Learn Spoken English. Also find College Guide, Students' Notes, Texts, Text with Guide, Summary, Summaries, Essays, Outline, Plot Overview, University Guide, Questions and Answers, Solved MCQ, Themes, and Question Papers.
How to improve your English writing skills? - Free English lesson
I will share easy and quick tips that will improve writing in formal and academic settings.
• Avoid using contractions – Do not use contractions while constructing your sentences, esp. if you are writing a business email or formal letters i.e. words like don’t, can’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, isn’t, haven’t should be avoided.
• Avoid there are/ there is – It will make your sentence more lengthy and boring to read. e.g
There are many problems in her class (incorrect)
Her class is facing many problems. (Correct)
There is an exhibition at the hotel. (Incorrect)
The hotel is holding an exhibition. (Correct)
• Avoid using unnecessary words in your sentences like very; really, a lot instead use better vocabulary. It will definitely not change the meaning of your sentence but will make it sound interesting.
Students think literature is very hard.
Students think literature is difficult.
• Make use of strong verbs – It will make your sentence sound more appropriate and concrete.
He gave assistance to my friend. (weak verb)
My friend assisted him. (Strong verb)
Proverbs
are experiential truths passed down for generations. They serve as guidelines
that are worth following... Here is a collection of English proverbs that would
definitely be of great use to you and your children!
An
apple A Day Keeps the Doctor Away - 00:03
First
come, first served - 00:57
Practice
makes Perfect - 01:57
Don't
cry over spoilt milk - 02:56
A
stitch in time saves nine - 04:02
Time
and Tide wait for none - 05:07
Action
speaks louder than words - 06:09
A
penny saved is a penny earned - 07:06
The
early bird catches the worm - 07:56
Eat
to live but do not live to eat - 08:52
Look
before you leap - 09:44
A
friend in need is a friend indeed - 10:47
Prevention
is better than cure - 11:41
Cleanliness
is next to godliness - 12:38
Where
there's a will there's a way - 13:45
Kill
not the goose that lays golden eggs - 14:56
God
helps those who help themselves - 16:02
A
bird in hand in worth two in the bush - 17:14
The
early bird catches the worm - 18:30
Experience
is the best teacher - 19:28
Every
cloud has a silver lining - 20:21
Spare
the rod and spoil the child - 21:24
One
rotten apple spoils the rest - 22:16
As
you sow, so shall you reap - 23:19
Empty
vessels make the most noise - 24:20
Time
heals old wounds - 25:28
All
that glitters is not gold - 26:36
Cut
off your nose to spite your face - 27:31
Unity
is strength - 28:42
There
is no place like home - 29:33
Action
speaks louder than words - 30:27
Every
dog has its day - 31:25
Who
keeps company with wolves, will learn how to howl - 32:28
President
John F. Kennedy Commencement
Address at American University, Washington,
D.C. June
10, 1963.
President
Anderson, members of the faculty, board of trustees, distinguished guests, my
old colleague, Senator Bob Byrd, who has earned his degree through many years
of attending night law school, while I am earning mine in the next 30 minutes,
distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
It
is with great pride that I participate in this ceremony of the American
University, sponsored by the Methodist Church, founded by Bishop John Fletcher
Hurst, and first opened by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. This is a young
and growing university, but it has already fulfilled Bishop Hurst's enlightened
hope for the study of history and public affairs in a city devoted to the
making of history and the conduct of the public's business. By sponsoring this
institution of higher learning for all who wish to learn, whatever their color
or their creed, the Methodists of this area and the Nation deserve the Nation's
thanks, and I commend all those who are today graduating.
Professor
Woodrow Wilson once said that every man sent out from a university should be a
man of his nation as well as a man of his time, and I am confident that the men
and women who carry the honor of graduating from this institution will continue
to give from their lives, from their talents, a high measure of public service
and public support.
"There
are few earthly things more beautiful than a university," wrote John
Masefield in his tribute to English universities--and his words are equally
true today. He did not refer to spires and towers, to campus greens and ivied
walls. He admired the splendid beauty of the university, he said, because it
was "a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where
those who perceive truth may strive to make others see."
I
have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which
ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is
the most important topic on earth: world peace.
What
kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana
enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or
the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace
that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to
grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely
peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our
time but peace for all time.
I
speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an
age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear
forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no
sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the
explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War.
It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear
exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far
corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.
Today
the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the
purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the
peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles--which can only
destroy and never create--is not the only, much less the most efficient, means
of assuring peace.
I
speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I
realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war--and
frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more
urgent task.
Some
say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world
disarmament--and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union
adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them
do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude--as
individuals and as a Nation--for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And
every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and
wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward--by examining his own
attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the
course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.
First:
Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is
impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist
belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is
doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.
We
need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be
solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny
is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly
unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again.
I
am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of
which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and
dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our
only and immediate goal.
Let
us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based not on a
sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human
institutions--on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which
are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this
peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine
peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be
dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For
peace is a process--a way of solving problems.
With
such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there
are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not
require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live
together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful
settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between
individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may
seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the
relations between nations and neighbors.
So
let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be
inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more
manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope
from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.
Second:
Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to
think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write.
It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military
Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible
claims--such as the allegation that "American imperialist circles are
preparing to unleash different types of wars . . . that there is a very real
threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the
Soviet Union . . . [and that] the political aims of the American imperialists
are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist
countries . . . [and] to achieve world domination . . . by means of aggressive
wars."
Truly,
as it was written long ago: "The wicked flee when no man pursueth."
Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements--to realize the extent of the
gulf between us. But it is also a warning--a warning to the American people not
to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and
desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable,
accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange
of threats.
No
government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as
lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a
negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian
people for their many achievements--in science and space, in economic and
industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.
Among
the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is
stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world
powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history
of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of
the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions
of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation's territory,
including nearly two thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a
wasteland--a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of
Chicago.
Today,
should total war ever break out again--no matter how--our two countries would
become the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two
strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have
built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours. And
even in the cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to so many nations,
including this Nation's closest allies--our two countries bear the heaviest
burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could
be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both
caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side
breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counter weapons.
In
short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its
allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in
halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the
Soviet Union as well as ours--and even the most hostile nations can be relied
upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty
obligations, which are in their own interest.
So,
let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our
common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.
And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world
safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is
that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all
cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
Third:
Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not
engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here
distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the
world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18
years been different.
We
must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that
constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach
solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way
that it becomes in the Communists' interest to agree on a genuine peace. Above
all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those
confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating
retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would
be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy--or of a collective death-wish
for the world.
To
secure these ends, America's weapons are non-provocative, carefully controlled,
designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are
committed to peace and disciplined in self- restraint. Our diplomats are
instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.
For
we can seek a relaxation of tension without relaxing our guard. And, for our
part, we do not need to use threats to prove that we are resolute. We do not
need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are
unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people--but we are willing and
able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on earth.
Meanwhile,
we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems,
to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine
world security system--a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of
law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating
conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.
At
the same time we seek to keep peace inside the non-Communist world, where many
nations, all of them our friends, are divided over issues which weaken Western
unity, which invite Communist intervention or which threaten to erupt into war.
Our efforts in West New Guinea, in the Congo, in the Middle East, and in the
Indian subcontinent, have been persistent and patient despite criticism from
both sides. We have also tried to set an example for others--by seeking to adjust
small but significant differences with our own closest neighbors in Mexico and
in Canada.
Speaking
of other nations, I wish to make one point clear. We are bound to many nations
by alliances. Those alliances exist because our concern and theirs substantially
overlap. Our commitment to defend Western Europe and West Berlin, for example,
stands undiminished because of the identity of our vital interests. The United
States will make no deal with the Soviet Union at the expense of other nations
and other peoples, not merely because they are our partners, but also because
their interests and ours converge.
Our
interests converge, however, not only in defending the frontiers of freedom,
but in pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope-- and the purpose of allied
policies--to convince the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each nation
choose its own future, so long as that choice does not interfere with the
choices of others. The Communist drive to impose their political and economic
system on others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be
no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the
self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.
This
will require a new effort to achieve world law--a new context for world
discussions. It will require increased understanding between the Soviets and
ourselves. And increased understanding will require increased contact and
communication. One step in this direction is the proposed arrangement for a
direct line between Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the dangerous
delays, misunderstandings, and misreading of the other's actions which might
occur at a time of crisis.
We
have also been talking in Geneva about the other first-step measures of arms
control designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and to reduce the
risks of accidental war. Our primary long range interest in Geneva, however, is
general and complete disarmament-- designed to take place by stages, permitting
parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which
would take the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of
this Government since the 1920's. It has been urgently sought by the past three
administrations. And however dim the prospects may be today, we intend to
continue this effort--to continue it in order that all countries, including our
own, can better grasp what the problems and possibilities of disarmament are.
The
one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a
fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The
conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling
arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers
in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which
man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our
security--it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is
sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the
temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our
insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.
I
am taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in
this regard.
First:
Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that
high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking toward early
agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty. Our hopes must be tempered with
the caution of history--but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind.
Second:
To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on the matter, I now
declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the
atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not be the first to
resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I
hope it will help us achieve one.Nor
would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us
achieve it.
Finally,
my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom here
at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our
efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives--as many of
you who are graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do, by serving
without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps
here at home.
But
wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith
that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the
peace is not secure because the freedom is incomplete.
It
is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of
government--local, State, and National--to provide and protect that freedom for
all of our citizens by all means within their authority. It is the
responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever that authority
is not now adequate, to make it adequate. And it is the responsibility of all
citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of all others
and to respect the law of the land.
All
this is not unrelated to world peace. "When a man's ways please the
Lord," the Scriptures tell us, "he maketh even his enemies to be at
peace with him." And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a
matter of human rights--the right to live out our lives without fear of
devastation--the right to breathe air as nature provided it--the right of
future generations to a healthy existence?
While
we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human
interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of
both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however
tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of
deception and evasion. But it can--if it is sufficiently effective in its
enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers--offer
far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled,
unpredictable arms race.
The
United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a
war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had
enough--more than enough--of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared
if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do
our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are
just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success.
Confident and unafraid, we labor on--not toward a strategy of annihilation but
toward a strategy of peace.
In
Karukku, Bama focuses the vulnerable condition of Dalit people and how they are
victims of circumstances due to their poor economic background. They remain landless
agricultural labourers who are politically, powerless. She focuses other major problems
such as untouchability, discrimination in the new religion, Christianity. She painfully
notes that their rich culture is robbed and they are left with no culture.
An Excerpt from the Fictional
Autobiography, Karukku, by Bama:
UNTIL THE TIME that I was in the
eighth class, I worked in my village in all these ways. All the time I went to
work for the Naikers, I knew I should not touch their goods or chattels; I
should never come close to where they were, I should always stand away to one
side. These were their rules. I often felt pained and ashamed. But there was
nothing that I could do. They belonged to a higher caste. They had the money.
We had to listen to what they said. However furious or resentful I felt in my
heart, I have stepped aside for them, along with the other women of my
community.
I
was admitted into the convent school in the nearby village so that I could
attend the ninth class. There I did not have to work all the time like this. I
ate my meals, and I studied; that was all. Children who boarded at the convent
and studied there certainly has a special status in our village. All the same, when
I went home I did all the chores that fell to me customarily.
After
the tenth class, I finished my final exams and went home. My mother was walking
from the street of the Naikers with a bundle on her head, made up of mango wood
which she had gathered and tied together. I went along with her, back and
forth, with two or three head-loads of firewood which I gathered for her. To
come to our part of the village from Naiker Street, you had to cross the Nadar Street,
the Thevar Street, and then come past the oil-press and bazaar. Some people who
had seen me carrying the firewood said to my mother in astonishment, ‘Your
daughter has finished her schooling at the convent, yet she doesn’t mind
carrying firewood like this’. I don’t know why they were so surprised. In those
days I really enjoyed that kind of hard physical labour. It is only recently
that I find I cannot do it anymore. Because I have been to other places and
have been engaged in studying different things, I find that my body isn’t as
flexible as it used to be.
When
I saw our people working so hard night and day, I often used to wonder from
where they got their strength. And I used to think, that at the rate they
worked, men and women both, every single day, they should really be able to
advance themselves. But of course, they never received a payment that was
appropriate to their labour. And another thing. Even if they did the same work,
men received one wage, women another. They always paid men more. I could never
understand why.
Even
though they worked so hard and suffered bodily pain, our people laughed and
were cheerful. This is a community that was born to work. And however hard they
toil, it is the same kuuzh every day. The same broken-grain gruel. The same
watery dried-fish curry. It seems they never ever reflect upon their own
terrible state of affairs. But do they have any time to think? You have to
wonder how the upper-castes would survive without these people. For it’s only
when they fall asleep at night that their arms and legs are still; they seem to
be at work all other times. And they have to keep working until the moment of
death. It is only in this way that they can even half fill their bellies.
Mind
you, things get steadily worse and worse. In the old days, it is true, even
tiny tots would hold on to sheep and cattle, and look after babies as they
tumbled about in the streets around their houses. Nowadays, poor things, they
go to work like adults. At crack of dawn, even before the Madurai bus makes its
appearance, these days, the van from the match-box factory will arrive. These
tiny crab-like children pour their kuuzh into their carriers half asleep,
totter along to the van, climb in and go off to work. They work at sticking on
match box-labels; they make firecrackers and use chemicals; and they return
home exhausted, at seven in the evening. At an age when they should be going to
school, studying like everyone else and playing around in the evenings, they
are shut up inside the factories instead. There are two or three schools
available for the children nowadays. But these little ones’ fate is the smell
of match-box solution, not the smell of knowledge or learning. How can they
afford to study, there it is such a struggle even to fill their bellies?
Notes:
Naikers: The land-owning dominant caste
in Bama’s village.
Street of the Naikers: Bama’s village, like most
Indian villages, is divided into streets on the basis of caste. Caste groups
live in segregated clusters, closely sharing the space and not allowing any
person from a different caste to live there. While the dominant caste groups
and their streets form the main village, the low caste groups settle on the
outskirts. This stratification is so strict that it is possible to identify
people’s caste by the location of the street in which they live.
The Carpenter’s Complaint By Edward Baugh Now you think that is right, sah? Talk the
truth.
The man was mi friend. I build it, I
Build the house that him live in; but now
That him dead, that mawga-foot bwoy, him son,
Come say, him want a nice job for the coffin, So him give it to Mister Belnavis to make -
That big-belly crook who don't know him arse
From a chisel, but because him is big-shot, because
Him make big-shot coffin, fi-him coffin must better
Than mine! Bwoy it hot me, it hot me For true. Fix we a nex' one, Miss Fergie -
That man coulda knock back him waters, you know sah!
I remember the day in this said-same bar
When him drink Old Brown and Coxs'n into
The ground, then stand up straight as a plumb-line And keel him felt hat on him head and walk
Home cool, cool, cool. Dem was water-bird, brother!
Funeral? Me, sah? That bwoy have to learn
That a man have him pride. But bless mi days!
Good enough to build the house that him live in, But not good enough to make him coffin!
I woulda do it for nutt'n, for nutt'n! The man
Was mi friend. Damn mawga-foot bwoy.
Is university turn him fool. I tell you,
It burn me, it burn me for true!
