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About Joanne Van Leerdam
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Blog postThe TV commentators during the Tokyo Olympics have been using the word a lot lately. They seem to be using it in different ways, though, which makes one wonder just what qualifies someone as a champion? Is just making it to the Olympics enough? Or is it winning a medal? Does one need to make […]
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Blog postWhile watching the steeplechase race at the Olympics today, my brother-in-law commented that steeplechase was a funny name for a foot race: “Steeples can’t run… so why would anyone even bother to chase one?” The word-nerdy part of my brain started to itch… and there’s only one thing to do when that happens. I looked […]
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Blog postYesterday I experienced some churlish behaviour in two different contexts of my daily life. As a high-school teacher, that is to be expected. Thankfully, it occurs in only a very small minority of the young people I work with on a daily basis, most of whom are excellent individuals. In other areas of life, though, […]
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Blog postForeboding is a sense of apprehension or dread about what is to come, or a feeling or belief that something bad is going to happen. Foreboding is a very old word that came into English from the Old English word forebodung, which meant prophecy. By the late 1300s, foreboding had come to mean an omen, […]
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Blog postWhen discussing literature or film texts, female agency is the ability of the female characters to take action and make their own decisions that affect their lives and the outcomes in the text. It is the condition of being active and exerting power or influence for oneself. Agency came into English from Medieval Latin abstract […]
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Blog postMy colleagues and I spent today in a conference that explored the philosophy and practice of pedagogy in the 21st century. Pedagogy is an awkward word. To me, it’s not pleasant to say because it feels clunky in the mouth, and it doesn’t sound nice either. Most people have no idea how to pronounce it […]
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Blog postThe name of my blog should clue people in to a basic fact about me: I have a passion for words and language. I really am a wordy nerd. It’s not just a passing interest or a hobby, either. As an author and as an English teacher, that’s my job. I have no shame and […]
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Blog postOriginally posted on Shakespeare Nerd:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127787488@N03/22532879309 Common Shrew. Photo by Hannah Knutson on Flickr. Creative Commons licence. A shrew is a small mammal with small eyes and a pointy nose. Even though it looks like a mouse, the shrew is actually related to moles and hedgehogs. It has sharp, pointy teeth and eats insects, seeds… -
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Blog postOriginally posted on Shakespeare Nerd:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a?date;Sometime?too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,And every?fair?from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature’s changing course?untrimm’d:But… -
Blog postI have been contemplating Shakespeare’s 65th sonnet this weekend: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days, When rocks impregnable are not so […]
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Titles By Joanne Van Leerdam
