3rd Quarter Reviewer for ENGLISH

I. THAILAND: ETHICS OF NATION

 Thailand – formerly Siam / literature goes back to the 13th century
 Prose – was used chiefly for recording history and promulgating laws
 Chulalongkorn period – when Thailand was modernized
 Prince Vajiravudh – who later become king, introduced western-style prose drama
 Modern Thai Literature – includes children’s literature and may forms of nonfictional prose:
autobiographies , essays, biographies , etc
 Buddhist ethics – pervade much of thai poetry
 1964 – a new note in poetry started with the publication of collected poems
 “unpoetic” “sulfur” language – because of use of this , critics accused the new poetry of
corrupting the beauty of thai poetry
 Concrete/Visual faculty – experimental stage / form of expression appeared
 October 1973 – after a student – led uprising , lyric poetry with overtones of maoist theories of
art and literature became the order of the day
 Chayasi Sunthonphiphit – “Till Hearts End”
 Symbolism – is used when an idea is difficult to describe
 Symbol – something that stands for another thing / another idea
 Minfong Ho – “ Ma Boonruen’s Restaurant “ : Characters : Ma Boonruen, Bottle woman, Young
Man
_ grew up in Thailand / she was formerly a relief worker with the Khmer Rouge
refugees/nonfiction book about LAOS and VIETNAM
 SUCCES – is not measured only in terms of money and material possession but more on integrity
, decency, relationship with other people
 Participles – are verb forms used as adjectives / comes before the word it modifies
Ex. : adjective + noun
A tree that sways – a swaying tree
Leaves that dance – dancing leaves
People who work – working people
Towering buildings
Lightened candle
 Participial Phrase – each phrase modifies the noun before it / headed by a participle / modifiers
 The boy standing no higher than my waist , looked on interestedly .
Modifier participial phrase
 A zebra startled by their sudden appearance , stared right at them

II. MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE : BLEND OF CULTURES

 English – used sown by the natives / the seeds of Malayan lit .
 Wang Gunguri – one of the early writers who attempted to blend Malayan identity and English
language
 Pulse – a collection of his (Wang Gunguri) poems
 1960 – Malaysian drama
 1970 – witnessed the flowering of writing in English..
 Malaysian short stories appeared regularly magazines – TENGGARA AND LIDRA
 Catherine Lim – little ironies
 Edwin thumboo – tried to understand the changes in Singapore / God can die
 Arthur Yap – commonplace
 Singapore writing – short stories and poems in English
 Lee Tzu Pheng – “ After the rain “
_ lives in Singapore / her keen observation has made her see what a startling
effect rain can have on the landscape and the people

 Singapore – is the largest port in southeast asia and one of the largest in the world
After the rain – a. the leaves on the trees – the wind has hurled them earthward
b. the oriole – turns anxious for its flimsy nest
c. the lawn – are dwindled to a winding milky way
d. the fruits on the fig trees – the ripe figs bloat
e. the fish in the pond – flash a more silvery scale
f. the schoolboy – whistling

 Patrick Ng Kah Onn – “The Interview”

_ was born in kuala lumpur / a teacher and writer
 Kuala lumpur – became capital of the federated malay states in 1895
 Local color – to make a setting realistic
 Sandra Ee – Singapore food : a melting pot of different cultures
_ a contributor to check in Singapore
 Singapore Hotel Association – this agency publishes beautiful brochures
 Nonfiction – literary piece that tells about real people, places, and events
 Essay – a nonfiction work that deals with one subject often in a personal way
 Formal essay – serious and reflective
 Informal essay – familiar or personal/ light and humorous / to entertain
 Verbal idioms – idioms headed by a verb
 Nomial idioms- have a noun as headword
 Black sheep of the family – disreputable member of a family
 Breath of fresh air – someone or something that is new and different and makes everything
seem more exciting
 Cream of the top- best of a particular group
 Crocodile tears –A false, insincere, or hypocritical display of sadness or remorse.
 Hand-to-mouth existence –a way of life in which you have hardly enough food or
money to live on
 Round peg in a square hole – does not fit
 A blessing in disguise – an apparent misfortune that eventually has good results
 Doubting Thomas – refuses to believe
 Rhyme or reason – logical explanation or reason
 Forty winks – a short sleep
 Upper crust – important people belonging to high society
 Security blanket – a person or thing that gives someone emotional comfort
 Jack of all trades – a person who can do many different kinds of work well
 Two cents – an opinion
 Chip off the old block – someone who resembles his or her parent in looks or behavior
 Couch potato – someone who spends a lot of time watching television
 Needle in a haystack – something difficult or impossible to find
 Heart of gold – an extremely kind and generous nature
 Propaganda – some are half truths and distortions or manipulations of ideas
 Glad names – the product or idea is given pompous attributes
 Bandwagon – makes us feel that we are left out if we do not buy the product
 Emotional words – uses words that appeal to the heart
 Elitist appeal – praise the prospective buyer or to make him or her feel good
 Testimonial – a famous personality is made to endorse the product
 Facial expressions – form of non verbal communication used to convey emotional messages or
communicate, attitude> happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, and fear
 Infinitive – to and the base form of the verb
 To complete, to design, to submit ….
 Infinitive phrase – infinitive joined with modifiers and other words
 Prepositional phrase – to and noun/pronoun
 The architect has two projects to complete
 Brochure – a pamphlet which contains brief write up
III. CASES OF PRONOUNS
 Nominative case – when they are used as subjects or doers of the sentence
 Objective case – when they are used as direct, indirect objects and object of preposition
 Possessive case – when they are used to show ownership before nouns and before gerunds

 Subject-Verb agreement - the verb must always agree with its subject
 Singular subject – requires a singular verb , s-form
 Plural subject- requires a plural verb, base form
 Adjectives and Adverbs – undergo changes to show different degrees of comparison which are
as follows : positive, comparative, superlative
 Positive degree – used to simply modify a word
 Ex: quick, hopeful, soon,quickly
 Comparative degree – used to compare two persons, places, or things
 Use –er .. Ex: quicker,sooner
 Superlative degree – used to compare three or more
 Use –est 1 syllable
 Use most for 2 syllable
 Ex : most hopeful, most quickly
 Infinitives -