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January 22 January 9 OS

151

The Perils of the Learned
By Al-Ghazali

Persian scholar Al-Ghazali feared for any country where morals were lagging behind brains.

Al-Ghazali, known in Medieval Europe as Algazel, was a Persian scholar roughly contemporary with Anselm of Canterbury. In 1095, feeling compromised by political and academic expectations, Ghazali abruptly left his prestigious teaching post and embarked on a ten-year pilgrimage to Damascus, Jerusalem and Mecca. The Revival of the Religious Sciences was the fruit of his soul-searching, and one of the most important Islamic works after the Quran itself.

Posted October 5 2024

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152

Elocution

Give these sentences various different shades of meaning just by the way you say them.

Read each of these words out aloud, varying the intonation. Explain how your intonation adds shades of meaning.

If you are doing this with someone else, one of you can say the word and the other can try to describe the mood.

1 Yes. No. Again.

2 Try. Tomorrow. Never.

3 Goodbye. Well. Now.

4 Chocolate. Sorry. Oh.

Suggested Moods

Posted October 3 2024

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153

Near Synonyms

These words have very similar meaning but they are not the same — can you show the difference?

To what extent are these words synonymous? Give examples.

1 Brave.

2 Foolhardy.

3 Valiant.

See also Confusables.

Posted October 3 2024

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154

Old
Find in Think and Speak

Make as many words as you can from just nine letters. Can you beat our score?

See All Words

arid bail bald ball barb bard bill billboard bird blab blob boar board boil bold boll bollard brad braid bridal brill broad broil dial dill doll dollar drab drill droll idol laid lair laird lard liar lido lilo lira load lord oral rabbi rabid radio raid rail ribald rill road roil roll
billboard bollard bridal dollar board braid broad broil drill droll rabbi rabid radio arid bail bald ball barb bard bill bird blab blob boar boil bold boll dial dill doll drab idol lair lard laid liar load lord oral raid rail rill road roll
arid bail bald ball barb bard bill billboard bird blab blob boar board boil bold boll bollard brad braid bridal brill broad broil dial dill doll dollar drab drill droll idol laid lair laird lard liar lido lilo lira load lord oral rabbi rabid radio raid rail ribald rill road roil roll

Posted October 1 2024

Tags: Polywords (16) Think and Speak (37)

155

The Black Rood of Scotland
From The Rites of Durham Edited by John Davies

When the Reformers sold off the treasures of Durham Cathedral, they sold a priceless piece of Scottish history into oblivion.

The Black Rood of Scotland was an heirloom of the Scottish royal family, captured by the English at the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346 and added to the treasures of Durham Abbey. After the sixteenth-century Reformers ransacked the cathedral, the cross disappeared. A generation later, the Rites of Durham recalled some of the wonderful history of the vanished relic in a breathless tale, edited here by John Davies in 1671.

Posted October 1 2024

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156

A Collect for Holy Cross Day

A short prayer for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14th/27th each year, from the Sarum Missal.

Holy Cross Day is the name given in the Book of Common Prayer to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, which is kept on September 14th. In The Rites of Durham (1593) it is still called Holy Rood Day, after the Anglo-Saxon manner.

The feast goes back to the fourth century, when Helen, dowager Empress of Constantinople, declared that the true Cross of Christ had been found. The relic was treasured up in a silver casket in the newly consecrated Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (AD 335), and brought out for display and veneration every year on this date. See St Helen Finds the True Cross in The Copy Book.

The prayer below is the Collect for this day according to the Sarum Use, the liturgy of the English Church prior to the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

Collect

O GOD, Who wast pleased to redeem mankind with the precious Blood of Thy Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, mercifully grant that they who draw nigh to adore the life-giving Cross may be set free from the bonds of their sins. Amen.

Posted September 27 2024

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★ Wulfstan and the Seal of Approval William the Conqueror’s purge of the English Church was halted by a humble bishop and a dead king.

For Today • January 9 • The Feast of St Wulfstan of Worcester

How the Cobra Got His Spectacles John Wood shares the wonder of the Indian cobra’s hood, in science and in myth.

Posted Yesterday • The Copy Book

Naughty Eppie Silas Marner has to harden his heart and teach little Eppie a lesson she will remember.

Posted January 20 • The Copy Book

Music Video Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Othello, Op. 79: II. Children’s Intermezzo

Posted January 20

Vocabulary Compose sentences to illustrate the meaning of these words.

Posted January 20 • Think and Speak

A European Fraud Dostoevsky had to break it to Moscow’s students that ordinary Russians found their brand of politics patronising.

Posted January 19 • The Copy Book

Pronunciation Suggest words in which the letter ‘o’ is pronounced as it is in ‘comely’.

Posted January 18 • Think and Speak

Tea Make as many words as you can using the letters of one nine-letter word. Can you beat our score?

Posted January 17 • Think and Speak

Film Video Professor Smith reluctantly confides his ‘guilty secret’ to his students.

Posted January 16

Sentegrams Unjumble these sentences from the novels of George Eliot.

Posted January 15 • Think and Speak

There’s Nae Good Luck in Durham Gaol On his visits to Durham Gaol, prison reformer John Howard found conditions that were all too familiar.

Posted January 15 • The Copy Book

Music Video Alexander Borodin: Petite Suite: VI. Rêverie

Posted January 14

Person, Object, Action! Make up sentences using these phrases, making sure you put plenty of action in.

Posted January 14 • Think and Speak

Rhymes Suggest words that rhyme with ‘love’.

Posted January 13 • Think and Speak

The Abuse of Literacy Reading and writing should have taught the people more than name-calling and how to manipulate opinion.

Posted January 13 • The Copy Book

Among Old Friends ‘Alpha of the Plough’ hoped Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not treat his old friends as he treated his favourite books.

Posted January 12 • The Copy Book

Music Video Orlando Gibbons: Thus Angels Sung

Posted January 12 • Comfortable Words

A Reckless Indifference to Life In eighteenth-century England, the death penalty was the solution to almost any crime.

Posted January 11 • The Copy Book

Music Video Sir Charles Villiers Stanford: Symphony No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 28 (Irish): II. Allegro molto vivace

Posted January 10

Vocabulary Express each of these phrases in a single word.

Posted January 10 • Think and Speak

Dear Anne Elliot Anne Thackeray saw something in Jane Austen’s heroines that she missed in their more modern sisters.

Posted January 4 • The Copy Book