Clay Lane is inspired by educational materials created NL Clay, and used in English schools and homes from the 1920s to the 1960s. The Blog is a newsletter of recent additions and some selections from our archive, including brainteasers in grammar and vocabulary, and brief passages from history and literature.
How many words can you make just by adding vowels to these consonants? See if you can get at least 4.
bttr
Make a sentence that uses ALL THREE of these words:
Ride. Given. Institutional.
These words are served randomly.
You can change e.g. go → went,
or quick → quickly.
For reading aloud. These lines come from the comic poem Huggins and Duggins: A Pastoral after Pope by Thomas Hood (1799-1845). Huggins and Duggins are trading verses in praise of each one’s own best girl.
When Peggy’s dog her arms imprison,
I often wish my lot was hisn;
How often I should stand and turn,
To get a pat from hands like hern.
Note: The dialect words his’n (=his) and her’n (=hers) go back to Middle English hisen and hiren. The OED’s earliest evidence for his’n is from around 1425, in the Laud Troy-book, a poem about the Siege of Troy, by an unknown author.
Report this snatch of conversation between Mr Wickham and his sister-in-law Elizabeth Bennet, without using direct speech.
“I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister:” said he, as he joined her.
“You certainly do,” she replied with a smile; “but it does not follow that the interruption must be unwelcome.”
From Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen.
Join these ideas together into a single sentence, using ‘although’ or ‘though’ (or some other concessive). There may be many ways to do this: think of several, and choose the best.
1 She liked Clarissa. She could never think of anything to say to her.
2 Mrs Ambrose stood quite still. She stood much longer than is natural. The little boys let her be.
3 She was slightly eccentric in appearance. She was not untidy. Mrs Dalloway saw it with relief.
Based on sentences in the novels of Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
1 She could never think of anything to say to Clarissa; though she liked her. [from ‘Mrs Dalloway’]
2 Although Mrs Ambrose stood quite still, much longer than is natural, the little boys let her be. [from ‘The Voyage Out’]
3 Mrs Dalloway saw with relief that though slightly eccentric in appearance, she was not untidy. [from ‘The Voyage Out’]
English cheerfully borrows from other languages. Three of these words come from Old Norse, three from Welsh, and three from Malay. Can you identify which words are (thought to be) from each language, and use each word in a sentence?
IBamboo. IIBerserk. IIICaddy [container]. IVCorgi. VCrumpet. VIEgg. VIIGong. VIIIPenguin. IXSkirt.
Adapted from Advanced English Exercises by NL Clay.
Join these ideas together to form a single sentence, using the relative pronoun ‘who’.
1 Lady Mary gave evidence. Then she collapsed. She was engaged to the deceased.
2 The witnesses gave evidence. The Duke of Denver spoke first. He claimed to have discovered the body.
3 I have a letter. The writer is an old College friend. He says he met you in Paris.
Sentences based on the novels of Dorothy L. Sayers.
For discussion. Explain what you would do if (a) you suddenly lost any of the following, or (b) you came across someone else who had.
IGlasses (strong prescription). IIMemory (amnesia). IIIShoe.
Developed from an exercise in Think and Speak (1929) by NL Clay.
For reading aloud. A little poem by Emily Dickinson, from 1877.
They might not need me — yet they might —
I’ll let my Heart be just in sight —
A smile so small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity.
From a letter in the Spring of 1877, to Mrs T. W. (Mary Channing) Higginson. Although Dickinson knew her only through her husband, Colonel Higginson, she often sent a friendly note to her: Emily was aware that she had been in failing health for some years. Mrs Higginson died the following September.
Old Norse: Berserk. Egg. Skirt.
Malay: Bamboo. Caddy. Gong.
Welsh: Corgi. Crumpet. Penguin [probable].