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    Back to Basics: The Education You Wish You'd Had
    Back to Basics: The Education You Wish You'd Had
    Back to Basics: The Education You Wish You'd Had
    Ebook207 pages2 hours

    Back to Basics: The Education You Wish You'd Had

    By Caroline Taggart

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Don't know Midas from Oedipus? Wouldn't recognize a concerto from a sonata? Many of us wish that we could fill in the gaps in our education in order to avoid those embarrassing situations when we feel as if we don't know things that others do. In Back to Basics, bestselling author Caroline Taggart will provide readers with the opportunity to learn really useful stuff that was never taught in mainstream education, while also giving a refresher course on the main staples. From brushing up on Bible stories and classical architecture, to identifying different types of clouds, your thirst for knowledge will be sated and your education complete - and it's enormous fun to boot!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael O'Mara
    Release dateMay 31, 2012
    ISBN9781843179009
    Back to Basics: The Education You Wish You'd Had
    Author

    Caroline Taggart

    Caroline Taggart worked in publishing as an editor of popular non-fiction for thirty years before being asked by Michael O'Mara Books to write I Used to Know That, which became a Sunday Times bestseller. Following that she was co-author of My Grammar and I (or should that be 'Me'?), and wrote a number of other books about words and English usage. She has appeared frequently on television and on national and regional radio, talking about language, grammar and whether or not Druids Cross should have an apostrophe. Her website is carolinetaggart.co.uk and you can follow her on Twitter @citaggart.

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    • 3/5
      I've had my eye on Caroline Taggart's work for a little while, as I was interested in her books on the likes of grammar and the classics. Back to Basics: The Education You Wish You'd Had is a book that aims to cover the basics and key facts across a number of subjects, covering English, Maths, Science, History, Geography, French and Religious Studies (the Bible). It's supposed to be a little bit tongue and cheek, and an aid for brushing up on stuff you learnt x years ago at school and can no longer remember anything about.It's a quick read, and was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some subjects, such as geography, history and the sciences, I enjoyed as Taggart pulled out a number of interesting different subject areas within each. The history chapter was a (very) short chronicle of the most important things that have happened in history (AD), and I found that an interesting refresher as I always struggle to remember that stuff.The Maths chapter seemed to quickly jump in and out of a few different areas which I didn't feel worked too well (maybe just me - I'm more of an Arts person), and the English and French sections felt mostly far too simplistic if you'd studied these for any length of time at all at school.Interesting enough for a quick read on my commute, but I won't be rushing back to Taggart.3 stars - interesting snippets of info to jump in and out of.

    Book preview

    Back to Basics - Caroline Taggart

    First published in Great Britain in 2012 by

    Michael O’Mara Books Limited

    9 Lion Yard

    Tremadoc Road

    London SW4 7NQ

    Copyright © Michael O’Mara Books Limited 2012

    All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

    A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

    ISBN: 978-1-84317-879-8 in hardback print format

    ISBN: 978-1-84317-900-9 in EPub format

    ISBN: 978-1-84317-899-6 in Mobipocket format

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

    Cover design by Ana Bjezancevic

    Designed and typeset by K.DESIGN, Winscombe, Somerset

    Illustrations by Greg Stevenson

    www.mombooks.com

    Contents

    Introduction

    Acknowledgements

    English Language

    Maths

    Science

    History

    French

    Geography

    General Studies

    Bibliography

    Index

    Introduction

    Have you ever been embarrassed – in a discussion with friends, in front of the children, watching a quiz programme on television – by not knowing the answer to something that seems absolutely basic? By not being sure what a prime number is or the difference between climate and weather or conduction and convection?

    No? Well, put this book straight back on the shelf. You already know everything it could possibly tell you.

    Changed your mind? How nice! It’s good to have you on board.

    The truth is, we’ve all been there. We were taught all sorts of stuff at school but have forgotten it; or – increasingly likely in my case, and particularly where Science and Geography are concerned – it’s been invented, discovered or changed since we left school and we’ve never quite got to grips with it. This book aims to fill in some of the gaps in knowledge we really feel we ought to have.

    It’s divided into chapters along the lines of subjects you may have studied for GCSE or O Level – English Language, Maths, General Science, History, French, Geography and General Studies – but that is as close as it comes to following a syllabus. Science covers seemingly random concepts such as why yeast makes dough rise and why helium is good in balloons, because that’s the sort of thing that will make you feel silly if you can’t explain it to a five-year-old. Maths helps you to divide the bill in a restaurant and has a go at working out how the bank calculates the interest on your mortgage. Geography explains the difference between latitude and longitude and why it matters, because if you are a high-flying executive permanently battling jet-lag, it might just be a comfort to know what is happening to you. History is a rundown of a lot of things that have happened in the world since 1453 – no mean feat in thirty pages, but it also gives you a chance to remind yourself (or look up and find out) why indeed you should care about what happened in 1453.

    French sheds light on the mysteries of irregular verbs and why the words for inanimate objects have a gender. The General Studies chapter allows you to take on board the difference between a sonata and a symphony, not to mention a Doric column and a Gothic arch. And English – well, English goes back to that perennial question of why we speak, write, spell and put in apostrophes the way we do.

    In other words, as the subtitle boasts, it is the education you wish you’d had. It isn’t what they didn’t teach you at Harvard Business School; it probably won’t enable you to win friends or influence people; but it will make you more confident in expressing an opinion on subjects from oxbow lakes to oxymorons, from hyperbole to Helen of Troy. Which, for many of us, is all that matters.

    Caroline Taggart

    February 2012

    Acknowledgements

    Writing a book like this makes you only too aware of the gaps in your own education. So I am particularly grateful to Heather, Hilary and Marianne, respectively geographer, historian and scientist extraordinaires, who filled in the calderas and black holes in my knowledge. Thanks also to Katie, Toby, Ana, Jess and the rest of the MOM team, without whom . . .

    ENGLISH LANGUAGE

    It’s beautiful, rich and diverse, but there is no denying that it is full of strange rules and even stranger exceptions. It pronounces bough, rough, cough and through so that they don’t rhyme and jerk, dirk, work and murk so that they do. In other words, it’s a minefield. This chapter tries to throw light on some of the most frequent areas of confusion.

    MY HUSBAND AND . . . WHO?

    One of the things that people find hardest about English is the correct use of pronouns. After all, if the Queen says, ‘My husband and I . . .’, it must be right, mustn’t it?

    But no, not necessarily. It all depends on where in the sentence it comes. Let’s look at the rules.

    Sentence structure: subject, verb and object

    A basic English sentence consists of a subject, a verb and an object:

    •  The subject performs the action of the sentence.

    •  The verb tell us what the action is.

    •  The object is the recipient of the action.

    Easier with a few examples, perhaps:

    The dog chased the ball.

    I am reading a book.

    Old Macdonald had a farm.

    The subjects of these sentences are the dog, I and Old Macdonald. They are the ones that are doing something. You’ll remember, I’m sure, that a verb is a ‘doing word’, so the verbs in these sentences are chased, am reading and had: they describe the action that is taking place. The objects are the ball, a book and a farm. Ask yourself ‘The dog chased what?’ and the answer will be the object of the verb.

    OK? With me so far? Good.

    Pronouns

    Pronouns are the little words that stand in place of nouns, to save us having to repeat the nouns over and over again. It would be tedious, for example, to say:

    Caroline is writing Caroline’s book because Caroline has agreed to write the book.

    Instead, we substitute pronouns:

    Caroline is writing her book because she has agreed to write it.

    English does not alter the form of nouns to show what role they play in a sentence (as Latin and German, for instance, do), but it does alter the form of pronouns:

    I as the subject of a sentence becomes me as the object.

    He becomes him.

    She becomes her.

    We becomes us.

    They becomes them.

    Thus:

    I hit the ball; the ball hit me.

    He doesn’t wear green; green doesn’t suit him.

    She isn’t going to the party; nobody invited her.

    We don’t own a dog; dogs frighten us.

    They go on holiday at Christmas; it relaxes them.

    Note that you and it remain the same whether they are subject or object:

    You like dancing; dancing pleases you.

    It was lying on the table; John saw it.

    Compounds

    The complication arises when you have what is called a compound subject or compound object: that is, one that includes more than one element. Think back to ‘my husband and I’ and remember the difference between a subject and an object:

    My husband and I are very grateful for the invitation. Thank you for inviting my husband and me.

    If in doubt . . .

    If you are ever in doubt about which version is correct, put a mental bracket around ‘my husband and’. You wouldn’t dream of saying, ‘Thank you for inviting I’, would you? So you shouldn’t say, ‘Thank you for inviting my husband and I’ either.

    Here are a few more examples. I’ve put in those imaginary brackets, in the hope of being helpful.

    They [and their father] were at loggerheads.

    There was disagreement between [their father and] them.

    We [and the Germans] fought in the Second World War.

    The Second World War was a conflict involving [the Germans and] us.

    They [and their children] are coming for the weekend.

    I have to go to the station to meet them [and their children].

    It works when there are two pronouns too.

    She and I would love to come.

    Please buy tickets for her and me.

    In the first sentence, you can put your brackets round either ‘she and’ or ‘and I’ and the rule applies. Similarly in the second sentence with ‘her and’ or ‘and me’.

    Overemphasis

    Still on the subject of pronouns, another common error is the misuse of emphatic ones. Words ending in –self or –selves – myself, yourself, themselves, etc. – are used reflexively, when you did something to yourself, i.e. when the subject is the same as the object:

    I dressed myself in a hurry because I was running late.

    He took himself severely to task after he had lost his temper.

    There isn’t generally any problem in this context. But difficulties can arise in relation to the other role of these pronouns – emphasis.

    The following examples show emphatic pronouns being used correctly:

    Myself, I love living in the country

    (although I know that you find it dull).

    We can find the way ourselves

    (so we don’t need directions).

    I want you all to do this homework yourselves

    (rather than getting your parents to help you or copying it from Wikipedia).

    What is wrong, or at best unnecessary, is to use this form when there is no need for emphasis. It’s a trick much loved by people at call centres. ‘The documents will be sent to yourself today,’ they say, meaning nothing more than ‘The documents will be sent to you.’ There’s no question (we hope) of their sending the documents to anyone else, so there’s no need to labour the fact.

    The point here is that using an emphatic word when no emphasis is intended weakens it. In the example above, if enough people use ‘yourself’ when they mean ’you’, it will become the norm – and then what will yourselves do when you want to be emphatic?

    TO APOSTROPHIZE OR NOT TO APOSTROPHIZE

    Many people get into a panic about apostrophes but there is really no need. Honestly.

    By and large, apostrophes are used for two reasons:

    •   To show that something is missing.

    •   To indicate possession.

    Something missing

    When something is missing, it is most commonly the o in not, which produces words such as don’t, won’t and shan’t. Won’t and shan’t, of course, are short for will not and shall not, but don’t be lured into thinking that you need more than one apostrophe: the convention is that the apostrophe replaces the missing o and nothing else.

    An apostrophe also often replaces the i of is or the a of are:

    He’s (= he is) a charming man.

    They’re (= they are) a peculiar couple.

    Possession

    As for possession, if you want to show that something belongs to someone or something, add an apostrophe and an s:

    Tom’s first birthday

    The doctor’s bag

    The mirror’s gilt frame

    Possessive plurals

    If it belongs to persons or things whose plural form ends in s, just add an apostrophe:

    The sisters’ rivalry (when there is more than one sister)

    The teachers’ day off (more than one teacher)

    If it is a plural but doesn’t end in s, add an apostrophe and an s:

    The children’s shoes

    The blind mice’s tails

    And if it is becoming a bit of a mouthful or just doesn’t sound right, rephrase it:

    The rivalry between the sisters

    The tails of the blind mice

    Abbreviations

    There is no need to put an apostrophe in the plural of an abbreviation, unless it is to show possession:

    I am buying everyone DVDs for Christmas.

    That DVD’s sound quality is dreadful.

    Those DVDs’ covers are very striking.

    There are other refinements, but you won’t

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