By Richard K. Munro, MA

SPECIAL NOTES ON ENGLISH LEARNING

Do you believe that English is easy or hard? Most would say English is a very difficult language. It is like learning two languages at the same time.  Nabokov, who learned English as an adult said famously, “learning English was like moving from one darkened house to another on a starless night during a strike of candlemakers and torchbearers.” I think Nabokov captured exactly the fear and confusion of people trying to learn English from scratch. Yet, Nabokov following another ESL student Joseph Conrad survived and became one of the great English language authors. Yes, English can be weird(peculiar). It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though! (Yes, that is correct English!) Can anyone think that English is (facile) easy, that is to say, it can be learned by a little effort or effortlessly? No. The truth is this: some things about English are easy and others are, to put it mildly, devilishly difficult.

The grammar of English is relatively simple. The word order (syntax) of English is regular. However, spelling English words and pronouncing English words can be a challenge as compared to the Spanish German, or Italian languages which are mostly phonetic. The scope of English vocabulary and the variety of its dialects is daunting. Spanish has regional dialects but none is so far removed from standard Spanish as English or American dialects are from Standard English.

But English is not a remote or exotic language but a language firmly in the mainstream of European/Western languages.  Therefore, if we use an etymological or “historical” approach to vocabulary development it will help the English speaker learn Spanish or French words but, furthermore, since many common Spanish or French words have cognates in academic English. Similarly, a Spanish or French speaker can also better (ameliorate) his or her English vocabulary the same way.

Of course, English has a huge (enormous) vocabulary. It takes much reading and study to understand and acquire these words and learn to PRONOUNCE them clearly. But, compared to other languages its grammar is relatively simple.

On the other hand, though READING English words may be easy to recognize and interpret, you have four jobs with every English word:

1)to understand the basic sense or meaning of a word (denotation)

2)to know how to pronounce it correctly; its diction (orthoepy)

3)To know how to spell the word (orthography)

 4) To understand additional senses of meanings of a word (connotations) or words that sound alike (homophones and homonyms!)

Number one and two are the most critical.

Many people have difficulty with English spelling (#3) their entire lives. Spelling is just a matter of practice and simple memorization.

Spanish is like a disciplined Roman Army organized, regular with very few silent letters.  English is more like a chaos of tribes or charismatic church revival by the river or clandestine poker game in a speakeasy. No one would ever say English was uniform or behaved like an Anglican tea or church service! English is more like a rodeo! Or New York baseball fans crying in unison, “BUM! BUM! BUM!” when the umpire made a bad call.

Number four –connotations- is very important and comes from regular reading, study, and analysis of words. Besides learning the connotations of words the learner must learn many idioms (or expressions) plus attain a certain level of cultural literacy so as to understand references and allusions found in stories, articles, and books.

English has an extraordinary richness (or wealth) of vocabulary, idioms, and expressions. It is not unusual for a word to have many synonyms that mean the same or NEARLY the same thing but each word may have a different nuance or shade of meaning that gives that word a special tone or a positive or negative connotation.

A house is a basic need or shelter, as is a residence or a habitation but a shack, hovel, shanty, cabin, tenement, wickiup, wigwam, teepee and Motel 6 do not evoke the same meaning as palace, mansion, palazzo, villa, country house, chateau, townhouse, penthouse apartment or Hilton Hotel. It should be obvious to anyone that the first group represents very humble habitations while the second group represents domiciles of varying degrees of luxury.

Reading English is not that difficult but understanding spoken English and speaking English clearly are difficult problems.   

I will present shortly another essay specifically on HOW TO LEARN ENGLISH, to PRONOUNCE IT and TO SPELL IT.  

by Richard K. Munro

I once asked my Highland grandfather if it bothered him that most of his grandchildren did not speak Gaelic or have any interest in Scottish Heritage. He said it would bother him if had no grandchildren at all. In a long journey, some things must be left behind.

In a long journey, one has to carry the essentials: The ability to communicate, the ability to adapt, the desire to work, the necessity to love and serve others. To enjoy things of beauty like nature, music, and sport. To dread God and obey his commandments.

THOMAS MUNRO SR with his beloved FUZZY picked up
as a puppy in GALVESTON, TEXAS 1923. Inseparable for almost 20 years.

By Richard K M unro

THOMAS MUNRO Sr. August 1914

Dec 22, 1886 was THOMAS MUNRO Sr.’s birthday.

I asked him when I was a young boy how he celebrated Christmas as boy (he was boy apprentice at sea). He said he “cleaned up the drunken vomit of the gude for nocht (good for nothing) sailors.” When we watched westerns he would say of the bad guy with a black hat “Aye, he’s the BADJIN (Bad ane). Shane, now he is the GOODJIN “(good one). He would say AYE IT’S TIME FOR THE GUDE WARDS (good words/ prayers). When I was sad and disappointed he would say. Och man, it’s no the end of the WARLD!!! AYE!!! Dinna fash yersel!

(DON’T WORRY). This too shall pass.

And you know what they say: being born in a garage doesn’t make you a car. I wouldn’t mind visiting Scotland again (I haven’t been there since 2005 and have been lucky enough to have visited it a few times 1967-2000 as well) but I have no burning desire to return and no family and few friends to greet me.

Cianalas is the Highland word for it -that place you are connected to by heritage where joy and sadness mingle.

But it is quite true. You can’t go home again.

The greatest distance between two points is time. New York, Glasgow, Argyll, Inverness, Glenties, Ferindonald represent lost worlds to me. So is Seattle, Washington where we lived for seven years.

There is some warmth of memories in all of those places -places where my family lived for over one thousand years but I know them well enough to know they all belong to the past and are not likely to have any place in my future and the future of my children.

They are now part of Yesterday’s Seven Thousand Years.

We may sing of them and memory remembers the ghost of a tune and the ghost of a kiss and the Silent Ones.

But the Silent Ones greet forever as they greet no more.

Gars ye tae greet,aye. “But the broken heart it kens no second spring again thought the waeful heart cease not from its greeting.” (grieving; lamenting -that’s Scots dialect)

But then I am speaking only to myself.

“The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.” (The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham)

It is sad when you know your mother’s email and phone number and you know no matter how long you wait there will never be a return message or call.

Phone numbers disconnected and ideas for conversations that would never take place. The past is a door that is irrevocably shut closed.

I used to call my mother long distance at least once a week and she would say “this is costing money” and I told her it was cheaper than a cocaine habit and in any case I know each day is a gift.

I told her I would call her now for a modest amount. The time is coming, I said to her, that no matter how much I would spend the door would be locked and the phone disconnected. She would be silent on the line for a moment. She understood.

Life and love are just a brief moment in time.

My mother used to say that. I half believed it.

Now I have learned it.

I thought winter would never come but winter came and the snow is general.

Love those about you and tell those dear ones in your life that you LOVE THEM often and NOW. And of course, NE OBLIVISCARIS do not forget. Remember them always.

[originally published at The American Conservative–to honor my daughter’s eleventh birthday. This year, she would’ve been sixteen]

Had things worked or happened differently, I would be celebrating the eleventh birthday of my daughter, Cecilia Rose Birzer, today.  I can visualize exactly what it might be like.  A cake, eleven candles, hats, cheers, goofiness, photos, and, of course, ice cream.  I imagine that she would love chocolate cake–maybe a brownie cake–and strawberry ice cream.  Her many, many siblings cheer here, celebrating the innumerable smiles she has brought the family.  As I see her at the table now, I see instantly that her deep blue eyes are mischievous to be sure, but hilarious and joyous as well.  Her eyes are gateways to her soul, equally mischievous, hilarious, and joyous.  She’s tall and thin, a Birzer.  She also has an over abundance of dark brown curls, that match her darker skin just perfectly.  She loves archery, and we just bought her first serious bow and arrow.  No matter how wonderful the cake, the ice cream, and the company, she’s eager to shoot at a real target.  

She’s at that perfect age, still a little girl with little girl wants and happinesses, but on the verge of discovering the larger mysteries of the teenage and adult world.  She cares what her friends think of her, but not to the exclusion of what her family thinks of her.  She loves to dance to the family’s favorite music, and she knows every Rush, Marillion, and Big Big Train lyric by heart.  She’s just discovering the joys of Glass Hammer.  As an eleven-year old, she loves princesses, too, and her favorite is Merida, especially given the Scot’s talents and hair and confidence.  She has just read The Fellowship of the Ring, and she’s anguished over the fate of Boromir.  Aragorn, though.  There’s something about him that seems right to her.

If any of this is actually happening, it’s not happening here.  At least not in this time and not on this earth.  Here and now?  Only in my dreams, my hopes, and my broken aspirations.

Eleven years ago today, my daughter, Cecilia Rose Birzer, strangled on her own umbilical cord.  That which had nourished her for nine months killed her just two days past her due date.

On August 6, 2007, she came to term.  Very early on August 8, my wife felt a terrible jolt in her belly and then nothing.  Surely this, we hoped, was Cecilia telling us she was ready.  We threw Dedra’s hospital bag into the car as we had done four times before, and we drove the 1.5 miles to the hospital.  We knew something was wrong minutes after we checked in, though we weren’t sure what was happening.  Nurses, doctors, and technicians were coming in and out of the room.  The medical personnel were whispering, looking confused, and offering each other dark looks.  Finally, after what seemed an hour or more, our beloved doctor told us that our child–a girl, it turned out–was dead and that my wife would have to deliver a dead child.  

We had waited to know the sex of the baby, but we had picked out names for either possibility.  We had chosen Cecilia Rose for a girl, naming her after my great aunt Cecelia as well as St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, and Rose because of St. Rose of Lima being the preferred saint for the women in my family and because Sam Gamgee’s wife was named Rosie.

I had never met my Aunt Cecelia as she had died at age 21, way back in 1927.  But, she had always been a presence in my family, the oldest sister of my maternal grandfather.  She had contracted tetanus, and the entire town of Pfeifer, Kansas, had raised the $200 and sent someone to Kansas City to retrieve the medicine.  The medicine returned safely to Pfeifer and was administered to my great aunt, but it was too late, and she died an hour or two later.  Her grave rests rather beautifully, just to the west of Holy Cross Church in Pfeifer valley, and a ceramic picture of her sits on her tombstone.  Her face as well as her story have intrigued me as far back as I can remember.  Like my Cecilia Rose, she too had brown curly hair and, I suspect, blue eyes.  She’s truly beautiful, and her death convinced her boyfriend to become a priest.

The day of Cecilia Rose’s death was nothing but an emotional roller coaster.  A favorite priest, Father Brian Stanley, immediately drove to Hillsdale to be with us, and my closest friends in town spent the day, huddled around Dedra.  We cried, we laughed, and we cried some more–every emotion was just at the surface.  I’m more than certain the nurses thought we were insane.  Who were these Catholics who could say a “Hail Mary” one moment, cry the next, and laugh uproariously a few minutes later?  Of course, the nurses also saw just how incredibly tight and meaningful the Catholic community at Hillsdale is.  And, not just the Catholics–one of the most faithful with us that day was a very tall Lutheran.

Late that night, Dedra revealed her true self.  She is–spiritually and intellectually–the strongest person I know.  She gave birth with the strength of a Norse goddess.  Or maybe it was just the grace of Mary working through her.  Whatever it was, she was brilliant.  Any man who believes males superior to females has never seen a woman give birth.  And, most certainly, has never seen his wife give birth to a dead child.  Cecilia Rose was long gone by the time she emerged in the world, but we held her and held her and held her for as long as we could.  With the birth of our other six children, I have seen in each of them that unique spark of grace, given to them alone.  Cecilia Rose was a beautiful baby, but that spark, of course, was absent, having already departed to be with her Heavenly Father.

For a variety of reasons, we were not able to bury her until August 14.  For those of you reading this who are Catholic, these dates are pretty important.  August 8 is the Feast of St. Dominic, and August 14 is the Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

Regardless, those days between August 8 and August 14 were wretched.  We were in despair and depression.  I have never been as angry and confused as I was during those days.  Every hour seemed a week, and the week itself, seemed a year.  I had nothing but love for my family, but I have never been that angry with God as I was then and, really, for the following year, and, frankly, for the next nine after that.  We had Cecilia Rose buried in the 19^th-century park-like cemetery directly across the street from our house.  For the first three years after her death, I walked to her grave daily.  Even to this day, I visit her grave at least once a week when in Hillsdale.  In the first year after her death, I was on sabbatical, writing a biography of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.  Every early afternoon, I would walk over to her grave, lay down across it, and listen to Marillion’s Afraid of Sunlight.  Sometime in the hour or so visit, I would just raise my fist to the sky and scream at God.  “You gave me one job, God, to be a father to this little girl, and you took it all away.”  In my fury, I called Him the greatest murderer in history, a bastard, an abortionist, and other horrible things.  I never doubted His existence, but I very much questioned His love for us.

Several things got me through that first year: most especially my wife and my children as well as my friends.  There’s nothing like tragedy to reveal the true faces of those you know.  Thank God, those I knew were as true in their honor and goodness as I had hoped they would be.  A few others things helped me as well.  I reread Tolkien, and I read, almost nonstop, Eliot’s collected poetry, but especially “The Hollow Men,” “Ash Wednesday,” and the “Four Quartets.”  I also, as noted above, listened to Marillion.  As strange as it might seem, my family, my friends, Tolkien, Eliot, and Marillion saved my life that year.  I have no doubt about that.  And, nothing gave me as much hope as Sam Gamgee in Mordor.  “Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.  The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”  As unorthodox as this might be, we included Tolkien’s quote in the funeral Mass.

A year ago, my oldest daughter–the single nicest person I have ever met–and I were hiking in central Colorado.  We were remembering Cecilia Rose and her death.  Being both kind and wise, my daughter finally said to me, “You know, dad, it’s okay that you’ve been mad at God.  But, don’t you think that 10 years is long enough?”  For whatever reason–and for a million reasons–my daughter’s words hit me at a profound level, and I’m more at peace over the last year than I’ve been since Cecilia Rose died.  I miss my little one like mad, and tears still spring almost immediately to my eyes when I think of her.  I don’t think any parent will ever get over the loss of a child, and I don’t think we’re meant to.  But, I do know this: my Cecilia Rose is safely with her Heavenly Father, and, her Heavenly Mother, and almost certainly celebrating her birthday in ways beyond our imagination and even our hope.  I have no doubt that my maternal grandmother and grandfather look after her, and that maybe even Tolkien and Eliot look in on her from time to time.  And, maybe even St. Cecilia herself has taught my Cecilia Rose all about the music of the spheres.  Indeed, maybe she sees the White Star.  Let me re-write that: I know that Cecilia Rose sees the White Star.  She is the White Star.

Happy birthday, Cecilia Rose.  Your daddy misses you like crazy, but he does everything he can to make sure that he makes it to Heaven–if for no other reason than to hug you and hug you and hug you.