Thursday 31 July 2014

Anglo-Saxon, French and Dialect influence on English spelling and pronunciation.

Photo: M'reen

If the plural of thief is thieves, why isn't the plural of chief, chieves and brief, brieves?
Question posed in The Daily Mail. July 21, 2014.
Answer: Mrs. Jean Rey. Wimslow, Cheshire.

Thief is an Anglo-Saxon word used from the seventh century. At that time, English speakers 
always turned 'f' into 'v' when it occurred between two vowels so, one thief, but two thieves.
Words which adopt the 'v' in the plural often have Anglo-Saxon roots. 
The vowel in the plural ending was originally pronounced but this pronunciation dropped out 
of the language as it became increasingly regularised and the influence of French came to bear.
The plural of 'cliff', for instance, was no longer 'cleves'.
Some words have resisted regularisation, including leaf, whose plural is leaves.
The English language does't like to conform.
The word 'chief', however, didn't come into English - from the French - until after the 14th century.
It arrived after the earlier pronunciation rule had disappeared from the language so 
chief has always been regular - one chief, two chiefs.
Modern style guides list three classes of plural endings in f: 
nouns which always change their endings to:
-ves, including calf, elf, knife, leaf, life, loaf,self, sheaf, shelf, thief, wife, and wolf;
nouns which sometimes change to -ves, including dwarf (dwarfs, dwarves), half, handkerchief, 
hoof, roof, scarf and wharf;
and nouns which never change to -ves but retain the -f ending and simply add an s, 
including belief, chief, cliff, muff, oaf, photograph, proof, safe, tough and waif.
In some instances, words may be spoken as hankerchieves rooves etc, 
but are written as handkerchiefs, roofs etc.

M'reen. My father, a Yorkshire tike, now 92 years, old pronounces water as it is spelt!
Therefore not allowing the the vowel after the consonant make the first vowel say A as opposed to a. 
And this type of spelling was carried through to print with the printing presses.
Then there was good old Samuel Peeps and his dictionary to make my life and others a misery.
I think that Blackadder had the right idea regarding this dictionary - didn't Baldrick throw it in the fire?
Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning.  

A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heterodyne.

What would you like to add to this?

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”


Saturday 19 July 2014

Picture books – pictures without words and Turbo Charged Reading?


My 3rd birthday / Christmas present. M'reen

Picture books – pictures without words and Turbo Charged Reading? M’reen


First let me explain that teaching children to read is not my subject area though I did volunteer
to help bring young readers up to their age level when I lived in Colorado Springs USA.
I probably didn’t ‘read’ picture books with my three children or take full advantage of them
in my Nursery School for which I created the curriculum.
But we can all learn and pass on that learning skill.

Picture books – words without pictures and Turbo Charged Reading?
It’s just another example of how TCR is a natural process
and that you already have the skills you need to be successful.

As pointed out elsewhere, comprehension and confidence and bypassing your conscious mind
are the key components to TCR, learning, memory and long term recall.
~ Bypassing your conscious mind simply involves some physical and energy skills
being used in conjunction with skills you already use but of which you may not be aware.
~ Confidence involves an effortless step by step programme that takes into account
as many different reading needs as is possible
with the added benefit of working with the gremlins between your ears.
~ Comprehension is a necessary skill and like spelling and writing is a different skill to reading.
My granddaughter was in her last year of Junior School before they decided that she
had a comprehension problem. However her spelling list did include words I’ve never uttered
in my life and so had difficulty in putting into a sentence that was understandable to her.
And since she would probably never meet those words again in decades, if ever,
they could not possibly be remembered.
By the way have you checked that your child can put those spelling list words into a sentence?
When in Spain, where a lot of children speak 2-4 languages I was checking the reading homework
of a child of around 9 years old who was reading in English and could speak English easily.
For whatever reason I decided to check her comprehension and drew a blank
also when looking through her homework book no one had bothered to check
if she actually understood what she was reading!

Picture books are the first step in reading words.
When reading in English you (usually) get used to ‘reading’ from the front page to the back page
and from left to right along the line while going down each line on the page as you read.
In TCR you can TCR read in this way; however with my first 'Charge' through a book
I prefer to turn the pages from the last page to the first with the book upside down
before Charging through it in the traditional front to back format. For me this has the advantage that interesting words and phrases don’t pop up into my conscious awareness.
Also you allow both pages to simultaneously bypass your eyes and conscious awareness
and go straight into your innermind to be processed by your newly growing neurons
to satisfy your reason for reading this printed or electronic material.
With picture books you can pre-’read’ the story by describing in your own words the tale the pictures
are describing and in this way you are introducing words and language patterns, sequence, emotions, the weather  and expectations etc. before you start with the written word.  
First you are 'reading’ the picture yourself as the expert (author)
before extending the child concious awareness of the story the pictures might be telling.
Then when the child reads the printed words he/she has an inner knowledge of the story 
and so can read with far more confidence.
Turbo Charged Reading is exactly the same.
You choose a book following a sequence that helps to ensure that you don’t waste your time
by reading only what is relevant from newspaper articles, soft-wear manuals
or books from a few pages long to the size of a small library.
After which you read the ‘pictures’ and this means you ordinary read the front and back covers,
the inside flaps, the table of contents and glance through the pages before making the decision:
do you want to bin this material, put it in your resource pile, only read certain sections
or read the full text now or in planned sessions?
You now have a level of knowledge of the book and this is your first level of understanding
which becomes your first level of memory and so long tern recall.
You have developed a relationship with the text claiming it for your own as you choose to read
what is appropriate to you and in the order that is most beneficial for your purpose of reading.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”




Wednesday 16 July 2014

Cancer: 3rd commentary on the risks of sitting for a long time!

I have this picture of the chairs my dad carved on my monitor to remind me
to set my countdown timer for half an hour 
when I stand and touch my elbow to my alternate knee 5-10 times
before sitting correctly in my chair. M'reen

1st  Success Level 2: Alexander technique.
2nd Success level 4 : At the bottom of this article.
3rd The Cancer Risks Of Long Term Sitting

Dear Reader,

Here's something that will get you up, on your feet and out of that chair.
Every two hours a person spends sitting ups the risk for some very dangerous types of cancer
by as much as 10% when compared to those people who sit very little according to research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The cancers affected by sitting include those of the colon, endometrial and lung.
Sitting for long time periods has been linked to other health issues to be sure...
obesity, metabolic syndrome, heart disease and diabetes.
Even an earlier death.

The most recent work in this area was a meta-analysis using 43 studies
that included almost 4 million subjects and involved 70,000 cases of cancer.
All the research used had periodically asked participants on how much time they spent sitting watching TV at home, at their desk at work as well as total time spent seated.

The team saw that each 2 hour increase in time spent sitting was linked to an increased risk
of cancer - 10% higher risk for endometrial (uterine) cancer, 8% higher risk for colon cancer
and a 6% higher risk for cancer of the lung.
If there is any good news to come from the analysis, it's that cancers of the breast, rectum, ovary, prostate, stomach, oesophagus, testicle, kidney and non-Hodgkin lymphoma were not tied to sitting.

Surprisingly, the findings on sitting and cancer risk held true even for those who exercise regularly. Regular workouts, it turns out, do not help you if you sit too long in a chair. 
It seems clear there's something bad about sitting that's not related to lack of exercise.

One of the reasons may be because long term sitting causes blood sugar and levels of insulin 
to spike. That spike is related to both diabetes and colon cancer.

Experts know that endometrial cancer is related to oestrogen,
a hormone that rises in response to obesity in women who have gone through menopause.

There may be something else going on as well.
If you keep body weight constant, there's still a link between cancer and spending time in a chair. One reason may be that the lack of movement triggers an inflammatory response that includes
a rise in biomarkers C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6).
In trials, 14 days of bed rest in young subjects upped C-reactive protein and pro-inflammatory interleukin-6 in the participants. Animal studies have demonstrated the same thing.

These findings add to the mounting evidence that sitting for long periods... at your desk, in the car, on your own couch (or recliner) just isn't a good thing for your body. You need to try to work 
light bouts of physical activity into your routine. Take regular breaks at work, forgo email and get up
and walk over to talk face to face with a colleague and avoid eating lunch at your desk.
At home try to cut down on the TV watching and screen time, getting up and moving
with some light activity every so often is also a smart strategy to keep yourself healthy
and perhaps cancer free.

To your good health,

Kirsten Whittaker
Daily Health Bulletin Editor
http://www.prevention.com/health/healthy-living/how-sitting-ups-your-cancer-risk

Taken from Success Level 4 of the Turbo Charged Reading tuition pack
that arrives in your dropbox or even as a CD.
Standing up.     Success Level 4 of the TCR programe. 
One of the reasons people are recommended to stand up from their desk particularly when typing, reading or any other concentrated focussed work is to rest your eyes and they only take a few seconds to be refreshed. To move oxygenates your spine and brain and relaxes your muscles
from a static posture. In fact one author blamed his heart attack on the fact that his chair
with its wheels negated the need for him to rise during his working day.
It took me 33 seconds to do the following. Having sat in my chair correctly I touched the outside
of my left foot with my right hand while putting my left hand on my right thigh.
For those with a poor memory this is a highly recommended exercise.
I then balanced my top and bottom brains – and you remember how to do this.
I then did one of Joff’s finger exercises all for a count of 5 and then dabbed on my 30 minute timer.
However, as I like to get the most in for my time and effort I included drawing in my little bits
and lower abdomen as if my life depended on it – and suffered discomfort during the night.
Using my dowsing skills and observation of my physical movements I found that when sitting down
I was not stopping when my shoulders were above my hips but pulling my spine down and back
into the chair back :(
Click on the Alexander Technique link above to find out how to sit when reading and writing.
There is actual evidence that if you will stand and so rest your eyes and then oxygenate your spine and brain that your productivity and its quality will not only be maintained but increase 
due to lack of fatigue. Half an hour is the optimum time period. If I get up in the middle of the half hour period then I just re-set for a new half hour; you will decide what is best for your working environment.

Thank you to all who read my blogs, your comments and questions are welcome.
If this is your first TCR blog you may be surprised to learn that in order to Turbo Charge Read effectively you actively involve your body, brain, mind, eyes and energy systems.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”


Saturday 12 July 2014

The value of combining Turbo Charged Reading with slow reading for me.

Image by courtesy of Pintrest I think.

The value of combining TCR with slow reading for me.  M’reen

I may be naive, but I doubt that this is going to happen even in this modern world
with its apparent need for nano second satisfaction with a sound bite attention range
and with instant access to anyone prepared to deny the rejuvenating peace of silence.

Even though it is no longer economical financially or time wise to knit or sew to carve or create
people do these things for their own satisfaction and stress relief.
I agree that 3-D printing will ‘attack’ working with your hands and body
as computer technology ‘attacks’ the need to use your mind.

However, these releases of the mundane have enabled children to create great benefits to the world
or have we suddenly started to produce geniuses in abundance?

In Christopher Paolini’s series following the adventures of Eragon and Saphira, his dragon,
the elves follow crafts without magic for the pure pleasure of personal achievement.

I am aware that we no longer have the skills that enabled Robinson Crusoe 
or Swiss Family Robinson to survive but do we feel diminished?

While I can Turbo Charge Read a novel easily I find I like the choice to do so
or to Turbo Charge Read it to the point of absorbing it in its entirety into my innermind
and then slow, each word read it in the same way as I ordinary read a well loved novel.
This way I get the best of both worlds.
With every read through of a book or series new realisations occur as they are finally recognised
or are enabled by concepts gained from other reading.
With a world of books and so little time to use; both Turbo Charged Reading
and ordinary slow reading independently or in combination enables a greater freedom and choice
of both my inner and outer worlds each enhancing the other.
This is because while TCR a novel from start to finish affords all the satisfactions of that new book being fast read as an old favourite.
However TCR a new or ‘old’ book directly into my innermind and then savouring the pages and the time spent gives a different kind of pleasure rather like lingering over lunch with a very dear friend.


Turbo Charged Reading: Read more>>>Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later
Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can TCR music, poetry or self development material for internal knowing.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com        just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. 
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Wednesday 9 July 2014

Memory and Business Process Mapping


Memory is built up in layers. M'reen

Whatever has Mountain Dew got to do with Memory, Learning and Confidence?
Written by M'reen

Mountain Dew was his language, his experience, his security.
My computer programmes, chocolate, purchased and created aids belonged to the confused world.

Memory.
While memory is built up in layers it is stored in bits in apparently random places and re-created each time it is recalled. I understand that a CD or DVD does not store information in a sequential pattern but in various segments across the disk; and yet the music or film is recalled in perfect order.
If you load information: a,b,c,d,e,f,g onto a disk and a little later your delete b, c and f then the next pieces of information you load will fill up those empty spaces first and not necessarily in linear order.
I think that this is one of the ways that a creative combination of ideas can emerge – eureka!
Additionally you can think of memory recall as a chain that has been re-build using out of sequence parts that are linked.
If a link or segment is missing or defective then the whole cannot be recalled.
In such I cases I would say, “I read something somewhere that said something along the lines of ….”
They say that if you want to really know a subject then you teach it as you have re-built the memory chains many times. Into this statement is built in the detailed learning layers of the subject
so that you can explain or demonstrate it externally and that repetition of knowledge
is build with repeated practice.
Learning to ride a bike requires different layers of skill and confidence.
Repetition or habit is one of five proposed learning gateways to the mind.
For these reasons when Turbo Charged Reading you would elicit the information in sequence;
each layer building on the last and also being efficient in time as you do not elicit information
that is not to be used at this time. In addition with each success you are building confidence.
There is also the state and none state theory of memory – but not now.
Followed by: where memory is stored; is it confined within your scull or in every cell of your body?
However, right now we are concerned with the memorising of information, clearly and long term.

Does memory come before learning?
I leave that for you to debate.
Learning is acquired in layers, by practice and with increasing confidence.
Confidence is being able to perform a skill whereas self esteem is having secure inner regard.
Learning can enter the mind / body by a proposed five routes.
(1) Trauma, (2) Habit, (3) Hero worship (think pop stars, advertisements etc), (4) Authority figures
(think parents, law, religion etc) and (5) Alpha (in hypnotherapy we use the authority of the self
during the alpha state to access the other four areas of learning.)
The learning state of alpha is natural and starts to initiate as soon as you close your eyes or focus increasingly inwards on a subject, novel, film, conversation etc. In doing any of these activities
you could be considered to be in an enhanced environment. Each time you experience something your brain immediately starts laying down the foundations for its memory/recall and this requires
a new neural network – or extra space on the CD. This is a purely physical matter; think of someone who’s been confined to bed and you recognise that their muscles atrophy or an elderly person
who’s hormones have altered and therefore does not have the capacity of the young or of a person
who’s family history predicts a ‘weak’ heart; if any of these people increase their exercise then new muscles and veins etc are created. The great ‘they’ took a number of mice from their boring cage
and put them into a cage with interesting activities. The enhanced activity mice stayed in this enriched environment for shorter and shorter periods of time so that eventually the scientists found that the building of neural networks started as soon as the mice entered the enriched environment.
It is not simply a case of use it or lose it but also of continuing or starting to build your abilities.
With Turbo Charged Reading, after you have poured all that information into your inner mind
and submitted a request to access certain information that satisfied your purpose that is to be accessed for your first layer of learning recall you then get out of the way and give your neural network the chance to organise itself and create the necessary new neurons.

Confidence.
I was engaged to help a 13 year old get past his problems with algebra (the fact that algebra is a complete mystery to me is irrelevant). My intent was to find the point just before his problem;
that is to the point of his security before things got confused. I moved forward (or in fact backwards)
to fractions as the first point of insecurity, the frightening quagmire with no way out.
I used my then skills, my ingenuity and we got nowhere. I then grabbed the empty bottles
of Mountain Dew he and his father had been drinking and put a fraction of water in one of them.
Mountain Dew was safe, it was part of his understanding and it had nothing to do with fractions.
Light dawned and very rapidly he was able to bring into his confidence the things his teachers
had been trying to teach him. I find it interesting that when you work with critical incident de-briefing you take the person back to their point of confidence before the trauma, or series of little traumas, and ‘lock’ them into their confidence. Another description of this is to ‘anchor’ them in the safe experience of themselves before the distressing incident or the last straw that broke the camel’s back if there has been a series of accumulating stresses.

How is this expressed in Turbo Charged Reading?  
By building up the sequence of Turbo Charged Reading from choosing the book onwards
by using the language with which you are most familiar,
and this is expressed as using ‘your primary and secondary learning modalities’.
In English that means starting with the simple and building into the more detailed of each stage
using the first and second learning styles that suits you best.
This input is then incrementally built upon as your knowledge (learning), security (confidence)
and memory (recall) is extended (enhanced).
Primary visual learners often create Mind Maps as a way of eliciting and recording the information you wish from your written material as an excellent and efficient way to store and recall information. Therefore we start creating mind maps during our first session as a mind map covers the learning styles (your safe language/experience) of being visual – I’ve seen some that are works of art.
For those who learn best by hearing (aural) I tell stories that build up a progressive dialogue
in your mind and these stories are copied onto an MP3. For a paper record primary aural learners would probably prefer bullet points or Business Progress Mapping. (Scroll down for an example)
For the kinaesthetic learners beating a rhythm or walking as you read or listen is helpful;
think of the rhythm of the alphabet, your two times tables etc. I even encourage TCR to create a rap as they turn the pages of their book or dab down the page on their screen.
For those of you who use olfactory and gustatory points of reference
I’m afraid that you’ll have to add these anchors yourself and are encouraged to do so.

As we usually learn and remember and recall using multi senses then mix and match to taste.

So with our Turbo Charged Reading partnership we start with the end in mind
and start by building in incremental layers to ensure your success. M'reen

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”