Beth Coates - Advanced Homework for Grown-ups

ADVANCED
HOMEWORK
FOR
GROWN-UPS

Old School Lessons
for Clever Clogs

E. F OLEY & B. C OATES

If you paid attention to Homework for Grown-ups you should hopefully now have a grasp of the basics: know your chiasmus from your zeugma, your obliques from your acutes, and your Anne of Cleves from your Anne Boleyn. Now, sit up straight, and get your jotters and pencils out, because E. Foley and B. Coates are back to steer you through some of the more complicated elements of the curriculum and beyond.

Advanced Homework for Grown-ups will revisit and refresh the core subjects of Maths, English, Science, Geography, History and Classics in a little more depth. This time, amongst other topics, they tackle logarithms, unlock the secrets of semantics, and explore the Agrarian Revolution, with a mix of really useful information and entertainingly esoteric material.

In addititon, new subjects enter the timetable: Music, Modern Languages, Economics, Politics, Philosophy and Psychology, as well as Design and Drama.

Packed with fun practical excercises and, of course, examination papers for the competitive, Advanced Homework for Grown-ups will be the perfect gift.

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Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781409087540

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Square Peg 2009

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Copyright E. Foley & B. Coates 2009
Cover illustrations by Christopher Wormell
Christopher Wormell 2009. All rights reserved
Illustrations by Chris Lyon Chris Lyon 2008. All rights reserved

E. Foley & B. Coates have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work

This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
SQUARE PEG
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SWIV 2SA

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780224086349

CONTENTS

ASSEMBLY

You may think youre pretty well up on your education: you know your oblique angles from your acutes, your Catherine of Aragon from your Anne of Cleves and your chiasmus from your zeugma. Now its time to test yourselves a little further. Lets face it, the kids are getting brighter every day. Its no longer just enough to understand the laws of thermodynamics or the reasons for the rise of the Nazis, these days youre just as likely to have your little darling quiz you on the nature of Brechts theory of Verfremdungseffekt or ask you to help them with their simultaneous equations. Fear not, Advanced Homework for Grown-ups is here to steer you through some of the more complicated elements of the curriculum and beyond.

Within these pages you will revisit the core subjects of Maths, English, Science, History, Geography, Art, Home Economics and Classics, but in much more depth. This time you will study those mysterious creatures called surds, unlock the secrets of semantics, launch yourself into the wonders of space travel, decipher the mysteries of Malthus, get to grips with sculpture, construct a beautiful Bakewell tart and learn how to curse like a true Roman. We aim to fill your eager brains to the brim with really useful information and also some excitingly esoteric material with which to impress friends, relatives and colleagues.

In addition, you will find chapters on Music, Modern Languages, Economics, Philosophy and Psychology, and Drama and Film Studies. Ever wondered what a theremin is? Always longed to be able to introduce yourself in twenty different languages? Want to equip yourself to converse on the topics of Noh Theatre and commedia dellarte? Keen to know Nietzsche? Or familiarise yourself with Freud? Advanced Homework for Grown-ups will take you by the hand and lead you to the fountain of knowledge.

ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
AND
LITERATURE

The wonderful (and potentially worrisome) thing about our rich and varied tongue and its literature is their vast scope. OK, so youve mastered pronouns and relative clauses, the works of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, but who among us has not been caught short by those tricky dinner-party conversations that seem designed to highlight our own philistinism? Well, never fear. This chapter allows us to take you further into the mysteries of grammar, to ponder the peculiar-sounding pursuits of morphology, syntax and pragmatics. Well show you how to decipher phonetics, and unlock a world in which a word like ghoti could conceivably be pronounced fish and calling someones necklace gaudy could be considered complimentary. If Anglo-Saxon seems dusty, dead and buried heres where well bring it back to life; by taking a peep at its remarkable alphabet and at the glories of Beowulf. Well also examine later literary classics, and show you how to bluff your way through even the most rigorous literary questioning, by giving you quick analyses of the more unusual poetic forms, from tankas to ghazals. Read on!

Have you ever wondered why the furry canine quadruped you think of as a dog is called a dog? Or why a cat is called a cat, or a pangolin a pangolin? (A pangolin is a scaly anteater usually found in Africa or Asia by the way.) Linguistics is the study of language and how it relates to thought. The term comes from the Latin word lingua meaning tongue. Working in several different specialist disciplines, linguists cunningly investigate how language in general be it Spanish, Swahili or Swedish works. Knowing a bit about some linguistic fields of study can be an illuminating experience, encouraging us to look at the structure and use of our own language in a new light.