7. Language note. Non-gradable adjectives.

Adjectives are non-gradable if their meaning cannot have different degree. For example the adjective atomic is non-gradable because things are either atomic (bombs, science) or not atomic; there are no degrees in between.

Non-gradable adjectives are not usually used in comparative and superlative forms, and are not usually used with adverbs of degree.

Study some examples:

American/British painted

biological polar

electric previous

medical southern

monthly (newspaper) stainless (steel)

8. Write down 10 sentences of your own with non-gradable adjectives. Follow the topic. Appendix

Рис. 10

Рис.11

Texts for additional reading

Text 1

Johannes Gutenberg

Johannes Gutenberg was a clever businessman and skilled craftsman. He invented the technique of printing with movable type cast in metal and printed on the printing press.

Gutenberg was born in Mainz almost exactly 600 year ago (his date of birth is estimated between1394 and 1404, but traditionally, the turn of the century, 1400, is celebrated as the year of Gutenberg’s birth). His original name was Henne Gensfleisch zur Laden, due to the property he and his family owned. Much of Gutenberg’s life remains a mystery, as few written documents exist which could give us true information. Gutenberg’s father, Friele Gensfleisch, was a patrician (usually a rich upper- class merchant, who had many privileges) from Mainz while his mother, Else Wirich, came from a family of merchants. At the time Mainz was a center of trade and place of storage for goods transported along the river Rhine. There is no information how Gutenberg spent his childhood and youth or what kind of schooling he received. As the son of a patrician he probably went to grammar school and possibly studied for the occupation he later pursued demanded a comprehensive education and above all a sound knowledge of Latin.

In 1434 Gutenberg was in Strasbourg. At the time Strasbourg was a bustling centre of trade three times the size of Mainz which promised reward for anyone with a mind for business.

At this stage in his life Gutenberg was in possession of a handsome sum of money he had inherited after his mother’s death in 1433. In Strasbourg he came up with an idea he thought would prove profitable; as part of a “manufacturing co-operative” he aimed to mass-produce holy mirrors for pilgrims on their way to Aachen. These religious souvenirs were made from a tin alloy which was melted and poured into casts. The mirror project shows that Gutenberg was not only an inventor but also an entrepreneur.

From autumn 1438 or possibly earlier, Gutenberg started work on another project which he insisted his partners keep a secret. It is feasible that Gutenberg “invented” printing in Strasbourg using a printing press and movable type – or at least came very close to doing so, but there are no books or prints available to us from this period.

In 1448 Gutenberg returned back to Mainz, where he opened at least one printing workshop. The first printed materials that are datable were produced in 1454. These are the Turkish Calendar, Donati (a Latin grammar book) and the most significant work Gutenberg produced, his 42-line Bible or B42, which has pride of place in the annals of printing history.

He needed a vast amount of money to realize the project. The rich businessman Johannes Fust twice lent him 800 guilders (1 gold guilder = 240 silver pfennigs; 1 silver pfennig = 10 eggs). The sum of 1600 guilders is worth over a million in today’s money.

Between around 1452 and 1455 about 180 Bibles were printed in his workshop (30 on parchment, 150 on paper). The Gutenberg Bible, which consists of two volumes, has 1282 printed pages in all, usually with 42 lines for each page. It was printed in the Latin language. While Gutenberg was printing his Bible, he quarreled with his creditor, Johannes Fust. The disputing parties went to court. For unknown reasons Gutenberg lost his case. He had to hand his Bible workshop over to Fust who continued to run the workshop with one of Gutenberg’s printers, Peter Schoffer.

In 1462 Mainz was seized by Archbishop Adolph II of Nassau. Like many other of his fellows, Gutenberg had been driven from the city. He printed a number of minor works, presumably in Eltville and possibly worked with other printing workshops, either as printer or a consultant. In 1465 the archbishop Adolph II from Nassau made Gutenberg a courtier (title or mark of status awarded by the archbishop to people who had performed special services or demonstrated special skills). By this, he expressed his appreciation for Gutenberg’s extraordinary achievements and gave him a certain financial security until Gutenberg’s death in his native Mainz on February 3, 1468. Johannes Gutenberg was buried in the Franciscan church in Mainz, but his grave has not survived as the church was demolished in 1742.

Text 2

Reading and writing in the Middle Ages

Up until the beginning of the late Middle Ages the ability to read and to write was practically the sole prerogative of clerics living and working in the various church institutions.

Outside the monastery walls information of all kinds was passed on by word of mouth up until the 13^th century. Entertainment, education and even legal contracts were carried out orally. It was only in the late Middle ages that reading and writing became the medium through which cultural lore was passed on from one generation to the next.

Reading was an arduous activity which was slow and extremely intensive. It was normal for texts to be read aloud, word for painstaking word, in whisper or low murmur. The texts often were difficult to decipher, comprehension was further by a lack of punctuation marks and a uniform style of writing and passages riddled with mistakes.

Writing as “an art related to drawing” was kept separate from reading throughout the entire Middle Ages. It was only during the 14^th century that more clerics began to learn to write. Prior to this time many bishops, abbots and the like were unable to write, proving that the strict distinction between reading and writing penetrated even the highest ecclesiastical circles.

Before Gutenberg’s invention books were written by hand. Therefore books were rare and expensive. You couldn’t just go and buy a book. If you wanted such a precious thing, you either had to write it yourself – if you were able to – or have it written for you. This laborious task was often performed by monks or nuns in monastic writing rooms (rooms were scribes wrote and copied text by hand). They wrote with goose quills and home-made ink on parchment (prepared animal skin) until paper became more common in Europe.

Mostly the books which were copied in the writing rooms were for church services, Bibles and prayer books and also ancient texts and treatises on biology, mathematics, astrology and other sciences. Some books were richly decorated with pictures and ornaments in various different inks. Books didn’t have sections and chapters; there were also no title pages, headings or page numbers. So that certain passage could be easily fount in a book, sections were marked by particularly large and ornate letters or initials (splendidly decorative large letters at the beginning of a new chapter in place of headings or titles).

A lot of time and patience went into the copying and illustration of a book. A practiced scribe could write 200 words an hour. Books often took a year or even longer to be finished. Books written and illustrated in such a lavish manner were bound in a strong cover. The wooden boards were covered in leather and many adorned with metal clasps and corners. On ceremonial occasions, such coronation of a king, for example, books with especially luxurious binding were often given as presents. The most magnificent of all were the books used in church for services, with the book intended to give glory to God.

Books were big and heavy and not easy to carry around with you. Small girdle books (with a long binding that could be hung on the belt) were much more practical when you were on your travels. It was quite common to fix things to the belt as clothes in the Gothic period usually didn’t have any pockets.

In the Middle Ages most people couldn’t read yet the need to be able to read and write was becoming ever greater. New schools, universities and also libraries were opened. Compared to today the libraries of the time only had a few books and these could not be taken out. So that valuable books weren’t stolen, many of them were chained to the reading desks. These became known as chained books.

In Gutenberg’s day and age the children of wealthy parents and future priests and monks attended what were called grammar schools. Here they were taught the three Rs (reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic). Lessons were held in Latin. As pupils didn’t usually have their own books, most of the material had to be learned off by heart. As in antiquity wax tables and styluses were in general everyday and school use. A black or green layer of wax was set into small rectangular wooden boards. Text was scratched into the layer of wax with a stylus. Writing was erased using the smooth end of the stylus.

Text 3

The woodcut

The copying and illustration of books was time-consuming and expensive. Mistakes were also often made. As more people needed texts of one kind or another, better methods had to be thought of.

When paper started to be manufactured in 14^th century a new age dawned. People began to print in paper with blocks of wood. This technique had been used in Asia since the end of the 8^th century AD. To make a woodcut you needed a plank of wood planed smooth. Wood from fruit trees was normally used, such as pear. The pictures and words were carved in reverse into the wood; what needed to be printed was left in relief, the rest recessed. Ink was applied to the raised surface of the wood and paper placed onto it. The back of the paper was rubbed with a hard instrument and the ink transferred to the paper. Pages printed in this manner were also known as rubbings. Woodcuts were used to print playing cards and religious pictures, and even entire books. As each page of the books was printed using one wooden block, these books became known as blockbooks.

Printing with block of wood was faster than writing by hand but still very laborious. All the letters had to be carved into the wood for each new page. In addition only the front of the page could be printed on as rubbings left a marked relief on the page and the ink also often seeped through to the reverse.

In the past it was believed that blockbooks preceded Gutenberg’s innovation of letterpress printing. Now it was proved that both procedures evolved in Europe at around the same time, shortly before the middle of the 15^th century.

Text 4

Ancient writing and printing materials

In the early days and ages several different materials were mostly used for writing and printing on: papyrus, parchment and paper.

Papyrus, from which we get the word “paper”, was a common writing material in ancient times. The pith of the papyrus plant, a reed which grows in the Mediterranean, was cut into long strips. These were placed in rows on a firm base, with the edges slightly overlapping, and covered with a second layer of strips laid at right angles to the first layer. The layers were then beaten with a wooden hammer until they formed a bonded surface.

Parchment was named after the city of Pergamum in Asia Minor. To make it, hair was removed from animal skin (usually goat, calf or sheep) which was then stretched taut on frame, scraped clean and dried.

Paper was first made in China in the second century B.C. and introduced to Europe via Arabia during the 12^th century. Paper was manufactured in a number of individual processes. First, fibrous plant materials (such as flax) and products made from rags, nets, ropes, sacks and the like were amassed by the rag collectors. These rags were then sorted and cut up at the paper mill. After being pretreated to loosen the fibres, the sodden rags were beaten or rubbed in water. They were mechanically broken down into the tiniest fibres in water-driven pulping mill. The resulting fibrous pulp, known as paper stock or stuff was poured into vats and strongly diluted with water. The vats, around one meter deep, were made of wood and lined with lead.

The scooper then scooped a thin layer of the pulp from the vat with his paper mould. The framed mould was then gently shaken so that the fibres matted together; this also caused much of the water to drain off. After the frame had been removed, the mould was passed on to the coucher. The coucher couched or pressed the mould with its wet sheet out onto a sheet of felt. A pile gradually amassed; the finished stack of 181 sheets of paper and 182 sheets of felt, staggered in alternate layers, was then squeezed in the spindle press. The layer (the 3d paper manufacture) then removed the sheets of paper from the felt, stacked them in a pile and again pressed them.

The individual sheets were then hung up in the drying room to dry. So that the dry paper could be written on, it was sized with animal glue. This sealed the surface evenly. The paper was then glazed, sorted, counted and folded if required. The final stage in the process was to pack the paper; 24 sheets of paper made up a quire, 20 quires a ream and 10 reams a bale.

Text 5

The age of the iron printing presses

Initially, 19^th century engineers tried to use manpower more effectively by improving materials. In 1780 Wilhelm Haas from Switzerland replaced the wood of the printing press with metal. In 1800 English engineer Walter was the first to construct a hand press made of cast iron. This new type of printing press, named after its initiator, Lord Charles Stanhope from England, allowed the flat platen of the printing press to be doubled in size. This meant that with relatively little force yet with significantly increased printing pressure larger formats could be printed with one single pull of the bar. The use of iron enabled more complex, more efficient lever systems to be built for printing presses, something not possible with wood.

The first printing machines were built not long after the invention of the iron hand press. In 1811 Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Bauer, two engineers from Germany, had their steam-driven, automatic cylinder/flat-bed press patented in England, where the addition and application of the ink to-the flat printing plate had been completely mechanized. The press was first put in use in 1812. All that remained to be done manually was to lay the sheets of paper in the press.