see you through. - - - Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead) "Box of Rain"
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,It's the only thing that there's just too little of.- - - Burt Bacharach / Hal David
When a lovely flame dies,Smoke gets in your eyes.- - - Otto Harbach
When a man loves a womanCan't keep his mind on nothing elseHe'll trade the world For the good thing he's found- - -Percy Sledge, "When a Man Loves a Woman"
When Israel was in Egypt land, Let my people go,Oppressed so hard they could not stand,Let my people go.Go down, Moses,Way-down in Egypt land,Tell old PharaohTo let my people go.- - - Negro Spiritual
When it seems like the night will last forever,And there's nothing left to do but count the years, When the strings of my harp to sever, And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears... I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And dream me a dream of my own, I will walk alone by the black muddy river,And sing me a song of my own. - - - Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead) "Black Muddy River"
When my soul was in the lost-and-foundYou came along to claim it.- - - Carole King, "Tapestry"
When there's a shadow, you follow the sun.When there is love, then you look for the one. And for the promises, there is the sky. And for the heavens are those who can fly. - - - Enya "Only If"
When you're weary, feeling smallWhen tears are in your eyes, I'll dry them allI'm on your side when times get roughAnd friends just can't be foundLike a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down- - - Simon and Garfunkel. "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
While we're livingThe dreams we have as childrenFade away - - -Oasis, "Fade Away"
Winter, spring, summer or fallAll you have to do is callAnd I'll be there,You've got a friend.- - - James Taylor
Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away.Now it looks as though they're here to stay.Oh, I believe in yesterday. - - -The Beatles "Yesterday"
You can choose a ready guideIn some celestial voice. If you choose not to decideYou still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fearsAnd kindness that can killI will choose a path that's clearI will choose Freewill- - - Rush "Permanent Waves"
You can speak your mindBut not on my time.- - - Billy Joel, "My Life"
You say you want, diamonds on a ring of goldYou say you want, your story to remain untoldAll the promises we madeFrom the cradle to the graveWhen all I want is you.- - - U2, "All I Want is You"
Yesterday don't matter if it's gone.- - -Rolling Stones, "Ruby Tuesday"
You know a dream is like a riverEver changing as it flows.And a dreamer's just a vesselThat must follow where it goes.Trying to learn from what's behind youAnd never knowing what's in storeMakes each day a constant battleJust to stay between the shores.- - - Garth Brooks, "The River"
You may be rightI may be crazy.But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for.- - - Billy Joel, "You May Be Right"
You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss,A sigh is just a sigh;The fundamental things apply,As time goes by.- - - Herman Hupfeld, "As Time Goes By"
You're so vain.I bet you think this song is about you.- - - Carly Simon, "You're So Vain"
You're the cutest thing that I ever did seeI really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree- - -Steve Miller, "The Joker"
You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your faceAnd show the world all the love in your heartThen people gonna treat you betterYou're gonna find, yes you willThat you're beautiful as you feel.- - - Carole King, "Beautiful"

Argument Essay Topics

2007-09-09T22:01:00.001-07:00

Argument Essay Topics

1. We are becoming increasingly dependent on computers. They are used in businesses, hospitals, crime detection and even to fly planes. What things will they be used for in future? Is this dependence on computers a good thing or should we be more suspicious of their benefits?

2. In what ways has information technology changed work and working practices in the past 10 years?

3. 'Telecommuting' refers to workers doing their jobs from home for part of each week and communicating with their office using computer technology. Telecommuting is growing in many countries and is expected to be common for most office workers in the coming decades. How do you think society will be affected by the growth of telecommuting?

4. Technology is making communication easier in today's world, but at the expense of personal contact as many people choose to work at home in front of a computer screen. What dangers are there for a society which depends on computer screens rather than face-to-face contact for its main means of communication?

5. Some businesses now say that no one can smoke cigarettes in any of their offices. Some governments have banned smoking in all public places. Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons.

6. Should the same laws which prohibit the sale and consumption of heroin be applied to tobacco?

7. To what extent is the use of animals in scientific research acceptable?

8. Human beings do not need to eat meat in order to maintain good health because they can get all their food needs from meatless products and meatless substances. A vegetarian diet is as healthy as a diet containing meat. Argue for or against the opinion above.

9. Forests are the lungs of the earth. Destruction of the world's forests amounts to death of the world we currently know. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

10. Are our zoos cruel to wild animals? Discuss.

11. Zoos are sometimes seen as necessary but not poor alternatives to a natural environment. Discuss some of the arguments for and/or against keeping animals in zoos.

12. To what extent should economic planning be influenced by the need of environmental conservation?

13. Damage of the environment is an inevitable consequence of worldwide improvements in the standard of living. Discuss.

14. The rising levels of congestion and air pollution found in most of the world cities can be attributed directly to the rapidly increasing number of private cars in use. In order to reverse this decline in the quality of life in cities, attempts must be made to encourage people to use their cars less and public transport more. Discuss possible ways to encourage the use of public transport.

15. Education is the single most important factor in the development of a country. Do you agree?

16. What are factors which are related to academic success in high-school students?

17. Do the benefits of study abroad justify the difficulties? What advice would you offer to a prospective student?

18. The idea of going overseas for university study is an exciting prospect for many people. But while it may offer some advantages, it is probably better to stay home because of the difficulties a student inevitably encounters living and studying in a different culture. To what extent do you agree or disagree this statement? Give reasons for your answer.

19. Write a report to your sponsoring agency describing the English-language skills overseas students require. Make any recommendations you feel are necessary.

20. What kind of listening challenges do overseas students face in tertiary education? What recommendations would you offer?

21. Write a report to your sponsoring agency describing the accommodation problems faced by foreign students in Britain/US/Australia, etc. Make any necessary recommendations.

22. Education is recognized as vital to the future of any society in today's world. Governments throughout the world should make education compulsory for all children between the ages of 5 and 15. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

23. Foreign language instruction should begin in kindergarten. Discuss.

24. Children should never be educated at home by their parents. Do you agree or disagree?

25. Children learn best by observing behavior of adults and copying it. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

26. To what extent should universities function as training grounds for employment?

27. To what extent should university courses be geared to the economic needs of society?

28. Should wealthy nations be required to share their wealth among poorer nations by providing such things as food and education? Or is it a responsibility of the governments of poorer nations to look after their citizens themselves?

29. To what extent will migration from the developing world to the developed world become a social and political issue in the 21st century?

30. The dominance of black people in US sport is due to sociological rather than physiological factors. Discuss.

31. In Britain, when someone gets old, they often go to live in a home with other old people where there are nurses to look after them. Sometimes the government has to pay for this care. Who should be responsible for our old people? Give reasons.

32. In some countries the average worker is obliged to retire at the age of 50, while in others people can work until they are 65 or 70. Until what age do you think people should be encouraged to remain in paid employment? Give reasons for your answer.
33. In your opinion should government intervene in the rights of the individual with regard to family planning?
34. To what extent has the traditional male role changed in the last 20 years?
35. Many people believe that women make better parents than men and that this is why they have the greater role in raising children in most societies. Others claim that men are just as good as women at parenting Write an essay expressing your point of view. Give reasons for your answer.
36. The first car appeared on British roads in 1888. By the year 2000 there may be as many as 29 million vehicles on British roads. Alternative forms of transport should be encouraged and international laws introduced to control car ownership and use. What do you think?
37. The best way to reduce the number of traffic accidents is to make all young drivers complete a safe driving education course before being licensed to drive.
38. The rising levels of congestion and air pollution found in most of the world cities can be attributed directly to the rapidly increasing number of private cars in use.. Discuss possible ways to encourage the use of public transport.
39. The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace. Nuclear power provides cheap and clean energy. The benefits of nuclear technology far overweigh the disadvantages. Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer.
40. News editors decide what to broadcast on TV and what to print in newspapers. What factors do you think influence their decisions?
41. Do we become used to bad news? Would it be better if more good news was reported?
42. TV: could you be without it? Discuss.
43. The mass media, including TV, radio and newspapers, have great influence in shaping people's ideas. To what extent do you agree or disagree this statement? Give reasons for your answer.
44. Tourism is becoming increasingly important as a source of revenue to many countries but its disadvantages should not be overlooked. What are some of the problems of tourism?
45. Are women are better parents than men?
46. Should children should be taught sex education in schools?
47. Should money be spent on space exploration?
48. Should rich countries should forgive all debts for poor countries?
49. Will the Internet will bring people of the world closer together?
50. Does foreign aid helps donor countries more than the recipients?
51. Are zoos are necessary for education?
52. Is animal testing necessary?
53. Should rich countries should pay more for environmental damage?
54. Should retirement be compulsory at 65 years of age?
55. Most high level jobs are done by men. Should the government encourage a certain percentage of these jobs to be reserved for women?
56. Are famous people treated unfairly by the media ? Should they be given more privacy, or is the price of their fame an invasion into their private lives?
57. Should developing countries concentrate on Improving industrial skills or should they promote education first?
58. Safety standards are important when building people's homes. Who should be responsible for enforcing strict building codes - the government or the people who build the homes?
59. Does modern technology make life more convenient, or was life better when technology was simpler?
60. In your opinion what factors contribute to a good movie?
61. Does modern technology make life more convenient, or was life better when technology was simpler?
62. Does travel help to promote understanding and communication between countries?
63. If children behave badly ,should their parents accept responsibility and also be punished?
64. What should a government do for a country to become successful?
65. Should sports classes be sacrificed in High School so students can concentrate on Academic subjects?
66. Nowadays doctors can become very rich. Maybe they should not focus on profitable activities such as plastic surgery or looking after rich patients and concentrate more on patients health, no matter how rich they are?
67. Will modern technology, such as the internet ever replace the book or the written word as the main source of information?
68. Discuss the advantage and disadvantage of giving international Aid to poor countries.
69. Should criminals be punished with lengthy jail terms or re-educated and rehabituated, using community service programs for instance, before being reintroduced to society?
70. Computers can translate all kinds of languages well. Do our children need to learn more languages in the future?

TWE Topics
1. People attend college or university for many different reasons (for example, new experiences, career preparation, increased knowledge). Why do you think people attend college or university? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
2. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents are the best teachers. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
3. Nowadays, food has become easier to prepare. Has this change improved the way people live? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
4. It has been said, "Not everything that is learned is contained in books." Compare and contrast knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which source is more important? Why?
5. A company has announced that it wishes to build a large factory near your community. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this new influence on your community. Do you support or oppose the factory? Explain your position.
6. If you could change one important thing about your hometown, what would you change? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.
7. How do movies or television influence people's behavior? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.
8. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Television has destroyed communication among friends and family. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
9. Some people prefer to live in a small town. Others prefer to live in a big city. Which place would you prefer to live in? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
10. "When people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success." Do you agree or disagree with the quotation above? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your position.
11. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Universities should give the same amount of money to their students' sports activities as they give to their university libraries. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
12. Many people visit museums when they travel to new places. Why do you think people visit museums? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
13. Some people prefer to eat at food stands or restaurants. Other people prefer to prepare and eat food at home. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
14. Some people believe that university students should be required to attend classes. Others believe that going to classes should be optional for students. Which point of view do you agree with? Use specific reasons and details to explain your answer.
15. Neighbors are the people who live near us. In your opinion, what are the qualities of a good neighbor? Use specific details and examples in your answer.
16. It has recently been announced that a new restaurant may be built in your neighborhood. Do you support or oppose this plan? Why? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
17. Some people think that they can learn better by themselves than with a teacher. Others think that it is always better to have a teacher. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons to develop your essay.
18. What are some important qualities of a good supervisor (boss)? Use specific details and examples to explain why these qualities are important.
19. Should governments spend more money on improving roads and highways, or should governments spend more money on improving public transportation (buses, trains, subways)? Why? Use specific reasons and details to develop your essay.
20. It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to develop your essay.
21. In general, people are living longer now. Discuss the causes of this phenomenon. Use specific reasons and details to develop your essay.
22. We all work or will work in our jobs with many different kinds of people. In your opinion, what are some important characteristics of a co-worker (someone you work closely with)? Use reasons and specific examples to explain why these characteristics are important.
23. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Sometimes it is better not to tell the truth. Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
24. In some countries, teenagers have jobs while they are still students. Do you think this is a good idea? Support your opinion by using specific reasons and details.
25. A person you know is planning to move to your town or city. What do you think this person would like and dislike about living in your town or city? Why? Use specific reasons and details to develop your essay.
26. It has recently been announced that a large shopping center may be built in your neighborhood. Do you support or oppose this plan? Why? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
27. It has recently been announced that a new movie theater may be built in your neighborhood. Do you support or oppose this plan? Why? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
28. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? People should sometimes do things that they do not enjoy doing. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
29. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Television, newspapers, magazines, and other media pay too much attention to the personal lives of famous people such as public figures and celebrities. Use specific reasons and details to explain your opinion.
30. Some people believe that the Earth is being harmed (damaged) by human activity. Others feel that human activity makes the Earth a better place to live. What is your opinion? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
31. It has recently been announced that a new high school may be built in your community. Do you support or oppose this plan? Why? Use specific reasons and details in your answer.
32. Some people spend their entire lives in one place. Others move a number of times throughout their lives, looking for a better job, house, community, or even climate. Which do you prefer: staying in one place or moving in search of another place? Use reasons and specific examples to support your opinion.
33. Is it better to enjoy your money when you earn it or is it better to save your money for some time in the future? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
34. You have received a gift of money. The money is enough to buy either a piece of jewelry you like or tickets to a concert you want to attend. Which would you buy? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
35. You must select a person to teach others to do a job. Which one of the following is the most important for you to consider in making your selection? " the person's education " the person's work experience " the quality of the person's previous work Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
36. Businesses should hire employees for their entire lives. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
37. Countries, businesses, and schools are three areas that need good leaders. Choose one of these three areas and describe the most important qualities of a leader in that area. Explain why these qualities are important, using specific examples and details.
38. Choose one of the following transportation vehicles and explain why you think it has changed people's lives. " Automobiles " Bicycles " Airplanes Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
39. Do you agree or disagree that progress is always good? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
40. Learning about the past has no value for those of us living in the present. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
41. The expression "Never, never give up" means to keep trying and never stop working for your goals. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
42. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? With the help of technology, students nowadays can learn more information and learn it more quickly. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
43. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Games are as important for adults as they are for children. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
44. Awards and prizes are given for excellence in various fields. Do these awards and prizes serve a useful purpose? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
45. Some people think that human needs for farmland, housing, and industry are more important than saving land for endangered animals. Do you agree or disagree with this point of view? Why or why not? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
46. What is a very important skill a person should learn in order to be successful in the world today? Choose one skill and use specific reasons and examples to support your choice.
47. Resolving problems between individuals or groups is important. What should be considered or kept in mind in resolving problems between individuals or groups? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
48. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Self-confidence is the most important factor for success in school or at work. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
49. Why do you think some people are attracted to dangerous sports or other dangerous activities? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
50. Which is more important for success: the natural ability you are born with or hard work? Explain your opinion, using specific reasons and examples.
51. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents or other adult relatives should make important decisions for their older (15 to 18 year-old) teenaged children. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
52. Some people like to travel with a companion. Other people prefer to travel alone. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your choice.
53. Some people prefer to get up early in the morning and start the day's work. Others prefer to get up later in the day and work until late at night. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your choice.
54. What are the important qualities of a good son or daughter? Have these qualities changed or remained the same over time in your culture? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
55. Some people prefer to work for a large company. Others prefer to work for a small company. Which would you prefer? Use specific reasons and details to support your choice.
56. People work because they need money to live. What are some other reasons that people work? Discuss one or more of these reasons. Use specific examples and details to support your answer.
57. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Face-to-face communication is better than other types of communication, such as letters, e-mail, or telephone calls. Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
58. Some people like to do only what they already do well. Other people prefer to try new things and take risks. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your choice.
59. Some people believe that success in life comes from taking risks or chances. Others believe that success results from careful planning. In your opinion, what does success come from? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
60. What change would make your hometown more appealing to people your age? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
61. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The most important aspect of a job is the money a person earns. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
62. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? One should never judge a person by external appearances. Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
63. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? A person should never make an important decision alone. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
64. A company is going to give some money either to support the arts or to protect the environment. Which do you think the company should choose? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
65. Some movies are serious, designed to make the audience think. Other movies are designed primarily to amuse and entertain. Which type of movie do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
66. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Businesses should do anything they can to make a profit. Use specific reasons and examples to support your position.
67. Some people are always in a hurry to go places and get things done. Other people prefer to take their time and live life at a slower pace. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
68. Some people think governments should spend as much money as possible exploring outer space (for example, traveling to the Moon and to other planets). Other people disagree and think governments should spend this money for our basic needs on Earth. Which of these two opinions do you agree with? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
69. People have different ways of escaping the stress and difficulties of modern life. Some read; some exercise; others work in their gardens. What do you think are the best ways of reducing stress? Use specific details and examples in your answer.
70. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Teachers should be paid according to how much their students learn. Give specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
71. If you were asked to send one thing representing your country to an international exhibition, what would you choose? Why? Use specific reasons and details to explain your choice.
72. You have been told that dormitory rooms at your university must be shared by two students. Would you rather have the university assign a student to share a room with you, or would you rather choose your own roommate? Use specific reasons and details to explain your answer.
73. Some people think that governments should spend as much money as possible on developing or buying computer technology. Other people disagree and think that this money should be spent on more basic needs. Which one of these opinions do you agree with? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
74. Some people like doing work by hand. Others prefer using machines. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
75. Schools should ask students to evaluate their teachers. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
76. In your opinion, what is the most important characteristic (for example, honesty, intelligence, a sense of humor) that a person can have to be successful in life? Use specific reasons and examples from your experience to explain your answer. When you write your answer, you are not limited to the examples listed in the prompt.
77. It is generally agreed that society benefits from the work of its members. Compare the contributions of artists to society with the contributions of scientists to society. Which type of contribution do you think is valued more by your society? Give specific reasons to support your answer.
78. Students at universities often have a choice of places to live. They may choose to live in university dormitories, or they may choose to live in apartments in the community. Compare the advantages of living in university housing with the advantages of living in an apartment in the community. Where would you prefer to live? Give reasons for your preference.
79. You need to travel from your home to a place 40 miles (64 kilometers) away. Compare the different kinds of transportation you could use. Tell which method of travel you would choose. Give specific reasons for your choice.
80. Some people believe that a college or university education should be available to all students. Others believe that higher education should be available only to good students. Discuss these views. Which view do you agree with? Explain why.
81. Some people believe that the best way of learning about life is by listening to the advice of family and friends. Other people believe that the best way of learning about life is through personal experience. Compare the advantages of these two different ways of learning about life. Which do you think is preferable? Use specific examples to support your preference.
82. When people move to another country, some of them decide to follow the customs of the new country. Others prefer to keep their own customs. Compare these two choices. Which one do you prefer? Support your answer with specific details.
83. Some people prefer to spend most of their time alone. Others like to be with friends most of the time. Do you prefer to spend your time alone or with friends? Use specific reasons to support your answer.
84. Some people prefer to spend time with one or two close friends. Others choose to spend time with a large number of friends. Compare the advantages of each choice. Which of these two ways of spending time do you prefer? Use specific reasons to support your answer.
85. Some people think that children should begin their formal education at a very early age and should spend most of their time on school studies. Others believe that young children should spend most of their time playing. Compare these two views. Which view do you agree with? Why?
86. The government has announced that it plans to build a new university. Some people think that your community would be a good place to locate the university. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of establishing a new university in your community. Use specific details in your discussion.
87. Some people think that the family is the most important influence on young adults. Other people think that friends are the most important influence on young adults. Which view do you agree with? Use examples to support your position.
88. Some people prefer to plan activities for their free time very carefully. Others choose not to make any plans at all for their free time. Compare the benefits of planning free-time activities with the benefits of not making plans. Which do you prefer-planning or not planning for your leisure time? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your choice.
89. People learn in different ways. Some people learn by doing things; other people learn by reading about things; others learn by listening to people talk about things. Which of these methods of learning is best for you? Use specific examples to support your choice.
90. Some people choose friends who are different from themselves. Others choose friends who are similar to themselves. Compare the advantages of having friends who are different from you with the advantages of having friends who are similar to you. Which kind of friend do you prefer for yourself? Why?
91. Some people enjoy change, and they look forward to new experiences. Others like their lives to stay the same, and they do not change their usual habits. Compare these two approaches to life. Which approach do you prefer? Explain why.
92. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? People behave differently when they wear different clothes. Do you agree that different clothes influence the way people behave? Use specific examples to support your answer.
93. Decisions can be made quickly, or they can be made after careful thought. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The decisions that people make quickly are always wrong. Use reasons and specific examples to support your opinion.
94. Some people trust their first impressions about a person's character because they believe these judgments are generally correct. Other people do not judge a person's character quickly because they believe first impressions are often wrong. Compare these two attitudes. Which attitude do you agree with? Support your choice with specific examples.
95. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? People are never satisfied with what they have; they always want something more or something different. Use specific reasons to support your answer.
96. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? People should read only those books that are about real events, real people, and established facts. Use specific reasons and details to support your opinion.
97. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It is more important for students to study history and literature than it is for them to study science and mathematics. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
98. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? All students should be required to study art and music in secondary school. Use specific reasons to support your answer.
99. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? There is nothing that young people can teach older people. Use specific reasons and examples to support your position.
100. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Reading fiction (such as novels and short stories) is more enjoyable than watching movies. Use specific reasons and examples to explain your position.
101. Some people say that physical exercise should be a required part of every school day. Other people believe that students should spend the whole school day on academic studies. Which opinion do you agree with? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
102. A university plans to develop a new research center in your country. Some people want a center for business research. Other people want a center for research in agriculture (farming). Which of these two kinds of research centers do you recommend for your country? Use specific reasons in your recommendation.
103. Some young children spend a great amount of their time practicing sports. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
104. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Only people who earn a lot of money are successful. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
105. If you could invent something new, what product would you develop? Use specific details to explain why this invention is needed.
106. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? A person's childhood years (the time from birth to twelve years of age) are the most important years of a person's life. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
107. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Children should be required to help with household tasks as soon as they are able to do so. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
108. Some high schools require all students to wear school uniforms. Other high schools permit students to decide what to wear to school. Which of these two school policies do you think is better? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
109. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Playing a game is fun only when you win. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
110. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? High schools should allow students to study the courses that students want to study. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
111. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It is better to be a member of a group than to be the leader of a group. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
112. What do you consider to be the most important room in a house? Why is this room more important to you than any other room? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
113. If you could make one important change in a school that you attended, what change would you make? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.
114. A gift (such as a camera, a soccer ball, or an animal) can contribute to a child's development. What gift would you give to help a child develop? Why? Use reasons and specific examples to support your choice.
115. Some people believe that students should be given one long vacation each year. Others believe that students should have several short vacations throughout the year. Which viewpoint do you agree with? Use specific reasons and examples to support your choice.
116. Would you prefer to live in a traditional house or in a modern apartment building? Use specific reasons and details to support your choice.
117. Some people say that advertising encourages us to buy things we really do not need. Others say that advertisements tell us about new products that may improve our lives. Which viewpoint do you agree with? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
118. Some people prefer to spend their free time outdoors. Other people prefer to spend their leisure time indoors. Would you prefer to be outside or would you prefer to be inside for your leisure activities? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your choice.
119. Your school has received a gift of money. What do you think is the best way for your school to spend this money? Use specific reasons and details to support your choice.
120. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Playing games teaches us about life. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
121. Imagine that you have received some land to use as you wish. How would you use this land? Use specific details to explain your answer.
122. What is the most important animal in your country? Why is the animal important? Use reasons and specific details to explain your answer.
123. Many parts of the world are losing important natural resources, such as forests, animals, or clean water. Choose one resource that is disappearing and explain why it needs to be saved. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
124. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? A zoo has no useful purpose. Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.
125. In some countries, people are no longer allowed to smoke in many public places and office buildings. Do you think this is a good rule or a bad rule? Use specific reasons and details to support your position.
126. Plants can provide food, shelter, clothing, or medicine. What is one kind of plant that is important to you or the people in your country? Use specific reasons and details to explain your choice.
127. You have the opportunity to visit a foreign country for two weeks. Which country would you like to visit? Use specific reasons and details to explain your choice.
128. In the future, students may have the choice of studying at home by using technology such as computers or television or of studying at traditional schools. Which would you prefer? Use reasons and specific details to explain your choice.
129. When famous people such as actors, athletes and rock stars give their opinions, many people listen. Do you think we should pay attention to these opinions? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
130. The twentieth century saw great change. In your opinion, what is one change that should be remembered about the twentieth century? Use specific reasons and details to explain your choice.
131. When people need to complain about a product or poor service, some prefer to complain in writing and others prefer to complain in person. Which way do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
132. People remember special gifts or presents that they have received. Why? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
133. Some famous athletes and entertainers earn millions of dollars every year. Do you think these people deserve such high salaries? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
134. Is the ability to read and write more important today than in the past? Why or why not? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
135. People do many different things to stay healthy. What do you do for good health? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
136. You have decided to give several hours of your time each month to improve the community where you live. What is one thing you will do to improve your community? Why? Use specific reasons and details to explain your choice.
137. Your school has enough money to purchase either computers for students or books for the library. Which should your school choose to buy- computers or books? Use specific reasons and examples to support your recommendation.
138. Many students choose to attend schools or universities outside their home countries. Why do some students study abroad? Use specific reasons and details to explain your answer.
139. People listen to music for different reasons and at different times. Why is music important to many people? Use specific reasons and examples to support your choice.
140. Groups or organizations are an important part of some people's lives. Why are groups or organizations important to people? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.
141. Imagine that you are preparing for a trip. You plan to be away from your home for a year. In addition to clothing and personal care items, you can take one additional thing. What would you take and why? Use specific reasons and details to support your choice.
142. When students move to a new school, they sometimes face problems. How can schools help these students with their problems? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.
143. It is sometimes said that borrowing money from a friend can harm or damage the friendship. Do you agree? Why or why not? Use reasons and specific examples to explain your answer.
144. Every generation of people is different in important ways. How is your generation different from your parents' generation? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.
145. Some students like classes where teachers lecture (do all of the talking) in class. Other students prefer classes where the students do some of the talking. Which type of class do you prefer? Give specific reasons and details to support your choice.
146. Holidays honor people or events. If you could create a new holiday, what person or event would it honor and how would you want people to celebrate it? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
147. A friend of yours has received some money and plans to use all of it either o to go on vacation o to buy a car Your friend has asked you for advice. Compare your friend's two choices and explain which one you think your friend should choose. Use specific reasons and details to support your choice.
148. The 21st century has begun. What changes do you think the new century will bring? Use examples and details in your answer.
149. What are some of the qualities of a good parent? Use specific details and examples to explain your answer.
150. Movies are popular all over the world. Explain why movies are so popular. Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.
151. In your country, is there more need for land to be left in its natural condition or is there more need for land to be developed for housing and industry? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
152. Many people have a close relationship with their pets. These people treat their birds, cats, or other animals as members of their family. In your opinion, are such relationships good? Why or why not? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
153. Films can tell us a lot about the country where they were made. What have you learned about a country from watching its movies? Use specific examples and details to support your response.
154. Some students prefer to study alone. Others prefer to study with a group of students. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
155. You have enough money to purchase either a house or a business. Which would you choose to buy? Give specific reasons to explain your choice.

famous proverbs and adages

2007-07-31T20:37:00.001-07:00

A bad cause requires many words. German Proverb
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. Arab Proverb
A bird in the hand is worth two in a bush. English Proverb
A broken hand works, but not a broken heart. Persian Proverb
A cat has nine lives. Proverb of Unknown Origin
A clear conscience is a soft pillow. German Proverb
A close friend can become a close enemy. Ethiopian Proverb
A closed mouth catches no flies. Italian Proverb
A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs. German Proverb
A courtyard common to all will be swept by none. Chinese Proverb
A dimple on the chin, the devil within. Gaelic Proverb
A dog is wiser than a woman; it does not bark at its master. Russian Proverb
A drink precedes a story. Irish Proverb
A drowning man is not troubled by rain. Persian Proverb
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. William Blake "Proverbs of Hell" (1790)
A forest is in an acorn. Proverb of Unknown Origin
A friend in need is a friend indeed English Proverb
A friend's eye is a good mirror. Irish Proverb
A good denial, the best point in law. Irish Proverb
A good husband is healthy and absent. Japanese Proverb
A hard beginning maketh a good ending. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
A healthy man is a successful man. French Proverb
A hedge between keeps friendship green. French Proverb
A hen is heavy when carried far. Irish Proverb
A hound's food is in its legs. Irish Proverb
A house without a dog or a cat is the house of a scoundrel. Portuguese Proverb
A hungry man is an angry man. English Proverb
A lie travels round the world while truth is putting her boots on. French Proverb
A little too late, is much too late. German Proverb
A loan though old is not gift. Hungarian Proverb
A lock is better than suspicion. Irish Proverb
A man does not seek his luck, luck seeks its man. Turkish Proverb
A man is not honest simply because he never had a chance to steal. Yiddish Proverb
A man may well bring a horse to the water, but he cannot make him drink. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
A man should live if only to satisfy his curiosity. Yiddish Proverb
A monkey never thinks her baby's ugly. Haitian Proverb
A new broom sweeps clean, but the old brush knows all the corners. Irish Proverb
A penny for your thoughts. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
A penny saved is a penny gained. Scottish Proverb
A poor beauty finds more lovers than husbands. English Proverb
A prudent man does not make the goat his gardener. Hungarian Proverb
A rumor goes in one ear and out many mouths. Chinese proverb
A silent mouth is melodious. Irish Proverb
A single Russian hair outweighs half a Pole. Traditional Russian Saying
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. Greek Proverb
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. Bible - Proverbs 15:1.
A son is a son till he gets him a wife,But a daughter's a daughter the rest of your life. Proverb of Unknown Origin
A spoon does not know the taste of soup, nor a learned fool the taste of wisdom. Welsh Proverb
A table is not blessed if it has fed no scholars. Yiddish Proverb
A teacher is better than two books. German Proverb
A thief believes everybody steals. Proverb of Unknown Origin
A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom. Chinese proverb
A throne is only a bench covered with velvet. French Proverb
A trade not properly learned is an enemy. Irish Proverb
A tree falls the way it leans. Bulgarian Proverb
A white Christmas fills the churchyard. French Proverb
A wise man hears one word and understands two. Yiddish Proverb
A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion. Chinese Proverb
A woman has the form of an angel, the heart of a serpent, and the mind of an ass. German Proverb
A worthy woman is far more precious than jewels, strength and dignity are her clothing. Bible - Proverbs 31
Act in the valley so that you need not fear those who stand on the hill. Danish Proverb
Advice should be viewed from behind. Swedish Proverb
Advice when most needed is least heeded. English Proverb
After shaking hands with a Greek, count your fingers. Albanian Saying
Age is honorable and youth is noble. Irish Proverb
All is well that ends well. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
All things grow with time, except grief. Yiddish Proverb
An angry man is not fit to pray. Yiddish Proverb
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Proverb of Unknown Origin
An ass in Germany is a professor in Rome. Traditional German Saying
An enemy will agree, but a friend will argue. Russian Proverb
An Englishman will burn his bed to catch a flea. Turkish Proverb
An ox remains an ox, even if driven to Vienna. Hungarian Proverb
And old rat is a brave rat. French Proverb
Anger can be an expensive luxury. Italian Proverb
Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp's nest. Malabar Proverb
Anger without power is folly. German Proverb
Appetite comes with eating. French Proverb
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Bible - Proverbs 26:11
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Bible - Proverbs 23:7
As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. Bible - Proverbs 25:25.
As mad as a March hare. Proverb of Unknown Origin
As proud as a peacock. Proverb of Unknown Origin
As sluttish and slatternly as an Irishwoman bred in France. Traditional Irish Saying
As the best wine makes the sharpest vinegar, the truest lover may turn into the worst enemy. Proverb of Unknown Origin
As the big hound is, so will the pup be. Irish Proverb
As we live, so we learn. Yiddish Proverb
Be neither intimate nor distant with the clergy. Irish Proverb
Beggars shouldn't be choosers. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Better give a penny then lend twenty. Italian Proverb
Better late than never. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Better no doctor at all than three. Polish Proverb
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. English Proverb
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Chinese Proverb
Better wear out shoes than sheets. Scottish Proverb
Between the devil and the deep blue sea. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Beware of a silent dog and still water. German Proverb
Black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love. (About coffee.) Turkish proverb
Blood is thicker than water. English Proverb (17th Century)
Both your friend and your enemy think you will never die. Irish Proverb
Butter would not melt in her mouth. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Call on God, but row away from the rocks. Indian Proverb
Children are poor men's riches. English Proverb
Children should be seen and not heard. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Children suck the mother when they are young and the father when they are old. English Proverb.
Choose neither a woman nor linen by candlelight. Italian Proverb
Climb mountains to see lowlands. Chinese Proverb
Clogs to clogs in three generations. English Proverb
Clouds gather before a storm. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Commit a sin twice and it will not seem a crime. Jewish Saying
Curiosity killed the cat. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse. Japanese Proverb
Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own. Chinese Proverb
Death always comes too early or too late English Proverb
Death closes all doors. English Proverb
Death pays all debts. English Proverb
Did hogs feed here or did Lithuanians have a feast here? Traditional Polish Saying
Do not be born good or handsome, but be born lucky. Russian Proverb
Do not blame God for having created the tiger, but thank him for not having given it wings. Indian Proverb
Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped. African proverb
Do not rejoice at my grief, for when mine is old, yours will be new. Spanish Proverb
Do not speak of secrets in a field that is full of little hills. Hebrew Proverb
Do not talk Arabic in the house of a Moor. Oriental Proverb
Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead. Chinese Proverb
Don't imitate the fly before you have wings. French Proverb
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Eat well, drink in moderation, and sleep sound, in these three good health abound. Latin Proverb
Epigrams succeed where epics fail. Persian Proverb
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. Bible - Proverbs 17:28
Even a small thorn causes festering. Irish Proverb
Every ass loves to hear himself bray. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Every cloud has a silver lining. English Proverb
Every dog hath its day. English Proverb
Every garden may have some weeds. English Proverb
Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven. Yiddish proverb
Everyone loves justice in the affairs of another. Italian Proverb
Everyone pushes a falling fence. Chinese Proverb
Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree. Ethiopian Proverb
Evil is sooner believed than good. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Experience is a comb which nature gives to men when they are bald. Eastern Proverb
Fame is a magnifying glass. English Proverb
Feather by feather the goose can be plucked. French Proverb
Fine feathers make fine birds. English Proverb
Flattery makes friends and truth makes enemies. Spanish Proverb
Fortune is a woman; if you neglect her today do not expect to regain her tomorrow. French Proverb
Fortune is blind, but not invisible. French Proverb
Friends are like fiddle strings, they must not be screwed too tight. English Proverb
Friends are lost by calling often and calling seldom. French Proverb
Friendship is a furrow in the sand. Tongan Proverb
Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever. Chinese Proverb
Give neither counsel nor salt till you are asked for it. Italian Proverb
Give the devil his due. English Proverb
Glutton: one who digs his grave with his teeth. French Proverb
God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers. Jewish Proverb
God gives the nuts, but he doesn't crack them. German proverb
God heals, and the physician takes the fee. French Proverb
God help the rich man, let the poor man beg! Old English Proverb
God help the rich, the poor can look after themselves. Old English Proverb
Going to law is losing a cow for the sake of a cat. Chinese Proverb
Good advice is often annoying, bad advice never. French Proverb
Good as drink is, it ends in thirst. Irish Proverb
Good luck beats early rising. Irish Proverb
Gray hairs are death's blossoms. English Proverb
Half a loaf is better than none. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Haste makes waste. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Have a horse of your own and then you may borrow another's. Welsh Proverb
He is not wise that is not wise for himself. English Proverb
He lied like an eyewitness. Russian Insult
He makes his home where the living is best. Latin Proverb
He that can't endure the bad will not live to see the good. Jewish Proverb
He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned. French Proverb (14th century)
He that is rich will not be called a fool. Spanish Proverb
He that lives on hope will die fasting. North American Proverb
He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. Bible - Proverbs 28:20.
He that marries for money will earn it. American Proverb
He that plants thorns must never expect to gather roses. English Proverb
He that seeks trouble never misses. English Proverb (17th century)
He that spareth his rod hateth his son. Bible - Proverbs 24
He that winna be ruled by the rudder maun be ruled by the rock. Scottish Proverb
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. Chinese proverb
He who cannot agree with his enemies is controlled by them. Chinese proverb
He who comes with a story to you brings two away from you Irish Proverb
He who could foresee affairs three days in advance would be rich for thousands of years. Chinese Proverb
He who does not know one thing knows another. Kenyan Proverb
He who gets a name for early rising can stay in bed until midday. Irish Proverb
He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything. Arabian Proverb
He who has once burnt his mouth always blows his soup. German Proverb
He who holds the ladder is as bad as the thief. German Proverb
He who knows nothing, doubts nothing. Spanish Proverb
He who leaps high must take a long run. Danish Proverb
He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount. Chinese Proverb
He who serves two masters has to lie to one. Portuguese Proverb
He who sups with the devil has need of a long spoon. English Proverb
He who would climb the ladder must begin at the bottom. English Proverb
He who would eat in Spain must bring his kitchen along. Traditional German Saying
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. William Blake "Proverbs of Hell" (1790)
Heaven lent you a soul Earth will lend a grave. Chinese Proverb
Honesty is the best policy. English Proverb
How many will listen to the truth when you tell them? Yiddish Proverb
Hygiene is two thirds of health. Lebanese Proverb
If a man be great, even his dog will wear a proud look. Japanese Proverb
If a man deceives me once, shame on him; if he deceives me twice, shame on me. Italian Proverb
If all pulled in one direction, the world would keel over. Yiddish Proverb
If God lived on earth, people would break his windows. Jewish Proverb
If rich people could hire other people to die for them, the poor could make a wonderful living. Yiddish Proverb
If the patient dies, the doctor has killed him, but if he gets well, the saints have saved him. Italian Proverb
If two men ride a horse, one must ride behind. Proverb of Unknown Origin
If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people. Chinese Proverb
If you believe everything you read, better not read. Japanese proverb
If you bow at all bow low. Chinese Proverb
If you do not sow in the spring you will not reap in the autumn. Irish Proverb
If you love him, don't lend him. Polish Proverb
If you take big paces you leave big spaces. Burmese Proverb
If you want to be criticized, marry. Irish Proverb
If you wish to die young, make your physician your heir. Romanian Proverb
If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words. Chinese Proverb
In a calm sea every man is a pilot. Spanish Proverb
In America half an hour is forty minutes. German Proverb
In baiting a mousetrap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse. Greek Proverb
In love, there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek. French Proverb
Instinct is stronger than upbringing. Irish Proverb
It is a bad hen that does not scratch herself. Irish Proverb
It is a bold mouse that nestles in the cat's ear. English Proverb
It is a long road that has no turning. Irish Proverb
It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust nobody. English Proverb (18th century)
It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Proverb of Unknown Origin
It is better to be a male for one day than a female for ten. Kurdish Proverb
It is better to be born a beggar than a fool. Spanish Proverb
It is better to conceal one's knowledge than to reveal one's ignorance. Spanish Proverb
It is better to exist unknown to the law. Irish Proverb
It is better to sit down than to stand, it is better to lie down than to sit, but death is the best of all. (About laziness) Indian Proverb
It is hard to pay for bread that has been eaten. Danish Proverb
It is not a secret if it is known by three people. Irish Proverb
It is not enough to run, one must start in time. French Proverb
It is not fish until it is on the bank. Irish Proverb
It is not the horse that draws the cart, but the oats. Russian proverb
It is sweet to drink but bitter to pay for. Irish Proverb
It is the good horse that draws its own cart. Irish Proverb
It is the quiet pigs that eat the meal. Irish Proverb
It takes time to build castles. Rome wan not built in a day. Irish Proverb
It's an ill wind that blows no good. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
It's not a matter of upper and lower class but of being up a while and down a while. Irish Proverb
Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come. Chinese Proverb
Keep a thing for seven years and you'll find a use for it. Irish Proverb
Kill not the goose that lays the golden eggs. English Proverb
Lack of resource has hanged many a person. Irish Proverb
Last ship, best ship. English Proverb
Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. Chinese Proverb
Lend your money and lose your friend. English Proverb
Let sleeping dogs lie. English Proverb
Let your heart guide your head in evil matters. Spanish Proverb
Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it. Indian Proverb
Life without a friend is death without a witness. Spanish Proverb
Like a fish out of water. Latin Saying
Like a lame man's legs that hang limp is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. Bible - Proverbs 26:7
Listen to the sound of the river and you will get a trout. Irish Proverb
Little pitchers have big ears. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Live with wolves, and you learn to howl. Spanish Proverb
Look before you leap. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Look down if you would know how high you stand. Yiddish Proverb
Love enters a man through his eyes, woman through her ears. Polish Proverb
Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass. French Proverb
Love me, love my dog. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Love your neighbors, but don't pull down the fence. Chinese proverb
Love, pain, and money cannot be kept secret; they soon betray themselves. Spanish Proverb
Luck has a slender anchorage. English Proverb
Mad as a march hare. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Make hay while the sun shines. English Proverb
Mankind fears an evil man but heaven does not. Chinese Proverb
Many a friend was lost through a joke, but none was ever gained so. Czech Proverb
Many hands make light work. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
May as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. English Proverb
May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can't find you with a telescope. Traditional Irish Curse
May the grass grow at your door and the fox build his nest on your hearthstone. May the light fade from your eyes, so you never see what you love. May your own blood rise against you, and the sweetest drink you take be the bitterest cup of sorrow. May you die without benefit of clergy; May there be none to shed a tear at your grave, and may the hearthstone of hell be your best bed forever. Traditional Wexford Curse
May you have a bright future - as the chimney sweep said to his son. Irish Proverb
May you wander over the face of the earth forever, never sleep twice in the same bed, never drink water twice from the same well, and never cross the same river twice in a year. Traditional Gypsy Curse
May your every wish be granted. Ancient Chinese Curse
May your left ear wither and fall into your right pocket. Traditional Arab Curse
Men count up the faults of those who keep them waiting. French Proverb
Mere words do not feed the friars. Irish Proverb
More grows in the garden than the gardener knows he has sown. Spanish Proverb
More things belong to marriage than four bare legs in a bed. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Nature breaks through the eyes of the cat. Irish Proverb
Necessity is the mother of invention. Irish Proverb
Necessity knows no law. Irish Proverb
Necessity never made a good bargain. North American Proverb
Need teaches a plan. Irish Proverb
Never cut what can be untied. Portuguese Proverb
Never love with all your heart, it only ends in breaking. English Proverb
Never marry for money. Ye'll borrow it cheaper. Scottish Proverb
Never put off till tomorrow what may be done today. English Proverb
Night is the mother of council. Latin Proverb
No man limps because another is hurt. Danish Proverb
No man ought to look a given horse in the mouth. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
No rose without a thorn, or a love without a rival. Turkish Proverb
No time like the present. English Proverb
Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow. Chinese Proverb
Not wine...men intoxicate themselves; Not vice...men entice themselves. Chinese Proverb
Nothing dries sooner than tears. Latin Proverb
Nothing is as burdensome as a secret. French Proverb
Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
One beggar at the door is enough. French Proverb
One cannot shoe a running horse. Dutch Proverb
One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. English Proverb (17th century)
One flower will not make a garland. French Proverb
One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade. Chinese Proverb
One good turn deserves another. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
One joy scatters a hundred griefs. Chinese Proverb
One of these day is none of these days. English Proverb
One should go invited to a friend in good fortune, and uninvited in misfortune. Swedish Proverb
One swallow maketh not a summer. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
One woman never praises another. Estonian Proverb
Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches English Proverb
Out of the frying pan into the fire. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet. French Proverb
Patience is poultice for all wounds. Irish Proverb
Patience is the best medicine. Proverb of Unknown Origin
People live in each other's shelter. Irish Proverb
Pigs might fly, but they are most unlikely birds. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Politics is a rotten egg; if broken, it stinks. Russian proverb
Poor men seek meat for their stomach, rich men stomach for their meat. English Proverb
Power lasts ten years; influence not more than a hundred. Korean Proverb
Practice makes perfect. English Proverb
Praise the young and they will blossom Irish Proverb
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Bible - Proverbs 16:18
Procrastination is the thief of time. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Public before private and country before family. Chinese Proverb
Put silk on a goat, and it's still a goat. Irish Proverb
Quiet people are well able to look after themselves. Irish Proverb
Rags to riches to rags. Lancastrian Proverb
Rain beats a leopard's skin, but it does not wash off the spots. Ashanti Proverb
Rats desert a sinking ship. French Proverb
Riches run after the rich, and poverty runs after the poor. French Proverb
Roasted pigeons will not fly into one's mouth. Dutch Proverb
Rome was not built in a day. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. English Proverb
Seek counsel of him who makes you weep, and not of him who makes you laugh. Arabic Proverb
Set a beggar on horseback, and he 'll out ride the Devil. German Proverb
Set a thief to catch a thief. English Proverb
Silence was never written down. Italian Proverb
Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get. Spanish Proverb
Sit a beggar at your table and he will soon put his feet on it. Russian Proverb
Six hours' sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool. English Proverb
Small children give you headache; big children heartache. Russian Proverb
Some people are masters of money, and some its slaves. Russian Proverb
Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the timeI am being carried on great wings across the sky. Ojibway Saying
Sorrow for a husband is like a pain in the elbow, sharp and short. English Proverb
Speak not of my debts unless you mean to pay them. English Proverb (17th century)
Speak the truth, but leave immediately after. Slovenian Proverb
Stars are not seen by sunshine. Spanish Proverb
Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. Bible - Proverbs 9:17.
Sweet is the wine but sour is the payment. Irish Proverb
Take heed of enemies reconciled, and of meat twice boiled. English Proverb.
Take thy thoughts to bed with thee, for the morning is wiser than the evening. Russian Proverb
Talk of the devil and he is sure to appear. English Proverb
Tell me who you live with and I will tell you who you are. Spanish Proverb
Tell the truth and shame the devil. Proverb of Unknown Origin
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. Chinese Proverb
The best advice is found on the pillow. Danish Proverb
The best thing about a man is his dog. French Proverb
The big thieves hang the little ones. Czech proverb
The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I'll walk carefully. Russian proverb
The comforter's head never aches. Italian Proverb
The darkest hour is that before the dawn. English Proverb
The day will come when the cow will have use for her tail. Irish Proverb
The devil looks after his own. Proverb of Unknown Origin
The devil seduced Eve in Italian. Eve mislead Adam in Bohemian. The Lord scolded them both in German. Then the angel drove them from paradise in Hungarian. Traditional Polish Saying
The fat is in the fire. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. Chinese Proverb
The girl who can't dance says the band can't play. Yiddish Proverb
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Proverb of Unknown Origin
The great thieves lead away the little thieves. French Proverb
The green new broom sweepeth clean. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
The hole is more honorable than the patch. Irish Proverb
The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure. William Blake "Proverbs of Hell" (1790)
The innkeeper loves the drunkard, but not for a son-in-law. Yiddish Proverb
The jay bird don't rob his own nest. West Indies Proverb
The light heart lives long. Irish Proverb
The man who does not love a horse cannot love a woman. Spanish Proverb
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out. Chinese Proverb
The man with the boots does not mind where he places his foot. Irish Proverb
The mills of God grind slowly but they grind finely. Irish Proverb
The moon is made of a green cheese. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
The more the merrier. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
The morning is wiser than the evening. Russian Proverb
The nail that sticks up will be hammered down. Japanese Proverb
The night rinses what the day has soaped. Swiss Proverb
The only good thing that comes from the east is the sun. Traditional Portuguese Saying
The palest ink is better than the best memory. Chinese proverb
The pine stays green in winter...Wisdom in hardship. Chinese Proverb
The raggy colt often made a powerful horse. Irish Proverb
The reverse side also has a reverse side. Japanese proverb
The right man comes at the right time. Italian Proverb
The road to a friend's house is never long. Danish proverb
The Russian knows the way, yet he asks for directions. Traditional German Saying
The sea has an enormous thirst and an insatiable appetite. French Proverb
The silent dog is the first to bite. German Proverb
The smallest thing outlives the human being. Irish Proverb
The Spaniard is a bad servant but a worse master. Traditional English Saying
The sun will set without thy assistance. Hebrew Proverb
The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man. French Proverb
The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe. Russian proverb
The tide tarrieth for no man. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
The tongue is more to be feared than the sword. Japanese Proverb
The tongue like a sharp knife...Kills without drawing blood. Chinese Proverb
The truth is not always what we want to hear. Yiddish Proverb
The turtle lays thousands of eggs without anyone knowing, but when the hen lays an egg, the whole country is informed. Malay Proverb
The wearer best knows where the shoe pinches. Irish Proverb
The well fed does not understand the lean. Irish Proverb
The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion. Arabian Proverb
The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher. Chinese Proverb
The wise man sits on the hole in his carpet. Persian Proverb
The wolf loses his teeth, but not his inclinations. Spanish Proverb
The work praises the man. Irish Proverb
The world is a rose: smell it and pass it on to your friends. Persian Proverb
The world would not make a racehorse of a donkey Irish Proverb
There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same. Chinese Proverb
There are more old drunkards than old doctors. French Proverb
There are only two types of Chinese -- those who give bribes and those who take them. Russian Proverb
There are two great pleasures in gambling: that of winning and that of losing. French Proverb.
There is but one good mother-in-law and she is dead. English Proverb
There is honor even among thieves. English Proverb
There is hope from the sea, but none from the grave. Irish Proverb
There is no fireside like your own fireside Irish Proverb
There is no luck except where there is discipline. Irish Proverb
There is no need like the lack of a friend. Irish Proverb
There is no strength without unity. Irish Proverb
There is plenty of sound in an empty barrel. Russian Proverb
There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. Greek Proverb
They who love most are least valued. English Proverb
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night. William Blake "Proverbs of Hell" (1790)
Think with the wise but walk with the vulgar. German Proverb
Thirst is the end of drinking and sorrow is the end of drunkenness. Irish Proverb
Though a tree grow ever so high, the falling leaves return to the ground. Malay Proverb
Three diseases without shame: Love, itch and thirst. Irish Proverb
Three Spaniards, four opinions. Spanish Proverb
Time is a great story teller. Irish Proverb
Time trieth truth. English Proverb
To be rich is not everything, but it certainly helps. Yiddish Proverb
To deny all, is to confess all. Spanish Proverb
To leave is to die a little. French Proverb
To lend is to buy a quarrel. Indian Proverb
To talk without thinking is to shoot without aiming. English Proverb (18th century)
To teach is to learn. Japanese Proverb
To the ass, or the sow, their own offspring appears the fairest in creation. Latin Proverb
To whom you tell your secrets, to him you resign your liberty. Spanish Proverb
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. North American Saying
Tomorrow is a new day. English Proverb
Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. Spanish Proverb
Tomorrow never comes. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Trouble rides a fast horse. Italian Proverb
True nobility is in being superior to your previous self. Hindustani Proverb
Trust in Allah, but tie your camel. Old Muslim Proverb
Truth and oil always come to the surface. Spanish Proverb
Truth has a handsome countenance but torn garments. German Proverb
Truth is the safest lie. Jewish Proverb
Truth stands the test of time; lies are soon exposed. Bible - Proverbs 12:19
Truth will be out. Latin Proverb
Two heads are better than one. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
Two shorten the road. Irish Proverb
Two thirds of the work is the semblance. Irish Proverb
Unless you enter the tiger's den you cannot take the cubs. Japanese Proverb
Visit your aunt, but not every day of the year. Spanish Proverb
Walk straight, my son - as the old crab said to the young crab. Irish Proverb
Want a thing long enough and you don't Chinese Proverb
War is death's feast. George Herbert "Outlandish Proverbs"
Water for oxen, wine for kings. Spanish Proverb
We'll never know the worth of water till the well go dry. Scottish Proverb
Went in one ear and out the other. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
What belongs to everybody belongs to nobody. Spanish Proverb
What breaks in a moment may take years to mend. Swedish proverb
What one knows it is sometimes useful to forget. Latin Proverb
What you can not avoid, welcome. Chinese Proverb
When a father helps a son, both smile; but when a son must help his father, both cry. Jewish Proverb
When a twig grows hard it is difficult to twist it. Every beginning is weak. Irish Proverb
When fire is applied to a stone it cracks. Irish Proverb
When fortune knocks upon the door open it widely. Spanish Proverb
When ill luck falls asleep, let none wake her. Italian Proverb
When its time has arrived, the prey becomes the hunter. Persian Proverb
When one dog barks another will join it. Latin Proverb
When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. Ethiopian proverb
When the apple is ripe it will fall. Irish Proverb
When the drop (drink) is inside, the sense is outside. Irish Proverb
When the iron is hot, strike. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
When the liquor was gone the fun was gone. Irish Proverb
When the mouse laughs at the cat, there is a hole nearby. Nigerian Proverb
When the sun shineth, make hay. John Heywood "The Proverbs of John Heywood" (1546)
When the sword of rebellion is drawn, the sheath should be thrown away. English Proverb
When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you. African Proverb
When there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world. Chinese Proverb
When we sing everybody hears us, when we sigh nobody hears us. Russian Proverb
When you live next to the cemetery you cannot weep for everyone. Russian Proverb
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. Indian proverb
When your enemy falls, don't rejoice -- but don't pick him up either. Yiddish Proverb
Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. Bible - Proverbs 11:14.
Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth. Irish Proverb
Where there is love there is pain. Spanish Proverb
Where there is no vision, the people perish. Bible - Proverbs 29:18
Where there's music there can be love. French Proverb
While the cat's away, the mice can play. Proverb of Unknown Origin
Who begins too much accomplishes little. German proverb
Who knows most speaks least. Spanish Proverb
Who lies with dogs shall rise up with fleas. Latin Proverb
Wine divulges truth. Irish Proverb
Witches and harlots come out at night. English Proverb
With foxes we must play the fox. Proverb of Unknown Origin
With money you are a dragon; with no money, a worm. Chinese Proverb
Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. Bible - Proverbs 23:13-14.
Without justice, courage is weak. North American Proverb
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. Greek proverb
Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to This Day. Sanskrit Proverb
You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Irish Proverb
You cannot reason with a hungry belly; it has no ears. Greek Proverb
You cannot unscramble eggs. North American Proverb
You can't hatch chickens from fried eggs. Dutch Proverb
You have to kiss a lot of toads before you find a handsome prince. North American Proverb
You must live with a person to know a person. If you want to know me come and live with me. Irish Proverb
Young men may die, old men must. English Proverb
Young wood makes a hot fire. Greek Proverb
Your health comes first; you can always hang yourself later. Yiddish Proverb
Your neighbor's apples are the sweetest. Yiddish Proverb
Youth does not mind where it sets its foot. Irish Proverb
Youth sheds many a skin. The steed (horse) does not retain its speed forever. Irish Proverb
You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. Irish Proverb

mom - isms --- things your mom always said

2007-07-31T20:35:00.000-07:00

A little "birdy" told me! All I do is follow you around, picking up after you like some maid. Am I talking to a brick wall?Are you deaf or something?Are you lying to me?As long as you live under my roof, you'll do as I say.Beds are NOT made for jumping on. Call me when you get there, just so I know you're okay.Close the door! You don't live in a barn. Did you brush your teeth?Did you comb your hair?Do as I say, not as I do.Do you think I'm made of money?Do you think your socks are going to pick themselves up?Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.Don't eat that, you'll get worms!Don't go out with a wet head, you'll catch cold.Don't make me get up!
Don't pick that scab, it'll get infected.
Don't pick your nose in public.Don't run in the house. Don't sit too close to the television, it'll ruin your eyes.Don't talk with your mouth full!Don't walk away when I'm talking to you! Eat your vegetables, they're good for you.
Enough is enough!Go play outside! It's a beautiful day!Going to a party? Leave a phone number in case I need to call.
Going to a party? Who's going to be there?
Going to a party? Will the parents be home?How do you know you don't like it if you haven't tasted it? I brought you into this world, and I can take you right back out! I can't believe you can sleep in this filth!I didn't ask who put it there, I said "Pick it up!"I don't care what "everyone" is doing. I care what YOU are doing!
I don't have to explain myself. I said no. I hope someday you have children just like you.I just want what's best for you.I will always love you - no matter what. If God had wanted you to have holes in your ears (eyebrows, tongue, etc.) He would have put them there!
If it were a snake, it would have bitten you.If wishes were horses...If you could stay out last night, you can get up this morning. If you don't do it NOW, then when are you going to do it?If you stick your tongue out again it will fall off.If you're too sick to go to school, you're too sick to play outside.I'm doing this for your own good. I'm going to skin you alive! I'm not going to ask you again.I'm not your cleaning lady!I'm not your waitress!Isn't it past your bedtime? It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust everyone else.
Life isn't fair.Look at me when I'm talking to you.Money does NOT grow on trees.No child of MINE would do something like that.Nobody asked you.
Over my dead body!
Pick that up before somebody trips on it and breaks their neck!
Pick up your feet.
Put that down! You don't know where it's been!
Say that again and I'll wash your mouth out with soap.
Shut the door! I'm not heating (air conditioning) the entire neighborhood!
Shut your mouth and eat.
So it's raining? You're not sugar -- you won't melt.
So what if Bob's mom let him do it? If Bob's mom let him jump off the Empire State Building, would you want me to let you do it too?
Someone is going to end up crying. There's enough dirt in those ears to grow potatoes!This hurts me more than it hurts you.Turn that racket (music) down!Watch your mouth!Well, I haven't figured out how to cook "cold" yet.Well, people in Hell want ice water too!What did I say the FIRST time? What if everyone jumped off a cliff? Would you do it, too?What part of NO don't you understand? When I was a little girl...
When I was young we had respect for our elders, now look at the world!
When I was your age, I had to walk ten miles through the snow, uphill, by myself, to go to school. When will you be back? When you have your own house then you can make the rules! Where do YOU think you're going?Who died and left you boss?Who do you think you're talking to? Who taught you THAT? You didn't learn that in this house!Wipe your feet!
You can't find it? Well, I can't find it for you - I didn't wear it!
You can't find it? Well, I can't find it for you - I'm not the maid!
You can't find it? Well, if you'd put things where they belonged, you wouldn't have this problem.
You can't find it? Well, where did you leave it last?You can't start the day on an empty stomach.
You don't always get what you want. It's a hard lesson, but you might as well learn it now.You have an answer for everything, don't you?You kids are trying to drive me crazy! You must think rules are made to be broken.
You won't be happy until you break that, will you?
You'll understand when you're older.
A little soap & water never killed anybody.
Always wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.
Answer me when I ask you a question!
Are you going out dressed like that?
Are your hands broken? Pick it up yourself! I'm not your maid!
Be good.
Bored! How can you be bored? I was never bored at your age.
Clean up after yourself!
Cupcakes are NOT a breakfast food!
Did you clean your room?
Did you flush?
Do you live to annoy me?
Do you think this is a hotel? You can't just come here only to sleep.
Don't ask me WHY. The answer is NO.
Don't cross your eyes or they'll freeze that way.
Don't EVER let me catch you doing that again!
Don't make me come in there!
Don't put that in your mouth, you don't know where it's been.
Don't run with a lollipop in your mouth.
Don't stay up too late!
Don't use that tone with me!
Don't you have anything better to do?
Go ask your father.
Go to your room and think about what you did!
How can you have nothing to wear? Your closet is FULL of clothes!
How many times do I have to tell you?
I can always tell when you're lying.
I can't believe you did that!
I don't buy snacks to feed the neighborhood!
I don't care who started it, I said stop!
I don't care who started it, YOU stop it!
I don't know is NOT an answer.
I hope you don't kiss me with that mouth!
I said CLOSE the door, I did not say SLAM it.
I would have never talked to MY mother like that!
If I catch you doing that one more time, I'll...
If I want your opinion I'll ask for it!
If I've told you once ... I've told you a thousand times.
If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
If you don't clean your plate, you won't get any dessert.
If you don't stop crying, I am going to give you something to cry about!
If you're too full to finish your dinner, you're too full for dessert.
I'll treat you like an adult when you start acting like one.
I'm going to give you until the count of three...
I'm not always going to be around to do these things for you.
I'm not running a taxi service.
I'm not your maid!
Is your homework finished?
It's no use crying over spilt milk.
I've had it up to here with you.
Leave your sister (brother) alone!
Little pitchers have big ears.
Look at this room! It looks like a pigsty!
Never try on anyone else's glasses or you'll go blind.
No, I don't know where your socks are, its not my day to watch them!
Now, come back downstairs and go back up WITHOUT stomping your feet!
Now, say you're sorry...and MEAN it!
Running away? Don't let the door hit you in the rear.
Running away? I'll help you pack.
Running away? Is that a threat or a promise?
Some day you will thank me for this. SMACK!!!
Someday your face will freeze like that
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Think of those poor starving children in India... (or China, or Africa.)
Turn off that light. Do you think we own the electric company?
Watch your language!
Well, people in Hades want ice water, but do you see me with a PITCHER?
Were you born in a barn? Close the door -- and DON'T slam it!
What do you think, money grows on trees?
What kind of a grade is that? You could do much better!
When did your last slave die?
When I was your age...
When you have kids of your own you'll understand.
Where are you going?
Who are you going with? Do I know them?
Who do you think you are?
Who said life was going to be easy?
Why? Because I SAID so, that's why!
You are getting on my last nerve.
You can go out to play...after you brush your teeth and comb your hair.
You can go out to play...after you pick up your room.
You can go out to play...after you've done your homework.
You can't judge a book by its cover.
You could grow potatoes in those ears!
You could have called.
You had better wipe that smile off your face before I do it for you.
You just ate an hour ago!
You made your bed, now lie in it.
You should have that phone surgically implanted in your ear.
You WILL eat it, and you WILL like it!
You'd forget your head if it wasn't attached to your shoulders!
You will ALWAYS be my baby.
You're going to put your eye out with that thing!
Your father is going to hear about this when HE gets home!
You're the oldest. You should know better.

Stupid Questions

2007-07-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

We call them "Dumb Questions" here at Brain Candy, and we're sure that ours is THE BEST collection anywhere, with 350 questions!

A stitch in time saves nine what?
After eating, do amphibians have to wait one hour before getting out of the water?
After they make Styrofoam, what do they ship it in? --Steven Wright
Are female moths called myths?
Are part-time band leaders semi-conductors?
Are there a lot of virgins in the Virgin Islands?
Are there any unguided missiles?
Are you breaking the law if you drive past those road signs that say "Do Not Pass"?
Are you telling the truth if you lie in bed?
Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?
Can a stupid person be a smart-ass?
Can fat people go skinny-dipping?
Can you buy an entire chess set in a pawnshop?
Can you get cavities in your dentures if you use too much artificial sweetener?
Could crop-circles be the work of a cereal killer?
Crime doesn't pay... does that mean my job is a crime?
Day light savings time - why are they saving it and where do they keep it?
Did Noah keep his bees in archives?
Do blind dogs have seeing-eye humans?
Do blind Eskimos have seeing-eye sled dogs?
Do boxer shorts box?
Do cemetery workers prefer the graveyard shift?
Do clowns wear really big socks?
Do crematoriums give discounts to burn victims?
Do files get embarrassed when they get unzipped?
Do fish get thirsty?
Do hummingbirds hum because they don't know the words?
Do hungry crows have ravenous appetites?
Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
Do jellyfish get gas from eating jellybeans?
Do mass murderers kill only in church?
Do people in Australia call the rest of the world 'up over'?
Do pilots take crash-courses?
Do Roman paramedics refer to IV's as "4's"?
Do Scottish Terriers get Scotch Tape worms?
Do stars clean themselves with meteor showers?
Do steam rollers really roll steam?
Do television evangelists do more than lay people? --Stanley Ralph Moss
Do vampires get AIDS?
Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?
Do witches run spell checkers?
Do you need a silencer if you are going to shoot a mime?
Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take the time to take the dirt out of them?
Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter? --Steven Wright
Does a man-eating shark eat women, too?
Does an analyst have to be anal? --Adam Rifkin
Does killing time damage eternity?
Does that screwdriver belong to Phillip?
Does the Little Mermaid wear an algebra?
Ever notice how irons have a setting for "permanent" press? I don't get it. --Steven Wright
Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
Have you ever seen a toad on a toadstool?
Have you ever talked into an acoustic modem?
Have you ever wondered?
How can someone "draw a blank"?
How can there be self-help "groups"?
How can you tell when it is time to tune your bagpipes?
How come chocolate milk doesn't come from brown cows?
How come I can pick my ears but not my nose?
How come wrong numbers are never busy?
How dead is the Dead Sea?
How did a fool and his money get together?
How did the man who invented cottage cheese know he was done?
How do I set my laser printer on stun?
How do they get a deer to cross at that yellow road sign?
How do they get the "Keep off the Grass" sign on the grass?
How do you get off a nonstop flight?
How do you know if honesty is the best policy unless you've tried some of the others?
How do you know when you've run out of invisible ink?
How do you throw away a garbage can?
How do you write zero in Roman numerals?
How does a person with a lisp pronounce that word?
How does a thermos know whether a drink should be hot or cold?
How does it work out that these people always die in alphabetical order?
How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
How is it possible to have a "civil" war?
How is it possible to run out of space?
How long is the long arm of the law?
How many people does it take to change a searchlight bulb?
How many weeks are there in a light year?
How much can I get away with and still go to heaven?
How much milk is there in the Milky Way?
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was? --Satchel Paige
If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?
If a candle factory burns down, does everyone just stand around and sing "Happy Birthday?"
If a fly has no wings would you call him a walk?
If a food processor slices and dices food, what does a word processor do?
If a hen and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long would it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick the seeds out of a dill pickle? --Tom Robbins
If a jogger runs at the speed of sound, can he still hear his Walkman?
If a mime commits suicide, does he use a silencer? --Steven Wright
If a mirror reverses right and left, why doesn't it reverse up and down?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a picture of a thousand words worth?
If a pig is sold to the pawn shop, is it a ham-hock?
If a pizza place sells pizza by the slice, is there a guy in the back tossing a triangle in the air? --Steven Wright
If a pronoun is a word used in place of a noun, is a proverb a word used in place of a verb?
If a tree falls in the forest, does the earth scream out in pain?
If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure? --Harry Shearer
If all the nations in the world are in debt, where did all the money go?
If all the world is a stage, where are the audience sitting?
If an orange is orange, why isn't a lime called a green, and a lemon called a yellow?
If athletes get athlete's foot, do astronauts get mistletoe?
If Barbie's so popular, why do you have to buy all her friends?
If bees live in an apiary, do apes live in a beeiary?
If blind people wear dark glasses, why don't deaf people wear earmuffs? --Steven Wright
If cats and dog didn't have fur would we still pet them?
If corn can't hear, why does it have an ear?
If corn oil is made from corn, what is baby oil made from?
If crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?
If everything is part of a whole, what is the whole part of? --Ashleigh Brilliant
If flowers don't talk back to you, are they mums?
If Fred Flintstone knew that the large order of ribs would tip his car over, why did he order them at the end of every show? --Steven Wright
If God can do anything, can he make a rock so big he can't lift it? --George Carlin
If God dropped acid, would he see people?
If humans get a charley horse, what do horses get?
If humans have nightmares, what do horses have?
If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet? --Steven Wright
If I save time, when do I get it back?
If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?
If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
If man evolved from apes why do we still have apes? --Dennis Miller
If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON, how do they make TEFLON stick to the pan?
If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
If our knees were on the backs of our legs, what would chairs look like?
If peanut butter cookies are made from peanut butter, then what are Girl Scout cookies made out of?
If rabbits' feet are so lucky, then what happened to the rabbit?
If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?
If space is a vacuum, who changes the bags?
If Superman is so smart why does he wear his underpants over his trousers?
If swimming is good for your shape, then why do the whales look like the way they do?
If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?
If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their lights off?
If the product says "Do not use if seal is broken", how are you supposed to open it and use it?
If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? --Art Hoppe
If time heals all wounds, how come bellybuttons don't fill in?
If tin whistles are made out of tin, what do they make fog horns out of?
If white wine goes with fish, do white grapes go with sushi?
If work is so terrific, how come they have to pay you to do it?
If you ate pasta and antipasta, would you still be hungry?
If you can wave a fan, and you can wave a club, can you wave a fan club?
If you can't drink and drive, why do bars have parking lots?
If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?
If you didn't get caught, did you really do it?
If you get into a taxi cab, and ask the driver to drive backwards to your destination, will the cab driver owe you money?
If you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?
If you jog backwards, will you gain weight?
If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?
If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?
If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?
If you throw a cat out a car window, does it become kitty litter?
If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, what would happen?
If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?
If you're born again, do you have two bellybuttons?
If your car says Dodge on the front of it, do you really need a horn?
If you're a kleptomaniac, is there something you can take for it?
If you're in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?
In court, why do they ask if you swear to tell the truth? If you're planning on lying, do they really think you'll tell them so?
Instead of wasting time hunting and cooking, why don't hunters just use flame-throwers?
Is "tired old cliché" one?
Is a castrated pig disgruntled?
Is a halfback more valuable than a quarterback?
Is a sleeping bull a bull-dozer?
Is a small pig called a hamlet?
Is an oxymoron a really dumb bovine?
Is drilling for oil boring?
Is duck tape made out of ducks?
Is it OK to use the AM radio after noon?
Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?
Is that a flying saucer or a pie in the sky?
Is the nose the scenter of the face?
Is this bullshit or fertilizer?
Now that Microsoft is so big, should it be called Macrosoft?
Sexual harassment at work-is it a problem for the self-employed? --Victoria Wood
Since Americans throw rice at weddings, do Asians throw hamburgers?
Since there is a speed of light and a speed of sound, is there a speed of smell?
The Scarecrow got a brain, Tin Man got a heart, Lion got courage, Dorothy got home, what did Toto get?
Was the pole vault accidentally discovered by a clumsy javelin thrower?
What are imitation rhinestones?
What do batteries run on?
What do chickens think we taste like?
What do penguins wear for play clothes?
What do people in China call their good plates?
What do sheep count when they can't get to sleep?
What do they call a French kiss in France?
What do they call coffee breaks at the Lipton Tea Company?
What do you call a bedroom with no bed in it?
What do you call a male ladybug?
What do you call male ballerinas?
What do you say if you're talking to God, and he sneezes?
What does Geronimo say when he jumps out of a plane?
What hair color do they put on the driver's license of a bald man?
What happened to the first 6 UP's?
What happens if you get scared half to death, ...twice? --Steven Wright
What happens if you go on a survival course - and you don't pass?
What happens if you take No-Doze and wash it down with Nyquil?
What happens to an 18 hour bra after 18 hours?
What happens when none of your bees wax?
What happens when you swallow your pride?
What if hell really did freeze over? What would we be using instead?
What if someone died in the living room?
What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?
What if you're in hell, and you're mad at someone, where do you tell them to go?
What is "Soft Liquor"?
What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?
What is a refried bean? Why do they have to fry it twice?
What is shaved ice? Did it have hair on it before it was shaved?
What is the diameter of a square?
What is the speed of dark?
What kind of fruit is in Juicy Fruit gum?
What makes cheese so confidential that we actually need cheese shredders?
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
Whatever happened to preparations A through G?
What's the sound a name makes when it's dropped?
What's the synonym for thesaurus?
When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?
When cows laugh, does milk come out of their noses?
When day breaks who fixes it?
When dog food is new and improved tasting, who tests it?
When I erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?
When night falls who picks it up?
When people lose weight, where does it go?
When something fades in the sunlight, where did the colors go?
When they first invented the clock, how did they know what time it was to set it to?
When we say our mind wanders - where does it go?
When you put a sheet over your head for Halloween, are you a ghost or a mattress?
Where are the germs that cause 'good' breath?
Where are we going? And what's with this hand basket?
Where did Webster look up the definitions when he wrote the dictionary?
Where do they get Spring water in the other 3 seasons?
Where does the fire go when the fire goes out?
Where does the white go when the snow melts?
Where does your lap go when you stand up?
Where in the nursery rhyme does it say Humpty Dumpty is an egg?
Where is Old Zealand?
Which is the other side of the street?
Who killed the Dead Sea?
Who opened that first 'oyster' and said "My, my, my. Now doesn't 'this' look yummy!"
Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here and drink whatever comes out?"
Who was the first person to see an egg come from a chicken's butt and think, "I'll bet that would be good to eat?
Whose cruel idea was it for the word 'lisp' to have an 's' in it?
Why are all blackboards called that when some of them are green?
Why are America's parks administered by the Department of the Interior?
Why are builders afraid to have a 13th floor, but book publishers aren't afraid to have a Chapter 11?
Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?
Why are hemorrhoids called "hemorrhoids" instead of "asteroids"?
Why are highways build so close to the ground?
Why are raisins called raisins if they are only dried grapes? Why not just call them dried grapes?
Why are some gay people so unhappy?
Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?
Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
Why are they called "stands" when they're made for sitting?
Why are violets blue and not violet?
Why are you expected to slow down in a speed zone?
Why aren't there ever any guilty bystanders?
Why buy shampoo when real poo is still free?
Why can't you make another word using all the letters in "anagram"?
Why can't we tickle ourselves?
Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
Why did the pot call the kettle black?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do ballet dancers dance on their toes? Why doesn't the company just hire taller dancers? --Fred Allen
Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?
Why do flamingos stand on only one leg?
Why do flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?
Why do hot dogs come ten to a package and hot dog buns only eight?
Why do mattresses have springs, if they aren't made for jumping on?
Why do people always remember where they were when someone famous was killed? Do they feel perhaps they'll need an alibi?
Why do people go to the unemployment office to find a job?
Why do people park in driveways and drive on parkways? --Larry Anderson
Why do people tell you when they are speechless?
Why do pigs have curly tails?
Why do the signs that say "Slow Children" have a picture of a running child?
Why do they call it 'chili' if it's hot?
Why do they call it a TV set when you only get one?
Why do they call it 'getting your dog fixed' if afterwards it doesn't work anymore?
Why do they call it life insurance?
Why do they call it quicksand when it sucks you down slowly?
Why do they call the piece of wood a two-by-four if it's only 1 3/4" x 3 1/2"?
Why do they call Wednesday hump day, when most people get laid on the weekends?
Why do they give you a tape with a VCR to tell you how to use it?
Why do they make cars go so fast its illegal?
Why do they make scented toilet paper?
Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM?
Why do they report power outages on TV?
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
Why do tourists go to the top of tall buildings and then put money in telescopes so they can see things on the ground in close-up?
Why do we call something sent by car a shipment and something sent by ship a cargo?
Why do we call them restrooms when no one goes there to rest?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Why do we have hot water heaters when hot water doesn't need to be heated?
Why do we kill people for killing people to show that killing is wrong?
Why do we need training bras? What can we teach them?
Why do we put shirts in a suitcase, and put suits in a garment bag?
Why do we say "a pair of pants" when there is only one article of clothing involved?
Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?
Why do we sing "Take me out to the ball game," when we are already there?
Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?
Why do wise guy and wise man mean entirely different things?
Why do you feet smell and your nose runs?
Why do you need a driver's license to buy liquor when you can't drink and drive?
Why do you need an appointment to see a psychic?
Why does a dishtowel get wet when it dries?
Why does a grapefruit look nothing like a grape?
Why does Donald Duck wear a towel when he comes out of the shower, when he doesn't usually wear any pants?
Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!
Why does it take 15 minutes to cook minute rice?
Why does the sun lighten our hair, but darken our skin?
Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
Why doesn't the fattest man in the world become a hockey goalie?
Why don't they call mustaches "mouthbrows?"
Why don't they just make food stamps edible?
Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery"?
Why get even, when you can get odd?
Why is "abbreviated" such a long word?
Why is a boxing ring square?
Why is a carrot more orange than an orange? --Amboy Dukes
Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?
Why is a women's prison called a penal colony?
Why is brassiere singular and panties plural?
Why is clear considered a color?
Why is it called a "building" when it is already built?
Why is it called lipstick if you can still move your lips?
Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?
Why is it considered necessary to nail down the lid of a coffin?
Why is it that bullets ricochet off of Superman's chest, but he ducks when the gun is thrown at him?
Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?
Why is it that famous people are always born on holidays?
Why is it that night falls but day breaks?
Why is it that only adults have difficulty with childproof bottles?
Why is it that rain drops but snow falls?
Why is it that to stop Windows 95, you have to click on "Start"?
Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio?
Why is it you must wait until night to call it a day?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemonsWhy is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
Why is the third hand on the watch called a second hand? --Steven Wright
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why is the word dictionary in the dictionary?
Why is your index finger the same size as your nostrils?
Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? --Lily Tomlin
Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
Why was Evelyn Wood in such a hurry?
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
You know that little indestructible black box that is used on planes? Why can't they make the whole plane out of the same substance?

Torch Damn Brain

10 Great Ways to Quickly Boost Traffic to Your Web Site or Blog

100 English Language Books of Fiction

French Grammar

ADJECTIVES, ARTICLES & DETERMINERS

ADVERBS AND ADVERBIAL NOTIONS

CONJUNCTIONS

MIXED & GENERAL

MORPHOLOGY

NOUNS

PREPOSITIONS

PRONOUNS

TERMINOLOGY

VERBS (INDIVIDUAL)

VERB CONJUGATORS

VERBS IN GENERAL

Agreement, Tense, Mood, Voice

Present Participle

Verbs and Reporting

Regular Verbs & Irregular Patterns

Present Indicative

Pronominal Verbs

Passé Composé and Surcomposé

Plus-que-parfait

Passé simple, Passé antérieur

Imperative

Futur Proche, Futur, Futur Antérieur

Verb Tense Coordination

Contexts Mixing the Imperfect & the passé composé

The Conditional Mood

Subjunctive Mood