In response to a recent question from several of my students, hereโs a grammar post about two confusing verbs: lie and lay. (Actually, itโs three verbs, but weโll come to that later.) TO LAY โTo layโ means to put something down. It is followed by a direct object, i.e. itโs a transitive verbโafter it we …
‘Now Is the Month of Maying’ by Thomas Morley
In this post weโll travel to the time of the English Renaissance, with a jolly little music piece written by Thomas Morley. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, Morley (1557โ1602) was a true Renaissance figure: a composer, organist, music theoristโฆ It was largely thanks to him that the Italian madrigals became so popular in England, adding …
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Book review: ‘The Cathedral’ by Hugh Walpole
"We translate more easily than we know our gratitude to God into our admiration of ourselves." Hugh Walpoleโs 1922 novel The Cathedral is one of the best works of this, now sadly and unjustly neglected, author. Regular readers of the Grammaticus blog hopefully havenโt missed the December 2022 release of his short ghost story The …
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‘In April’ by Rainer Maria Rilke
The poem presented in this post is titled โIn Aprilโ. Written by the celebrated Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875โ1926), it was first published in 1902, in the collection of poems The Book of Images (orig. Das Buch der Bilder). Rainer Maria Rilke Rilke was known and is still much appreciated for his way with …
