To Alan: I never want to be highfalutin.

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hello Alan,

You taught me:
The penny has dropped.

I felt that you also attacked me that’s why I wrote my first sentence.I couldn’t have written as you are not my son. It would be better: You too, Brutus? Even you, Brutus?

I read again and again your letter. It isn’t true and you really attacked me.You wrote:

1."Whenever "…"I open it up, I see you banging on about ‘embedded questions’. "
(only once you could see and not whenever; in the 22# I mentioned embedded, because in the 21# even I didn’t know this expression) - after I wanted to finish this thread but I received letters and I had to answer.

2." Now I have seen the good lady(?) talking highfalutin/pretentious stuff about the same topic.(in Hungarian it is very fort flak)"

3." Kati, what is it that’s bugging you? Please tell me." -Many thanks for this last sentence because it’s very human and you gave me possibility to say that I wanted to bottom a grammatical problem.

I received Ozzy’s letter. It is good if you have a Sancho Pancha. He wtote me earlier:“Please ignore me if I have misunderstood the question. I haven’t been following this thread!”

NOW he wrote .
“If it isn’t ‘learn’, please explain what it means with ‘lean’.”

This is almost same what I wrote in 21#
“Please explain me what this sentence means with learn and what it means with lean?”

But you say the sentence is good with an inversion, then it was: A storm in a teacup.
But for me was very useful garmmatically.

Best regards:
Kati Svaby

2

Correction: in Hungarian: Sancho-Pancha
…in English: Sancho Panza

3

Second correction: The title would have been correctly: I never wanted to be highfalutin. Would you please to correct it?

4

Hello,

Your letter to me is hard to digest.

Am I a highfalutin person who is trying to be serious and important, but in a way that often appears silly and unnecessarily ?

This is a low blow. Why? I did what I could. I looked up books, videos etc to solve a problem. I would call it a pragmatism, I was thinking about solving a problem in a practical way, and not in a highfalutin way.
Now I ask you the same what you asked from me:
Alan, what is it that’s bugging you? Please tell me.

Kati Svaby

5

Hello Kati Svaby,

I am so curious about the meaning of Persephone’s smile? :wink:

I tried to search it, but it’s hard for me to find it.

6

Hello Juliusestella,

When I chose this slogan the book was in our flat in Budapest and I reclined upon only my memory. Now I am here in Budapest and I’ve just read the chapter of Ilja Ehrenburg’s novel: Alley in Moscow (this its Hungarian title, and I translated) those part which speaks about Persephone’s smile. The chapter title is : Persephone’s smile. The whole book is so beautiful and this chapter is so moving, and so true, that I didn’t dare to translate it. The English Wikipedia unfortunately doesn’t mention this wonderful novel, so I think it isn’t translated into English.
Russian, (not in cyrillic letters):V Protocnom pereulke. For Russian this means lot.

(Ilya Ehrenburg’s grave with a wire reproduction of his portrait by Picasso.)…his gravestone is adorned with a reproduction of his portrait drawn by his friend Pablo Picasso.) /I wanted to send the photo of his tomb-but only this is the text/

His style of writing is a so literary language so I could say the story without his moving style. I try some…

Heroes in this part.
-a Bulgarian student who live in Moscow,-Juzik
-a retired Latin teacher who became a beggar,-Oswald Sigimundovics Jancsek

  • the rabbi of Kock

A young man who looking for the justice.
“It isn’t true that the generous error created the most beautiful biography? God’s daughter came down to the earth of ash and dust for inspire Horace. I almost see the smile of this mysterious Goddess: fear and solemnness was in this smile.”- explained the Latin teacher to the young man.

Later:

He asks the retired Latin teacher:
-" Why had they kicked out a professor of Latin Language? Where is the justice?
-I was right -it is past tense. They are right-it’s present tense. And the children who are playing-they will be right. I had been kicked out because I lived over my age. I don’t condemn anybody./…Let them laugh even so they love that mysterious smile./… live, clamour, make mistakes, I don’t wear my old uniform, I greet you and I say thanks to you for that you will be living when me, Oswald Sigismundovics Jancsek can’t live anymore.

When the very clever rabbi of Kock after 25 years thinking came back, had been getting older, on a Seder evening and lot of people were waiting that he would say what the justice is, he claimed :“There isn’t Justice! There isn’t Justification! There isn’t just judge!”
The young man told his friend, the beggar, the retired Latin teacher:
I never want to hear about any smile.
(Here is my slogan.) The old man answered:
_The rabbi of Kock had been mistaken. He wanted to find a general rule. And he found it. When he found it, he had seen that he didn’t find anything. Life,- my young friend, - lives only in the exceptions. Don’t you believe me? Do you doubt Persephone’s smile?

I say this: So we have to believe that life is good, beautiful even if it seems to us unjust sometimes. So I believe in Persephone’s smile. You have to read Persephone’s myth. You can find on the Google.

Regards:
Kati Svaby

7

Hi Kati,

Oh dear! Oh dear! I fear you have misunderstood me or I didn’t make myself clear. This wasn’t in any shape or form a ‘hatey Kati’ comment that I made earlier. I was referring to the person on the video clip you sent - the bland woman going on about embedded questions. It ain’t about you, Kati, honest. As if I would!

Alan

8

Dear Alan,

Many thanks for your answer. It is very good to hear your comforting words. As Mr. Kyaw told me we are unfortunately ultra-sensitive, and I can be fretting about things that come from my environment, and hurt me, chiefly from the persons whom I respect.

I like to read your newsletters. They show that you are not a person who hurts anybody.

Many thanks.
Best regards:
Kati Svaby

9

Wow! It is really nice. It can be shared as well to those demotivated people right? to motivate them.
That is why I really cant see it on the google because there is no English translation of it.
I thought it was also included to the Greek Myth like Pandora’s Box, Cupid and Psyche or/and The Trojan. But I think its different.

=please correct my grammar if there are some mistakes :wink:

Thank you so much Kati Svaby

Julius