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Newsletter #6 - 11/29/2001You are receiving this newsletter if you have previously ordered products
from eLearnAid or have asked to be on our mailing list. Instructions to
unsubscribe from this newsletter are at the bottom of this email.
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In this newsletter:
- Do you know your holiday and Christmas words?
- Longman Dictionaries
- New OED version coming soon
- Tech Tips for Intense Language products
- Gift certificates
- Write to us
- How to access earlier newsletter issues
- Subscribe/Unsubscribe
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DO YOU KNOW YOUR HOLIDAY AND CHRISTMAS WORDS?
We’ve all heard the songs and sung along, but do we really know WHAT we’re
singing?
Holiday songs are steeped in tradition. Some words are from Old English and
are not in use today. Others are Latin words or just words from an era long
ago. Here are some examples.
“Carol” means a song of joy or praise; especially a Christmas song.
“Frankincense and Myrrh” occur in several songs including “We Three Kings on
Orient Are”, “The First Noel”, and “What Child is This?” sometimes known as
“Greensleeves”. Frankincense is a gum resin obtained from various Arabian
and African trees and used in perfumes and as incense, and myrrh is a
fragrant gum resin from any of several plants of Arabia and E Africa, used
in making incense, perfume, etc.
“Wassail” in “Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green” in
British English means “to go caroling from house to house at Christmastime”,
and in “Love and joy come to you, And to you your wassail too” it means
“good health” as in toasting to someone’s good health. Wassail also means
“the spiced ale or other liquor with which such healths were drunk”.
In “Jingle Bells”, “bobtail” as in “Bells on bobtail ring” refers to the
horse pulling the sleigh, whose tail was often “bobbed” or cut short (a
fashion in the 1800s). The “bells” are worn on the horse’s harness or on the
sleigh itself because horse’s hoofbeats don’t make noise in snow and it was
safer to have bells to alert people to a horse coming along.
So you see, knowing the meanings of words can help make our experiences of a
communication (like a song) much more enjoyable.
Check out your dictionary for other common holiday words like “yule” and
“auld lang syne” and “Noel”.
-- Ruth
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LONGMAN DICTIONARIES
The Longman series of dictionaries are quite popular. They come in both
American and English “flavors”.
The Longman Advanced American Dictionary and the Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English are both excellent intermediate to advanced
dictionaries, yet they are easy to use because the meanings are explained
with a vocabulary of only 2,000 words. That means that foreign students
learning English and other students with smaller vocabularies can still use
these dictionaries without getting confused by other unknown words in the
definitions.
Longman Advanced American Dictionary (Hardcover) $41.50 (was $46)
http://www.elearnaid.com/lonadamdicpa.html
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (Flexicover) $30.00 (was $35)
http://www.elearnaid.com/londicofcone2.html
All our Longman dictionaries
http://www.elearnaid.com/londic.html
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NEW OED VERSION COMING SOON
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a twenty-volume dictionary on paper
which documents the usage of English back to 1150. It is also available
on-line with extensive search capability and access to the latest additions
and changes from the Oxford lexicographers. Access to the online version
costs $550.00 per year for an individual.
Many OED users use the CD-ROM version (publisher list price is $295.00).
Oxford has just announced a new version of the OED on CD, which is scheduled
to be released in January 2002. This will have more search capabilities as
well as the latest additions and changes which were previously available
only on-line.
It has the following improvements:
* An option to install the OED to your hard drive. Further, based on a
verbal report from Oxford University Press the software will only require
you to validate that you have an authentic CD every 90 days. This means you
will not have to find the CD, put it in the drive, and wait for it to be
validated every time you start the OED. In previous versions you could
manually install the OED to disk but still had to put the CD in the drive
whenever you first started to use the dictionary.
* Additional search features to allow users to construct more powerful
searches across the OED. More details will be forthcoming.
* There are new additional entries, which have previously only been included
in the OED Online.
* The Bibliography and other relevant extra matter from the print edition.
* Fully compatible with Windows 2000 and ME.
Rather than sit on the news of this new version, eLearnAid is offering a
package deal where you can purchase the current version (2.0) now and get
the new version (3.0) when it becomes available for only $305.00. This is
$115.00 off the list price of version 2.0 plus an upgrade to version 3.0.
See full details at: http://www.elearnaid.com/oed30upwhena.html
The upgrade from version 2.0 (the current version) to 3.0 can be purchased
separately for $100.00 ($25.00 off list price). It will be shipped as soon
as it becomes available.
See full details at: http://www.elearnaid.com/oed30upgrade.html
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TECH TIPS - Problems fixed for the Collins English and bilingual
dictionaries from Intense Language Office
One customer could not use the software without these fixes, so you might
want to install them before you run into a problem.
Go to: http://www.elearnaid.com/upfrominlano.html
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GIFT CERTIFICATES
With the holiday season approaching, you’ll be thinking about that perfect
gift for your friends and family. Be sure to remember us. And if you just
can’t choose from among our products, we also offer Gift Certificates.
http://www.elearnaid.com/gifcer.html
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WRITE TO US
You can always write to the Public Services Manager. The
Public Services Manager likes to hear from you. Your views, ideas and even
any difficulty you may have are of concern to her. She will help you with
any matter you care to write to her about.
We would especially like to hear from your comments on any of the newer
products. We regularly update our website and if you have helpful hints you
would like to pass on to other users, they will probably get published as
well as your review.
Write to:
eLearnAid Public Services Manager
P O Box 921585, Sylmar CA 91392 USA
mailto: ruth@elearnaid.com
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HOW TO ACCESS EARLIER NEWSLETTER ISSUES
If there was something in an earlier newsletter issue that you’d like to see
again, please visit our website where we have published all our back issues.
http://www.elearnaid.com/newsletters.html
Highlights from issue 1:
* Article: Learning Can Help You Improve Conditions in Your Life
* What Others Say... about study skills courses
Highlights from issue 2:
* Article: “Interest” Can Make Learning Fun
* The Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary on CD-ROM
Highlights from issue 3:
* Article: Advantages of a Second Dictionary
* Collins Cobuild Third Edition Dictionary
* Patches for the OED on CD
Highlights from issue 4:
* Article: Vocabularies, Literacy and Success
* Group licenses available for Collins Cobuild CD-ROM
* Tech tips: Dictionaries that can be manually installed to disk
* Tech tips: Character display problems with your Collins dictionary?
Highlights from issue 5:
* Article: A Peculiar Story...
* Two FREE eBooks now available
* Tech Tips: Installation hint for software you use frequently
* Tech Tips: Grammar terms in Collins Cobuild for Advanced Learners
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You are receiving this newsletter if you have previously ordered products
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