The Fonix 2.016: The Die Is Cast

That is! The Fonix exam has already been done. We can only wait for the results next April the 9th. Hope our students will have luck.

Unfortunately, 4th ESO student, Hizer, hasn't taken part in the exam as expected due to illness. We all wish he gets better soon!

Enjoy some pics taken before and after the exam:

Leap Day

Leap Day is February 29, which is an extra day added during a Leap Year, making the year 366 days long – and not 365 days, like a common year. Nearly every 4 years is a Leap Year.

A leap year (or intercalary or bissextile year) is a year containing one additional day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year.

A person born on February 29 may be called a leapling or a leaper. In common years they usually celebrate their birthdays on February 28 or March 1. In some situations, March 1 is used as the birthday in a non-leap year since it is the day following February 28. People born on February 29 are all invited to join The Honor society of Leap Year Day Babies.

Folk traditions:

• In Britain and Ireland, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on leap years.
• In Denmark, the tradition is that women may propose on the leap day, and that refusal must be compensated with 12 pairs of gloves.
• In Finland, the tradition is that if a man refuses a woman's proposal on leap day, he should buy her the fabrics for a skirt.
• In Greece, marriage in a leap year is considered unlucky. One in five engaged couples in Greece will plan to avoid getting married in a leap year.
• In Scotland, it used to be considered unlucky for someone to be born on Leap Day.

The Most Frequent Collocations in Spoken English

A collocation is two or more words that often go together. These combinations just sound "right" to native English speakers, who use them all the time. On the other hand, other combinations may be unnatural and just sound "wrong". 

Why learn collocations?

• Your language will be more natural and more easily understood.
• You will have alternative and richer ways of expressing yourself.
• It is easier for our brains to remember and use language in chunks or blocks rather than as single words.

"The Chaos" by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud, and we’ll be honest with you, we struggled with parts of it.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

From Your Valentine

Saint Valentine was a bishop who lived in the third century in Rome who fight against Emperor Claudius II who banned marriages.

The History Of Saint Valentine's Day - Animated Narration

2000 years ago, the most powerful army in the world belonged to the Romans. The Romans were so strong that they conquered almost all of Europe, and parts of Asia and Africa. Then they began to grow rich and a little bit lazy. Life in the army was harsh, and many of the soldiers longed for the comforts of home. They wanted to get married and set up families. The Emperor, whose name was Claudius the Second, was worried that his army was growing soft; so he made a law that no soldier was allowed to get married.

By that time, many of the Romans were Christians – and one of their leaders was a Bishop called Valentine.

He believed that if a man and woman fell in love with each other, they should get married – and so he decided to let soldiers get married in his church, even though it was now against the law. The soldiers’ weddings were meant to be kept secret, but as you know, all secrets are hard to keep, and soon the word got out. Valentine was arrested and brought before the emperor who demanded that he stop helping soldiers to marry, and instead that he pray to the gods of Rome. When he refused, the emperor sentenced him to death.

While Valentine was in prison, the jailer’s daughter used to bring him his food. She was a young woman who unfortunately was blind. She and Valentine used to spend long hours talking to each other, and they fell in love. One day, Valentine put his hand through the bars of his cell and touched the lids of her closed eyes. When she opened them again, she could see. It was a miracle.

Valentine’s execution was set for February the 14th. On his last night on earth, he wrote his final message to the girl. He signed his love letter, “From your Valentine”. This took place in the year 270, and ever since, lovers have sent each other messages on February the 14th with the same signature.

Invention-related Vocabulary

Inspiration 

Definition: something that moves a mind to create
Context: Many times a dream acts as inspiration for an inventor, a novelist, or a painter.

New-fangled

Definition: New and maybe needlessly novel
Context: One elderly person complained that the remote control device was new-fangled; the other elderly person appreciated the convenience of the device.

Patent

Definition: A document that gives an inventor the exclusive rights to manufacture or sell the item.
Context: The expression patent pending on an object means that the inventor has applied for the right to be the only person who can make and sell the object.

Serendipity

Definition: A fortunate accident in which a person finds something valuable or pleasing when he or she was not looking for it
Context: The inventor did not want to admit the invention came about by serendipity; he wanted the world to think he had carefully designed the invention

Inventions and Discoveries: Online Activities

1. Theory: 

• A list of websites on inventors and inventions from Cumberland County AVA Center.
• The story of inventions by Usborne Quicklinks.
• Mini lessons about inventions and inventors at Scholastic.
• Facts File by South Plainfield Public Library.

2. Online Activities:

• Games about famous inventors from Learning Games.
• Up to Ten's History of Inventions game.
• A test brought to you by English Revealed.
• Can you name the famous inventors by their inventions? By Smithsonian.
• The Smith College Museum Tour on ancient Inventions.

More about Inventions and Discoveries

• From Fact Monster a simple guide of inventions and discoveries.
• Biography Online offers a list of famous inventions that helped change the world.
• From the dawn of Mankind, discoveries and inventions by History World.
• History Timelines give us a timeline from 2400 bC to 2001 aC.
• Famous inventios A to Z by About Money.

List of Inventions and Discoveries (XIIIth to XXth Centuries)

Some of the most important inventions of the world.

Date	Invention or Discovery	Inventor or Discoverer	Nationality
1250	Magnifying glass	Roger Bacon	English
1450	Printing press	Johann Gutenberg	German
1504	Pocket watch	Peter Henlein	German
1590	Compound microscope	Zacharias Janssen	Dutch
1593	Water thermometer	Galileo	Italian
1608	Telescope	Hans Lippershey	Dutch
1625	Blood transfusion	Jean-Baptiste Denys	French
1643	Barometer	Evangelista Torricelli	Italian
1656	Pendulum clock	Christiaan Huygens	Dutch
1668	Reflecting telescope	Isaac Newton	English
1671	Calculating machine	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	German
1683	Bacteria	Anton van Leeuwenhoek	Dutch
1687	Motion, Laws of	Isaac Newton	English
1714	Mercury thermometer	Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit	German
1717	Diving bell	Edmund Halley	English
1725	Stereotyping	William Ged	Scottish
1775	Submarine	David Bushnell	American
1780	Steel pen	Samuel Harrison	English
1780	Bifocal lens	Benjamin Franklin	American
1783	Balloon, hot-air	Montgolfier Brothers	French
1784	Threshing machine	Andrew Meikle	British
1791	Gas turbine	John Barber	British
1795	Hydraulic press	Joseph Bramah	English
1796	Smallpox vaccination	Edward Jenner	British
1800	Electric battery	Count Alessandro Volta	Italian
1804	Steam locomotive	Richard Trevithick	British
1810	Printing press	Frederick Koenig	German
1814	Railroad locomotive	George Stephenson	British
1816	Bicycle (no pedals)	Karl D. Sauerbronn	German
1819	Stethoscope	Theophile & Laennec	French
1820	Hygrometer	J.F. Daniell	English
1821	Electric motor	Michael Faraday	British
1823	Electromagnet	William Sturgeon	British
1824	Portland cement	Joseph Aspdin	British
1829	Typewriter	W.A. Burt	American
1829	Braille printing	Louis Braille	French
1831	Dynamo	Michael Faraday	British
1834	Electric streetcar	Thomas Davenport	American
1835	Pistol (revolver)	Samuel Colt	American
1837	Telegraph	Samuel Morse	American
1839	Photography	Louis-Jacques Daguerre	French
1839	Bicycle (with pedals)	Kirkpatrick MacMillan	British
1846	Nitroglycerin	Ascanio Sobrero	Italian
1849	Reinforced concrete	F.J. Monier	French
1849	Safety pin	Walter Hunt	American
1849	Water turbine	James Bicheno Francis	American
1852	Elevator (with brake)	Elisha Graves Otis	American
1852	Gyroscope	Jean Bernard Foucault	French
1855	Hypodermic syringe	Alexander Wood	Scottish
1861	Machine gun	Richard Jordan Gatling	American
1861	Kinematoscope	Coleman Sellers	American
1866	Dynamite	Alfred Bernhard Nobel	Swedish
1868	Dry cell	Georges Leclanche'	French
1868	Typewriter	Glidden & Sholes	American
1876	Telephone	Alexander Graham Bell	American
1877	Talking machine (phonograph)	Thomas Alva Edison	American
1877	Microphone	Emile Berliner	American
1878	Cathode ray tube	Sir William Crookes	British
1879	Cash register	James J. Ritty	American
1879	Light Bulb	Thomas Alva Edison Sir Joseph Wilson Swan	American British
1884	Fountain pen	Lewis Edson Waterman	American
1885	Automobile	Benz and Daimler	German
1885	AC transformer	William Stanley	American
1887	Gramophone (disc records)	Emile Berliner	American
1888	Adding machine	William S. Burroughs	American
1888	Photograph camera	George Eastman	American
1891	Motion picture camera & viewer(Cinetograph)	Thomas Alva Edison William K. L. Dickson	American British
1893	Diesel engine	Rudolf Diesel	German
1895	X-ray	Wilhelm K. Roentgen	German
1895	Wireless telegraph	Guglielmo Marconi	Italian
1903	Airplane	Wright Brothers	American
1903	Electrocardiograph	Willem Einthoven	Dutch
1911	Air conditioning	W.H. Carrier	American
1911	Vitamins	Casimir Funk	Polish
1911	Neon lamp	Georges Claude	French
1914	Gas-Mask	Garrett Morgan	American
1923	Autogiro	Juan de la Cierva	Spanish
1923	Three-way Traffic Signal	Garrett Morgan	American
1926	Aerosol can	Erik Rotheim	Norwegian
1928	Penicillin	Sir Alexander Fleming	British
1933	Frequency modulation (FM)	Edwin H. Armstrong	American
1935	Radiolocator (radar)	Sir Robert Watson-Watt	British
1938	Ballpoint pen	Georg and Ladislao Biro	Hungarian
1939	Helicopter	Igor Sikorsky	American
1942	Guided missile	Wernher von Braun	German
1942	Nuclear reactor	Enrico Fermi	American
1945	Atomic bomb	U.S. scientists	American
1946	Digital computer, electronic	J. P. Eckert & J. W. Mauchly	American
1947	Holography	Dennis Gabon	English
1947	Bathyscaphe	Auguste Piccard	Swiss
1947	Microwave oven	Percy L. Spencer	American
1948	Transistor	Bardeen, Brattain & Shockley	American
1950	Color television	Peter Carl Goldmark	American
1950	Nuclear Magnetic Resonance	Felix Bloch & Edward Purcell	American
1952	Hydrogen bomb	U.S. government scientists	American
1955	Optical fibers	Narinder S. Kapany	Indian
1956	Videotape	Charles Ginsberg, Ray Dolby	American
1958	Communications satellite	U.S. government scientists	American
1959	Integrated circuit	Jack Kilby, Robert Noyce	American
1960	Laser	Charles Hard Townes, Arthur L. Schawlow, and Gordon Gould	American
1962	Light-emitting diode (LED)	Nick Holonyak, Jr.	American
1964	Liquid-crystal display	George Heilmeier	American
1967	Human heart transplant	Christiaan Neethling Barnard	S. Africa
1969	Internet (initially "ARPAnet")	Leonard Kleinrock	American
1971	Microprocessor	Ted Hoff	American
1972	Electronic pocket calculator	J.S. Kilby and J.D. Merryman	American
1975	CAT (computerized axial tomography) scanner	Godfrey N. Hounsfield	British
1975	Fiberoptics	Bell Laboratories	American
1976	Computer (personal)	Steve Wozniak	American
1979	Compact disc	Joop Sinjou Toshi Tada Doi	Dutch Japanese
1982	Artificial heart	Robert K. Jarvik	American