Popular party Halloween: a 2500-year-old tradition

Popular party

Halloween: a 2500-year-old tradition

Source: www.maganews.com.br 

Learn a bit about the origin and symbols of this event held all over the world

 The Celts were people who lived over 2,500 years ago inEurope. On the 31st October they got together to commemorate the end of summer, the end of the harvest and the start of a new year. However, this date did not only signify happiness for the Celts. They also believed that on that date the spirits of dead people returned to the world to try to reincarnate in the bodies of people in that region. To face them, the Celts dressed in the most frightening manner possible and hit the streets carrying lit candles and making noise to scare away the bad spirits.

     In the modern world, Halloween appeared in the XIX Century, when the Irish took the party to the United States. But there this ancient European tradition ended up as a happy children's party, in which children dress up and ask for candy from house to house, saying trick or treat. It is such a party that October 31st is a holiday in the United States and stores register record sales.

“Day of the Witches” in Brazil

    Halloween is a traditional event in many countries, but only recently started to be popular in Brazilamong the young and old alike. Schools and even nightclubs now organize parties and fancy dress balls on this date, which is also known here as  “Dia das Bruxas”.

 The legend of Jack O’ Lantern 

     One of the most traditional symbols of Halloween is a pumpkin in the shape of a face, known as “Jack O' Lantern” – This tradition appeared through Irish folklore. The legend says that there was a man called Jack who could not get into heaven because he had been very bad and was also expelled from hell because he played tricks on the Devil. He was then condemned to prowl the earth eternally, carrying a lantern to light his way.

Fonte - Revista Maganews (www.maganews.com.br) 

 

Vocabulary

 1 harvest – colheita

2 to face – enfrentar

3 to dress – vestir

4 frightening – assustador

5 lit candle – vela acesa

6 noise – barulho

7 to scare away – assustar / afugentar

8 Irish – irlandês (irlandeses)

9 trick or treat - peraltice ou trato

10 fancy dress ball – baile à fantasia

11 pumpkin – abóbora

12 shape - forma

13 to expel – expelir / expulsar

14 hell – inferno

15 to prowl – perambular / vagar

Ilustração - Calberto

Travel, St. Michael's Mount

Language Level: Basic

Standard: British Accent

Source: SPEAK UP

St Michael’s Mount

      Cornwall is a Land of myths and legends. St. Michael’s Mount is a small, beautiful island five miles east of Penzance. The island known as “the jewel in Cornwall’s Crown” is a magical place that has attracted pilgrims and other visitors for centuries.

      The island is connected to the mainland town of Marazion by a granite causeway and visitors can walk across to the mount when the tide is out. The 500-metre-long causeway is completely submerged at high tide, but it’s just a short boat ride back to the mainland. It’s a short, but steep, walk up the pebbled streets to the castle and it’s chapel at the top of the mount. Legend has it that a crowd of people saw a vision of St. Michael above the mount. In any case, the Frenchman Bernad of Le Bec, Abbot of Mont St. Michael in Normandy, built a monastery on the site in 1135. King Henry V seized the island in the 14^th century as England fought against the French and he transformed the monastery into a castle. In 1651 the castle became the family home of Colonel John St. Aubyn, the island’s last military governor.

      Marazion is itself a historic town and offers bed and breakfast accommodation, restaurants and bars. There are also sandy beaches where you can enjoy windsurfing and sailing and birdwatchers are welcome at Marazion Marsh nature reserve.

Words and Their Stories: English Expressions That Don't Pan Out

Source: www.voanews.com

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• Mailing a Letter to California in the Old West

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Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.  Today's word, pan, takes us back to the days of the gold rush in California.

On January twenty-fourth, eighteen forty-eight, a man named James Wilson Marshall discovered gold in the territory of California.  The news spread quickly.  Thousands rushed west.  They traveled on foot, by horseback and by boat to reach the gold fields.  By eighteen forty-nine, the great gold rush was on.

Towns and cities grew overnight.  Throughout the territory – in the mountains, along the streams and rivers – thousands of people searched for gold.  They had food to eat and blankets to cover them.  They also had mules to ride, and picks and pans to search for gold.

Some found areas of mountain rock thick with gold.  These men got rich.  But such areas were few and quickly claimed by the first men to find them.  Others searched for gold in the rivers coming down the mountains.  They were after pieces of gold that the rains had washed down from above.

The only way to find this gold was by panning.  First a gold miner put dirt in a metal pan and added water.  Then he shook the pan so that the water would wash the dirt.  Slowly, he poured the water out of the pan.  If he was a lucky miner, pieces of gold would remain.

Across the nation, newspapers carried stories of the gold being found.  One told how thousands of people climbed the mountains looking for gold.  Some stories told how others followed the rivers and streams with pans.  Each one hoped that the place he claimed panned out well – had some gold.

For many, gold mining did not pan out.  For a few, it panned out well.  But in time, huge machines were built that could wash many tons of dirt at a time.  Panning died out.

The word, however, remained in the language.  Today, Americans still say, "It panned out well," when something they have done pleases them.  A business, a discovery, a simple event pans out well if it is successful.  Unhappily, sometimes things do not pan out.

In recent years, the word pan has taken on another meaning.  Today, it also means to criticize.  How it got this meaning is hard to discover.  But the job of a critic is to sometimes pan the work of a writer, artist or singer.

Sometimes, critics may pan a movie or play so severely that no one will go to see it.  There are times, however, when a play became highly successful, even though most of the critics panned it without mercy.  The pans should have washed out the play.  But, as actors have pointed out, sometimes a critic's pan turns up gold.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES was written by Herb Sutcliffe.  I'm Warren Scheer.

Mahatma Gandhi, hero of peace

Mahatma Gandhi, hero of peace

source: www.maganews.com.br

Gandhi led a peaceful and successful movement against the

English in Indiaand became the most famous pacifist of the 20th Century  

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), better known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born into a middle class family in India and studied law in England. He married, had four children, and worked for some time as a lawyer. Gandhi worked for about twenty years in South Africa and it was there that he began to attract attention in his struggle for the rights of Indians living there. Gandhi returned to India in 1914 and at the beginning of the 1920s for the first time he faced up to the British government, when he organized a general strike. Gandhi became the main leader of the Indian independence movement. He managed to convince millions of Indians that the best way forward was peaceful protest. He defended peaceful protests such as strikes, marches, fasting, and the boycott of English-made products. Gandhi was arrested several times, but in 1947 finally India achieved its independence. However, Gandhi’s joy was not to last long. On January 30th 1948 he was assassinated by a radical Hindu.

The “Great Soul”

Throughout his life Gandhi fought racism and social injustice, and did everything he could to try to bring Hindus and Muslims in India together. In Sanskrit, Mahatma means “great soul”.  Gandhi was a spiritual being. He turned his back on material comfort, fasted for long periods, practiced yoga and used to pray a lot. He used to say, “We can defeat the enemy with love, never with hate”. His philosophy of life inspired other famous pacifists, such as Dr. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. In 1982, Hollywood produced a film about Gandhi’s life, wining nine Oscars.

Matéria publicada na edição de número 47 da Revista Maganews (confira o vocabulário no final desta página)

Áudio – Dave Brien

Outros áudios (em inglês) do CD que acompanha esta edição da revista Maganews:

Carmen Miranda’s centenary (Alline de Paula)

Movies - Se Eu Fosse Você 2 (Alline de Paula)

Marley and Me (Dave Brien)

India: exotic and fascinating (Alline)

India: exotic and fascinating (Part 2) - Dave

India: exotic and fascinating (Part 3) - Alline

The reform of the Portuguese language (Alline)

Santa Catarina, a State on alert (Alline)

SC: Natural disasters: prevention is the best weapon (Alline)

Ronaldo - A high-risk contract (Dave)

Danger on two wheels (Dave)

Beyoncé: success on three levels (Dave)

Health and well-being - An irresistible drink (Dave)

Cigarettes more addictive for women than for men (Dave)

Jokes (Dave and Alline)

 CD de Áudio:

Todas as matérias desta edição foram gravadas em estúdio, nas vozes dos professores Dave Brien (irlandês) e Alline de Paula

Vocabulary

1 to lead – liderar (leader = líder)

2 law – Direito (lawyer = advogado)

3 struggle – luta

4 strike – greve

5 main – principal

6 the best way forward – o melhor caminho

7 march (to march = marchar)  – aqui = passeata

8 fasting – jejum

9 to be arrested – ser preso

10 not to last long – não durou muito

11 to bring together – unir / reunir

12 Great soul – alma grande

13 to defeat - derrotar

14 enemy – inimigo

15 hate - ódio

TEACHERS CORNER, KEEP IT UP!

Language Level: Basic

Standard: American and British accent

Source: Speak Up, issue 254

Keep it Up!

Keep is another of those confusing English words that have a variety of meanings. Today, it usually means to retain, but it also means, to hold store, preserve, maintain and support. Let’s look at some examples: when you pay a taxi driver, you can tell him or her – keep the change – as a tip.

When you have a lot of bags, you ask a friend to keep, or hold, one of them for a moment.

We keep, or store, food in a fridge; and confusingly, food won’t keep unless we put it in the fridge –it will go rotten.

You keep, or maintain, a horse by feeding it and providing a stable, though today it’s more common to keep a car. Policemen keep the peace: they maintain law and order.

PHRASAL VERBS

As a phrasal verb, keep can change meaning. It’s important, for example, to keep up with the latest developments in business: we must be up to date.

If we have a mortgage, we must keep up the payments –pay every month. If someone starts shouting, we can tell them to keep their voices down –speak more quietly. Signs at a Cambridge college will tell you to “please keep off the grass”, while those at a nuclear power station will say: “Danger: keep out”.

SECRETS

Here’s a riddle how can you “keep your hat on” If you aren’t wearing one? Stay calm –it’s an idiomatic phrase which means “don’t get angry”. Variations are keep your shirt or hair on, and keep cool.

If you keep your nose clean, you stay out of trouble; and if you are in trouble, then you must keep your chin up –try to be optimistic. If you’re a musician, you must keep time –maintain the right tempo.

Finally, can you keep a secret? Benjamin Franklin once commented: “Three (people) can keep a secret, if two of them are dead”.

Exercising Podenglish, lesson 64

INGLES VIP, TEACHER FÚVIO

Credits and posting for Teacher Fuvio for more info visit the website and getting started to practice English online.

Planetarium  - Part II   audio        www.inglesvip.xpg.com.br

1 - This Zeiss Model VI was a gift to the museum from West Germany in honor of the United States’ two hundred year anniversary. Last week, we attended alive show called “The Stars Tonight.” Astronomer Bill Dedmond showed visitors the night sky as the season changes from summer to fall.

2 - “See, that’s how night sky is supposed to look. You can see thousands of stars when you are away from the city light pollution. You can even see thisbright band of light here all the way across the sky. What is that bright band of light?”  KIDS: “The Milky Way!”

3 - BILL DEDMOND: “OK, Excellent!” STEVE EMBER: Bill Dedmond talked about the groups of stars or constellations in the night sky. He pointed out an important constellation, the Big Dipper. If you can find this group of stars, you can easily find the North Star, or Polaris. Mr. Dedmond also gave viewers a tour of the planets.

4. BILL DEDMOND: “Our galaxy contains a couple hundred billion stars and we know there are about one hundred twenty-five billion other galaxies. Just incredible how many stars there are.”

5. BARBARA KLEIN: Speaking of stars, one of the Air and Space Museum’s planetarium shows is called “Journey to the Stars.” The movie is presented by actress Whoopi Goldberg. It tells about the life of a star using our sun as an example.

6. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: “The first stars changed everything, combining hydrogen and helium into new elements such as oxygen and carbon. Then supernovas blasted these elements into space, supplyingingredients for stars and planets to come. And though it may sound incredible, your body actually contains about a teaspoon’s worth of this stuff formed thirteen billion years ago by the very first stars.”

7. STEVE EMBER: The movie describes the many stages in the life of a star. Some stars known as super giants are about a thousand times bigger than our sun.

8. The movie “Journey to the Stars” is very helpful not only because it tells interesting facts about stars and space. The movie helps viewers get a better idea of the extraordinary size and volume of space and the huge number of stars within it. This sense of size is hard to understand by just reading a book. The planetarium makes it feel as if you are observing, moving through and exploring space.

9. BARBARA KLEIN: Another show at the Smithsonian’s planetarium is called “Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity.” Black Holes are not actually holes. They are extremely massive concentrations of matter. The actor Liam Neeson narrates the movie.

10 LIAM NEESON: “How do you find something that hides in the dark? You have to look for its tell-tale signs. Swift’s instruments are designed to record bursts of high energy radiation. Gamma rays don’t penetrate Earth’s atmosphere, but out here in space, Swift’s view of them is front row center. They erupt when a black hole is born. That happens when a large star dies in a blaze of glory called a super nova.”

11. STEVE EMBER: It takes a lot of work to produce a good planetarium movie. Experts at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science made the “Black Holes” movie. They worked with movie producers, computer experts, astronomers, astrophysicists and other professionals. Their film is scientifically correct and also a lot of fun to watch. Many images in the movie are based on complex mathematical calculations about space gathered by scientists.

12. BARBARA KLEIN: Next week, the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hawaii will host a six-day ‘Imiloa Fulldome Film Festival. Museum and planetarium professionals from around the world will be able to watchsome of the latest movies available for digital planetarium theaters.

13. The ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center is part of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. The center’s planetarium has the world’s first three-dimensional planetarium system. Viewers wear special glasses to experience this effect. The Astronomy Center is an example of how technologies will continue to change and improve experiencing the night sky in planetariums of the future.

20. STEVE EMBER: This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I’m Steve Ember.