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Americans no longer expect public figures, whether in speech or in writing, to command the English language with skill and gift. Nor do they aspire to such command themselves. In his latest book, Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why we should, Like, Cure, John Mcwhorter, a linguist and controversialist of mixed liberal and conservative views, see the triumph of 1960s counter-culture as responsible for the decline of formal English. Blaming the permissive 1960s is nothing new, but this is not yet another criticism against the decline in education. Mr. Mcwhorter"s an academic specialty is language history and change, and he sees the gradual disappearance of "whom" , for example, to be natural and no more regrettable than the loss the case-endings of Old English. But the cult of the authentic and the personal, "doing our own thing," has spelt the death of formal speech, writing, poetry and music. While even the modestly educated sought an elevated tone when they put pen to paper before the 1960"s even the most well regarded writing since then has sought to capture spoken English on the page. Equally, in poetry, the highly personal, performative genre is the only form that could claim real liveliness. In both oral and written English,talkingis triumphing over speaking, spontaneity over craft. Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. Mcwhorter documents is unmistakable. But it is less clear, to take the question of his subtitle, why we should, like, care. As a linguist, he acknowledges that all varieties of human language, including non-standard ones like Black English, can be powerfully expressive—there exists no language or dialect in the world that cannot convey complex ideas. He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no longer think straight because we do not talk proper. Russians have a deep love for their own language and carry chunks of memorized poetry in their heads, while Italian politicians tend to elaborate speech that would seem old-fashioned to most English-speakers. Mr. Mcwhorter acknowledges that formal language is not strictly necessary, and proposes no radical educational reforms—he is really grieving over the loss of something beautiful more than useful. We now take our English "on paper plates instead of china". A shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one. According to the last paragraph, "paper plates" is to "china" as______.
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Chris Hrapko isn"t afraid of tough conversations. As the founder of a nonprofit social-service agency, she battles bureaucracies on behalf of the homeless and the working poor. But there is one conversation Hrapko avoided. When her 92-year-old mother fell and broke her hip earlier this year, Hrapko knew it would affect her independent mother"s living arrangements and health. But Hrapko, 51, was clueless about her mom"s wishes. "We talked about a lot of things," she says, "but we never talked about a future in which my mom faced a problem that could leave her disabled, bedridden or on life support. " A recent survey by AARP found that nearly 70 percent of adult children have not talked to their parents about issues related to aging. Some children avoid this most intimate of conversations because they believe their parents don"t want to talk. Others think they know what their parents want. And some simply don"t want to face the very real truth that if you are lucky enough to have parents who live well into their senior years, chances are good that disease, injury, frailty, even loneliness, will affect a parent"s well-being. While it"s clear that having a conversation with aging parents is important, there is no blueprint on how to do it well. What works for one family may not work for yours. The key is to be flexible, says Mary Anne Ehlert, founder of Chicago-based Protected Tomorrows, an advocacy firm for families with special needs. She has found that one of the best ways to get the conversational ball rolling is to talk about your parents" and what they would do if faced with a situation in which people they loved could no longer care for themselves. " Ask your parents for advice; seek their wisdom in helping you help them," Ehlert says. It"s also important for adults to be honest about what they are prepared to do for their parents. As parents age and become frail, many will need help with personal hygiene. It"s these kinds of issues that can make the most devoted child balk. "Before you agree to be a caregiver, make sure you understand what you may be in for," says Monika White, president-elect of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers. " Adult children need to acknowledge their own limitations and then be prepared to make some type of arrangement for the things they simply can"t do. " Realize that there is no such thing as one conversation about aging. " No one resolves the future in one afternoon of talk," says psychologist Brian Carpenter of Washington University in St. Louis. "It"s a process. " One strategy is to schedule time to talk about a specific subject, such as wills or living arrangements. Many adult children have not talked to their parents about aging not because______.
Less than five years ago. Scottish Opera was trapped in a financial quagmire from which few thought it could recover. Today, however, the national company seals its comeback by announcing its most wide-reaching program to date. In an interview with The Times, Alex Reedjik, general director of Scottish Opera, explained that a series of collaborations with other companies would enable it to maximize its output withoutcompromising its budget. He admitted that the partnerships were borne of financial necessity, but argued they would allow the company to reach greater audiences than ever before. "Collaborations are the way forward," he said. "We have often done co-productions in the past but they are more important to us now to enable us to achieve all of our hopes. The problem is that sets are very expensive. If you can share those costs with another organization and not impact on artistic integrity, that is a positive, welcome and necessary thing. Highlights of the 2009-10 season will include a new co-production with New Zealand Opera of Rossini"s The Italian Girl in Algiers, and a joint venture with Opera North The Adventures of Mr. Broucek, by Leos Janacek, featuring a 40-strong choir singing Hussite hymns, along with bagpipes and an organ. An unashamedly Italianate season this Autumn begins with a revival of Giles Havergal"s popular 1994 production of The Elixir of Love. There will also be a revival of the Tony-award winning director Stewart Laing"s production of Puccini"s La Boheme. The turnaround in the company"s fortunes is striking. In 2005, the year before Mr. Reedjik joined the organization, Scottish Opera was forced to make half of its staff, including the entire chorus , redundant and abandon its main-scale productions for a season after accumulating debts of a-round ￡4.5 million. The company"s core grant, which at that time came from the Scottish Arts Council(it is now funded directly by the government)had not risen for several years. However, it had also haemorrhaged funds by staging the hugely expensive Ring Cycle, and according to some critics , had been overspending on props, with rumors of cast members wearing ￡ 300 designer shoes. A ￡ 7 million rescue package put together by the then Labor-led Scottish Executive saved the company from going dark on a permanent basis, butthe ease with which it almost went under forced a rethink of priorities. While the company continues to stage several major productions each season, it has also introduced smaller touring works—the acclaimed Five: 15 series—which pairs leading writers with composers to create 15-minute chamber pieces that could be developed into longer productions. The aim, says Mr. Reedjik, is to put on as much opera in Scotland as possible without breaking the bank. So far the strategy seems to be working, with audiences averaging at around 95 ,000 people in the past three years, a rise of almost 50 per cent compared with 2004 -05, the season before the company went dark. "What we are trying to do now is live within our means and raise as much as possible from philanthropic means," said Mr. Reedjik. " We seemed to have dropped out of the news for dumb stuff—now we"re in the news for our interesting work. " The best title for this article is______.
Less than five years ago. Scottish Opera was trapped in a financial quagmire from which few thought it could recover. Today, however, the national company seals its comeback by announcing its most wide-reaching program to date. In an interview with The Times, Alex Reedjik, general director of Scottish Opera, explained that a series of collaborations with other companies would enable it to maximize its output withoutcompromising its budget. He admitted that the partnerships were borne of financial necessity, but argued they would allow the company to reach greater audiences than ever before. "Collaborations are the way forward," he said. "We have often done co-productions in the past but they are more important to us now to enable us to achieve all of our hopes. The problem is that sets are very expensive. If you can share those costs with another organization and not impact on artistic integrity, that is a positive, welcome and necessary thing. Highlights of the 2009-10 season will include a new co-production with New Zealand Opera of Rossini"s The Italian Girl in Algiers, and a joint venture with Opera North The Adventures of Mr. Broucek, by Leos Janacek, featuring a 40-strong choir singing Hussite hymns, along with bagpipes and an organ. An unashamedly Italianate season this Autumn begins with a revival of Giles Havergal"s popular 1994 production of The Elixir of Love. There will also be a revival of the Tony-award winning director Stewart Laing"s production of Puccini"s La Boheme. The turnaround in the company"s fortunes is striking. In 2005, the year before Mr. Reedjik joined the organization, Scottish Opera was forced to make half of its staff, including the entire chorus , redundant and abandon its main-scale productions for a season after accumulating debts of a-round ￡4.5 million. The company"s core grant, which at that time came from the Scottish Arts Council(it is now funded directly by the government)had not risen for several years. However, it had also haemorrhaged funds by staging the hugely expensive Ring Cycle, and according to some critics , had been overspending on props, with rumors of cast members wearing ￡ 300 designer shoes. A ￡ 7 million rescue package put together by the then Labor-led Scottish Executive saved the company from going dark on a permanent basis, butthe ease with which it almost went under forced a rethink of priorities. While the company continues to stage several major productions each season, it has also introduced smaller touring works—the acclaimed Five: 15 series—which pairs leading writers with composers to create 15-minute chamber pieces that could be developed into longer productions. The aim, says Mr. Reedjik, is to put on as much opera in Scotland as possible without breaking the bank. So far the strategy seems to be working, with audiences averaging at around 95 ,000 people in the past three years, a rise of almost 50 per cent compared with 2004 -05, the season before the company went dark. "What we are trying to do now is live within our means and raise as much as possible from philanthropic means," said Mr. Reedjik. " We seemed to have dropped out of the news for dumb stuff—now we"re in the news for our interesting work. " The fact that "the ease ... forced a rethink of priorities"(Line 2-3, Para. 4)suggests that______.
Chris Hrapko isn"t afraid of tough conversations. As the founder of a nonprofit social-service agency, she battles bureaucracies on behalf of the homeless and the working poor. But there is one conversation Hrapko avoided. When her 92-year-old mother fell and broke her hip earlier this year, Hrapko knew it would affect her independent mother"s living arrangements and health. But Hrapko, 51, was clueless about her mom"s wishes. "We talked about a lot of things," she says, "but we never talked about a future in which my mom faced a problem that could leave her disabled, bedridden or on life support. " A recent survey by AARP found that nearly 70 percent of adult children have not talked to their parents about issues related to aging. Some children avoid this most intimate of conversations because they believe their parents don"t want to talk. Others think they know what their parents want. And some simply don"t want to face the very real truth that if you are lucky enough to have parents who live well into their senior years, chances are good that disease, injury, frailty, even loneliness, will affect a parent"s well-being. While it"s clear that having a conversation with aging parents is important, there is no blueprint on how to do it well. What works for one family may not work for yours. The key is to be flexible, says Mary Anne Ehlert, founder of Chicago-based Protected Tomorrows, an advocacy firm for families with special needs. She has found that one of the best ways to get the conversational ball rolling is to talk about your parents" and what they would do if faced with a situation in which people they loved could no longer care for themselves. " Ask your parents for advice; seek their wisdom in helping you help them," Ehlert says. It"s also important for adults to be honest about what they are prepared to do for their parents. As parents age and become frail, many will need help with personal hygiene. It"s these kinds of issues that can make the most devoted child balk. "Before you agree to be a caregiver, make sure you understand what you may be in for," says Monika White, president-elect of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers. " Adult children need to acknowledge their own limitations and then be prepared to make some type of arrangement for the things they simply can"t do. " Realize that there is no such thing as one conversation about aging. " No one resolves the future in one afternoon of talk," says psychologist Brian Carpenter of Washington University in St. Louis. "It"s a process. " One strategy is to schedule time to talk about a specific subject, such as wills or living arrangements. We can learn from paragraph 3 that______.
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