When in Rome, Do as Romans Do – key to mingle

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When in Rome do as Romans do is a very popular phrase we heard many times. This expression comes from Rome and carries a very interesting story behind it.

The Story Is

When St. Augustine arrived in Milan, he observed that the Church did not fast on Saturday as did the Church at Rome. He consulted St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who replied: “When I am at Rome, I fast on a Saturday; when I am at Milan, I do not. Follow the custom of the Church where you are.” The comment was changed to “When they are at Rome, they do there as they see done” by Robert Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy. Eventually it became “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” (https://www.trivia-library.com/b/origins-of-sayings-when-in-rome-do-as-the-romans-do.htm)

When in Rome Do as Romans Do

This idiom is used when we are visiting a new place or migrated to a new environment where we need to mingle with the local people. To mingle with local communities, it is a must to know about their local culture.If we adapt their practicing customs then it becomes easy to mingle in local societies.

It simply means that when in a new place don’t be afraid to adapt local customs. Behave in an appropriate manner according to how people around you behave. It is a polite gesture to follow the customs of a society when you are a visitor there.

Various Cultural Behaviors

We often do not know that how people from different countries behave in a particular situation. What are their etiquettes of greetings and how will they react in the certain situation(s). For example:

Austrians are conservative people in general. They are also perfectionists and do not mingle easily. On other hand, in France saying Honour, shaking hands, being on time are important aspects of their culture.

Americans are very friendly people. They are independent, original and like to be unique from each other. They like a lot of personal space around them. They abide by the law and system. To greet, they will say “How are you?” While in Britain “How do you do?” is a greeting.

Australians are very casual and easygoing people. They love food and their fusion cooking is very famous. The colloquial greeting such as ‘g’day‘ for ‘good day‘ is very popular. In Canada, loud speaking and rowdiness in public are considered inappropriate. Canadians are basically very soft-spoken people.

Chinese people cannot say NO to any request. They consider it rude to refuse a request. Failure to perform a duty brings shame not just on the person, but on the family and community as well. Visiting is an important part of social life. Unexpected guests are also warmly invited to join the family for a meal. It is traditional to bring a small gift when visiting someone.

Southeast Asian communities are very family oriented. When greeting someone it’s safest to wait and watch for a gesture, then follow it. In Muslim culture, it is not acceptable for men and women to touch if not related by blood or marriage.

When in Rome do as Romans do Teaches Us

The world has now become a big global community and information reaches to the nook and corner of the globe within no time through internet. Thousands of people are migrating from one country to another for a better future. It is necessary to understand the people and culture of that area where you are visiting for personal, pleasure or business reasons. This will definitely help making your visit or migration successful. That’s why we say When in Rome do as Romans do.

Your comments and insights are always Welcome.

Mind Your Language Please………

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Mind your language please is all about the using inappropriate colloquial language, slangs, slurs and jargons in our daily life. These unsuitable words affects our behavior too and are irrespectful for the listeners.

In 1970’s, a British TV comedy series Mind Your Language was very popular. It captured global viewership of around 18 million people at that time. That series was about teaching English as a foreign language to immigrants in United Kingdom from various parts of the world. In this article we are not discussing this comedy series itself but want to point out

What are inappropriate expressions?

Slang is nonstandard, informal language. A few examples are “I’m Audi 5000” for “I’m leaving.“, “What up, dun?” for “How are you, man?“, “That film is really trippy” or “He’s cool“.

Mind Your Language Please

Colloquial language is a common man’s conversational language. It is usually too informal for use in writings and formal speaking events. A few examples are “That totally grossed me out” for “That really disgusted me.“, “This food is the real deal” for “This food is really good.“, a soft drink may be called “pop” in one area, “soda” in another, or “coke” (no matter what the brand) in various parts of the world, “Y’all, wanna, gonna” are some more examples. (Courtesy: Yahoo Answers – Asker’s rating & comment)

The culture of using improper language developed through media, television programs, movies, social networking sites, gaming networks and text messaging systems. Use of discriminatory language has become so common that people, especially youngsters and teenagers, do not realize that how improper use of words creates havoc in the listener’s life.

Language Etiquettes

In the guide ‘FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST‘, published by Police Service Ireland, is a tabulated list of words that shows what words should be avoided while communicating with the specific community. Such as “Nigger”, “Negro”, “Colored”, “Half-caste”, “Old codger”, “Homo”, are few of the words that may consider offensive by that particular community. Visit their website at http://www.psni.police.uk for further information.

English is a widely spoken global language. It adapts itself in the local environment easily. In America a ‘tire is flat not punctured’, while in Britain ‘a tire is punctured’, or ‘the bar is empty tonight (British Slang)’, ‘the bar is dead tonight’ (American Slang).

We should not worried about the slangs used in our normal life if they are non-provocative. Even the people, who speak those words, do not realize that what they have spoken is not respectable or appropriate. Especially youngsters and teenagers do not realize about the improper slangs they use.

Common Slangs in use Today

A few slangs used in the society are very inappropriate to the listeners’ ears, such as ‘f**kin‘, ‘sh**t‘, ‘404‘, ‘stinky‘, ‘a**, ‘bullsh**‘. Some of the double meaning words are creating lots of chaos, misunderstanding and fights in the society. These are ‘cow- a farm animal if used as ‘cow- fat woman‘, ‘a**- a beast of burden‘ and ‘a**- stupid person‘.

We should avoid bad words, double-meaning words and impolite words in our daily conversation. We must keep checking that what kind of language our kids are using. From where they are learning it.

We can use slangs efficiently with the correct knowledge learned at school and at home. Ability of an adult cultured conversation without offending anybody is the main objective to follow in a conversation. We must avoid use of slang like ‘raisin da roof‘ in our communication.

It will not take lot of efforts to correct these problems in the society. Support from like-minded peers, teachers, parents, and mentors are needed to change this trend. We must know it is not going to happen overnight. The time and positive efforts can let our children and people around us to realize this bad habit of communication. This is our responsibility towards younger generation in forming a healthy society of distinctive values. It will make our society more healthy and respectable.

Your comments and insights are always Welcome.

Let’s Learn What, How, When – their appropriate use

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Let’s learn What, How, When questions. We must find out what these questions intend for? What kind of information they collect, how and when this information delivers? In our daily life we encounter many times with What, How, When questions. There improper use sometimes kills the main purpose of interrogation.

 

Let's Learn What How When

Let’s Learn What, How, When – their appropriate use

Let’s see appropriate use of What, How, When. What kind of information they deliver and how are we can use these in receiving information.

‘What‘ emphasizes on a Declarative Knowledge which refers to the facts and information stored in the memory. It considers as Descriptive Knowledge that describes things, events or processes. The attributes of actions and their relation to each other. For example:

What is your name?

What country are you from?

What is the color of your hair?

‘How‘ stresses at Procedural Knowledge or number of steps that needed to apply that knowledge. It shows the process of performance of some task. In other words, it is job-dependence knowledge. It involves hands-on experiences or expertise of certain task. For example, a football fan knows the minimal details of the game but lacks the experience of playing in the ground. It may not have expertise of a goalkeeper or a defender in the real play itself.

‘When‘ is about Conditional Knowledge that involves ‘if … then’ conditions. It involves all four or any two types of knowledge such as situational, conceptual, procedural and strategic knowledge. A teacher can teach students a skill, its implementation procedure but cannot influence the decision of using it in certain task. Students have to decide themselves that when when this skill will be useful. Example, a nurse learns facts and steps to implement certain procedure and decides to use or not use that procedure in certain situation by justifying ‘if….then’ conditions.

Conclusion

In our learning process, we must practice using our strategies in steps as ‘What, How and When’. It makes learning process very easy and will keep information in our memory for long. That’s why we should learn proper use of these interrogative words. Let’s Learn What How When and their appropriate use in our conversation.

Your comments and Insights are always Welcome.

5 Best Rules of Learning through Knowledge

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5 Best Rules of Learning through Knowledge is about strengthening our power of knowledge. Many times we hear individuals, students and professionals talking about their learning and knowing abilities. Sometimes they experience extraordinary hurdles in their learning process. They discuss it with others and try to remove that obstacle. They learn from others insight.

It is human nature that it wants to experience everything by itself. It observes results by using its own solution. A person’s exploring nature always force him to find out the solution by himself. This sometimes yield better results and sometimes not.

Everyday we read on Internet about other people’s sharing of experiences of certain special situations. Their end results are acceptable as those are from personal experience. We can use them if we come across the same circumstances. To solve the problem from scratch sometimes become very time consuming. End results may or may not are positive.

Literary Meaning of Learning and Knowledge

In dictionaries, knowledge and learning defined as two different aspects of delivering ‘information’. These are as follows:

Learning is a process of adapting information, which is theoretically or practically acknowledged. It is about accepting existing information, behaviors, skills, values, knowledge or preferences to put into action(s).

Knowledge is to get new information on facts, details, descriptions or skills acquire through experience(s) or education. It describes an awareness of something through theoretical or/and practical understanding.

What Learning Can Do

Learning increases knowledge. Knowledge or a new information develops by sharing an individual’s or a community’s experiences with others. Knowing insights and practices of others shared by like-minded people increases knowledge.

‘To learn’ means ‘taking in information’. “It is a continuous process of discovering new insights; inventing possibilities for action(s); producing the actions and observing the consequences of sharing, leading to new insights”. (Dewey 1933)

Knowledge is Understanding of Information

Knowledge is a state of understanding which helps in forming the shape of action(s). Learning and knowledge reinforce each other in a cycle. In the process of learning knowledge, we polish our ability of comprehension.

5 Best Rules of Learning through Knowledge

Five best tips to learn through knowledge are:

  1. Become an aggressive reader and listener.
  2. Develop your habit of asking, ‘ASK QUESTIONS‘.
  3. Share your information and experiences through discussions.
  4. Help others by describing or explaining your information.
  5. Remember, do not memorize some keywords from on going discussion.

These are a few steps that can help anybody in learning through knowledge. These are very simple rules, anybody can follow them. Improved knowledge will make our problem solving ability fast. This in return, will make less mistakes.

We must create a culture of knowledge and learning in our homes and in the society. Youngsters should learn to use their knowledge in solving their day-to-day problems. Less problems will give them chance to progress in their worldly and spiritual knowledge.

Learn More Study Less

5 Best Rules of Learning through Knowledge

Share Knowledge and Learn Fast

Your comments and insights are always WELCOME.

Internet Glossary – useful terminology

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There are few basic internet terminologies that a newbie should know. They are as follows:

Address Bar: An address bar field at the top of a Web browser window that displays the URL of webpage (http://techterms.com/definition/webpage).

Affiliate: An Internet affiliate is an individual, organization, or a company that markets another company’s products through their website. In exchange for marketing their products, companies pay affiliates a commission for each sale they generate (http://techterms.com/definition/webpage).

Backlink: A backlink is an incoming link from an external website to specific webpage. For example, if you publish a webpage and 20 other websites link to it, your webpage has 20 backlinks (http://techterms.com/definition/webpage).

Browser: Browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web.

Domain name: Domain name is a specific identification string or sequence of characters of the person or business that owns it. It shows authority, administrative autonomy or control of an individual or a business on the internet. It is a specific name of a website or a blog through which people find them.

n404 Error: This error message indicates a webpage cannot be found. When a user clicks a broken link or an incorrect URL is typed in a Web browser’s address field (http://techterms.com/definition/webpage).

HTML: It is a mark-up language of Internet. Codes created in HTML, tell a Web browser how to display or execute text and graphics.

Hyperlink: Hyperlink is special code that when clicked, take you to another webpage, website, text or graphics on the Internet.

Internet: Internet means network of computers interconnected globally through Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) and connects billions of users worldwide.

Web Hosting: Web hosting allows individuals and businesses to make their website accessible on World Wide Web (www).

Webpage: Webpage is a web document written in special computer markup language such as HTML which provides hypertext or linked text which helps in navigation to other web pages or information resources.

Website: Website is a set of web pages publish together on Internet. It may contain text, multimedia, links and many more items bundled in one place.

World Wide Web: World Wide Web (www) is an information system that allows webpages to connect with other websites by hyperlinks. The other common name is w3. It helps user to search information by surfing the Internet.

URL: An Internet address as https://www.onlinelearningbay.com/internetglossary, consist of the access protocol (http), the domain name (www.onlinelearningbay.com), and optionally the path to a file or resource residing on that server (internetglossary).