Shreya's English Blog

Every time a new acquaintance is made or a conversation is started, the same friendly phrases such as "How are you?" and "Nice to meet you" are exchanged. Once these greetings are out in the open, people begin to talk about what they actually want to talk about. These polite greetings serve an important role in our community as they set the stage for a pleasant conversation. Polite speech is extremely valuable because they can reflect how a person is. A person who uses polite speech is considered to be one with manners and will be respected for this quality. In addition, polite speech can often times be used to ease into a conversation and can make communication more effective and efficient. If a person starts off a conversation without using any polite greetings/speech, the person may come off as disrespectful or a person without courtesy and the other person in the conversation may not want to further converse. These simple greetings can impact a person's ...

In the excerpt, "A Measure of Restraint", Chet Raymo satirizes and parodies human responses to novel and new items. Raymo emphasizes that people are so caught up in the illusion and mirage of discoveries and inventions that they don't think to reflect or speculate any possible dangerous side effects. Following with this, people start to give names to the novelties that reflect their mentalities. Raymo writes that radium was often referred to as "liquid sunshine", "spontaneously luminous" and thought to have "curative powers". Raymo then proves his claim with juxtaposing these positive remarks with Marie Curie's death. He then concedes that all scientific discoveries are good to an extent; in other words, he uses parallel structure to show that a novelty could be an "instrument of healing" but also be an "instrument of death" when used in excess as people in history were doing with radium. People would include radium in...

Chavez starts off his essay by mentioning Dr. King and writing that King's "entire life was an example of power that nonviolence brings to bear in the real world". By writing this, Chavez conveys his essential message to the audience: nonviolence gives power to an individual. Chavez also cites King as he is a reputable individual who is known worldwide for sparking change peacefully. His choice to write about King emphasizes that nonviolence is a trait that is memorable and admired forever. Chavez continues to use an appreciative tone towards King by writing "an example that inspired much of the philosophy and strategy of the farm workers' movement". By listing King's achievements, Chavez makes nonviolence synonymous to power and reassures his audience that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. Chavez also appeals to humanity's moral code by writing that "human life is a very special possession given by God to man an...