Fun with grammar

1. Proverbs

Read the proverbs; try to memorize them. Give their Russian equivalents. Choose one proverb you like best, explain its meaning and comment upon it or use it in a short story.

Fortune is easily found, but hard to be kept.

All truths are not to be told.

Curses like chickens come home to roost.

To err is human.

Burn not the house to rid it of the mouse.

To know everything is to know nothing.

There is more than one way to kill a cat.

It’s enough to make a cat laugh.

Learn to say before you sing.

If you agree to carry the calf, they’ll make you carry the cow.

The evils we bring on ourselves are hardest to bear.

It takes all sorts to make a world.

Each bird loves to hear himself sing.

Better a little fire to warm us than a great one to burn us.

If you try to please all, you will please none.

He is not fit to command others that cannot command himself.

It’s never too late to learn.

He knows much who knows how to hold his tongue.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Be slow to promise and quick to perform.

Learn to creep before you leap.

Better to do well than to say well.

2. Nursery rhymes and poems.

Little Betty Blue

Has lost her holiday shoe.

Give her another

To match the other,

And she will walk in two.

* * *

-Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?

-I’ve been to London to look at the Queen.

-Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, what did you do there?

-I frightened a little mouse under the chair.

* * *

Hey, diddle, diddle!

The cattle and the fiddle.

The cow jumped over the moon;

The little dog laughed

To see such sport,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

* * *

Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,

Kissed the girls and made them cry;

When the boys came out to play,

Georgie Porgie ran away.

* * *

There was an old woman

And nothing she had,

And so this old woman

Was said to be mad.

She’d nothing to eat.

She’d nothing to wear,

She’d nothing to lose.

She’d nothing to fear.

She’d nothing to ask,

And nothing to give,

And when she did die

She’d nothing to leave.

Old Mother Hubbard Went to the Cupboard

Old Mother Hubbard

Went to the cupboard

To fetch her poor dog a bone;

But when she came there

The cupboard was bare

And so the poor dog had none.

She went to the baker’s

To buy him some bread;

But when she came back

The poor dog was dead.

She went to the undertaker’s

To buy him a coffin;

But when she came back

The poor dog was laughing.

(A nursery rhyme)

Can’t buy me love

I’ll buy you a diamond ring, my friend,

If it makes you feel all right.

I’ll get you anything, my friend,

If it makes you feel all right.

I’ll give you all I’ve got to give

If you say you love me too.

I may not have a lot to give,

But what I‘ve got, I’ll give to you,

For I don’t care too much for money,

For money can’t buy me love.

(John Lennon and Paul McCartney)

Enlarge upon the statement: ” Money can’t buy everything.”

Idealists

Brother Tree,

Why do you reach and reach?

Do you dream some day to touch the sky?

Brother Stream,

Why do you run and run?

Do you dream some day to fill the sea?

Brother Bird,

Why do sing and sing?

Do you dream –

Young Man,

Why do you talk and talk?

(Alfred Kreymborg)

Everything has its appointed hour, there is

A time for all things under heaven;

A time for birth, a time for death,

A time to plant and a time to uproot,

A time to kill, a time to heal,

A time to break down and a time to build,

A time to cry, a time to laugh,

A time to mourn, a time to dance,

A time to scatter and a time to gather,

A time to embrace, a time to refrain,

A time to seek, a time to lose,

A time to keep, a time to throw away,

A time to tear, a time to sew,

A time for silence and a time for speech,

A time for love, a time for hate,

A time for war, a time for peace.

(Ecclesiastes, III/1-8. (The Holy Bible. A new translation by James Moffatt D.D., D.Litt., M.A. (Oxon))

When hungry, it is good to eat;

When thirsty, sweet to drink;

When tired, to bathe the weary feet;

When solitary to think…

Walter De La Mare

Winter Pleasures

What a wealth of jolly things

Good old winter always brings!

Ice to skate on, hills to coast –

Don’t know which we like the most!

Games to play, and corn to pop –

Midnight seems too soon to stop!

Books to read aloud at night,

Songs to sing, and plays to write!

Nona Keen Duffy

What is good to do in winter when one is 5,18, 40, 75 years old?

Paper

Paper is two kinds, to write on, to wrap with.

If you like to write, you write.

If you like to wrap, you wrap.

Some papers like writers, some like wrappers.

Are you a writer or a wrapper?

Carl Sandburg

The Falling Star

I saw a star slide down the sky,

Blinding the north as I went by,

Too burning and too quick to hold,

Too lovely to be bought or sold,

Good only to make wishes on

And then forever to be gone.

Sara Teasdale

3. Limericks

Read these limericks. Can you find all the infinitives and the infinitive constructions in them? Learn the limerick you like the best and recite it in class.

There was an Old Person whose habits

Induced him to feed upon the rabbits;

When he’d eaten eighteen

He turned perfectly green,

Upon which he relinquished those habits.

There was a Young Lady whose nose

Was so long that it reached to her toes;

So she hired an old lady,

Whose conduct was steady,

To carry that wonderful nose.

There was an Old Person of Prague,

Who was suddenly taken with the plague;

But they gave him some butter.

Which caused him to mutter.

And cured that Old person of Prague.

There was an Old Person of Rhodes,

Who strongly objected to toads;

He paid several cousins

To catch them by dozens,

That futile Old Person of Rhodes.

There was an Old Man of Merlose,

Who walked on the tips of his toes,

But they said, ‘It ain’t pleasant

To see you at present,

You stupid Old Man of Merlose.’

There was an Old Person of Rheims,

Who was troubled with horrible dreams;

So, to keep him awake,

They fade him on cake,

Which amused that Old Person of Rheims.

There was an Old Man of Whitehaven,

Who danced a quadrille with a raven;

But they said, ‘It’s absurd

To encourage this bird!’

So they smashed that Old Man of Whitehaven.

There was an Old Man of the Hague,

Whose ideas were excessively vague;

He built a balloon

To examine the moon,

That deluded Old Man of the Hague.

There was an Old Man with an owl,

Who continued to bother and howl;

He sat on a rail

And imbibed bitter ale,

Which refreshed that Old Man and his owl.

There was an Old Person of Ewell,

Who chiefly subsisted on gruel;

But to make it more nice

He inserted some mice,

Which refreshed that Old Person of Ewell.