【推荐1】Is America ruining English or giving it new life? Most of this old debate concerns words. Is elevator an improvement on lift? Why say transportation when transport will do? Sometimes it involves spelling, specifically the American reforms that made British centre into American center. Realistic change or dumbing down? And, of course, the quickest way to tell a Yank from a Brit is by pronunciation.

But the differences between British English (BE) and American English (AE) go beyond words, sounds and spelling to grammar itself. Here they can be not very obvious, but they are many: the index(索引) of the “Cambridge Grammar of the English Language” mentions regional differences in 95 places. Most people assume that any variations between the two countries result from American innovation(创新), to the horror of Britons. In reality, America has often been the conservative one, and Britain the innovator. When British speakers borrow American habits, they are sometimes unintentionally readopting an older version of their language.

Take the past participle of get, which in Britain is got and in America gotten. To some Britons, American gotten is a cute or annoying invention. In fact, it is the older form, which came from Old Norse. “Gotten” appears in a Bible translation of 1535: “Treasures that are badly gotten, profit nothing.” It was used for centuries before being combined with the past tense, got, in Britain. Not that America was entirely conservative; it has a got too. But Americans use it differently: “He's got a car” means he owns one, while “He's gotten a car” means he has acquired one.

Americans have indeed innovated extensively with English, as with other things. But language never sits still: the British variety itself went on changing after 1776, as all living languages must. Americans, for their part, eagerly import fashionable British slang(俚语). Instead of complaining about Americanisms, British observers could say thanks to the old colonies (殖民地) for keeping traditional English safe.

【推荐2】She has become the world’s longest-reigning monarch(在位时间最长的君主), following the death of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Oct 13.

Now a new TV series called The Crown, which started to air on Nov 4 in the US, is looking back at the time when Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ of the UK prepared to take the throne(王位)at a 25-year-old. She would face a series of challenges after she was crowned(加冕)following the unexpected death of her father, George VI, in 1952.

One answer is that the royal(王室的)family knows how to move with the times. Once upon a time, kings, queens, princes and princesses were distant from everyone. Today, while they still have some of the old mystery, the royals are true celebrities(名人)like famous sports and pop stars. Indeed, they are upper-class celebrities. There are hundreds of Hollywood actors, but there is only one queen of the UK.

Because they are seen so much—in magazines, on TV and on the internet—the royals must now be careful. It is not enough to be famous; one must “deserve” this fame. That’s why the new, younger generations of royals are so important to the royals’ chances of surviving. Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton’s commitment to many good causes has also given the royal family an image it highly needs.

In addition, old-fashioned British eccentricity(古怪)explains why the royals have stayed for so song. “The British monarchy is valued because it is the British monarchy,” the BBC noted. “We are an old and complicated society.”

【推荐1】Each morning, Caitriona Lally gets up at 4:45 am, puts on her blue coat and heads over to the college to clean from 6 am to 9:30 am. Then she returns home to take care of her daughter, Alice. The day she got the call telling her she won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, Alice was sick on the bed.

Caitriona Lally said, “I understand that my choice of job is an unusual one for a writer, and that’s what has attracted media interest. But as long as my story is told accurately, I’m OK with it. The only thing I’m worried about in the report is any suggestion that my life is tougher than it actually is, or that I’m inspiring because I work a cleaning job. But the fact is that I have a partner who works full time, which allows me to clean part-time, write part-time, and be at home with our daughter most of the week. There are people who have to work two or three jobs who don’t get to see their children as often as they like. I’ve also had the chance of going to university and I’ve been able to choose a physical job.”

After graduating in 2004 from Trinity College Dublin, Lally worked as an English teacher in Japan for a year and then traveled a lot. Back in Ireland, she did various jobs, including as a copywriter, and she went to New York for a time as a home helper. She found herself unemployed in 2011, which was when she got the idea for Eggshells. She had stayed friends with some of her old cleaning friends from Trinity, and they told her the school was hiring cleaners. So she went back. She said she finds cleaning large empty rooms, especially beautiful libraries at the college, to be peaceful.

Winners over the years have become some of Ireland’s best-known writers. She hadn’t applied for the award; the committee selects the candidates (候选者). We choose the lifestyle as we want, and life chooses the winner as it wants.

【推荐3】The Nobel Literature Prizes are awarded to the persons who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction. The followings are some famous female winners in recent years.

Herta Müller (from Germany)

The Nobel Prize winner in Literature 2009. Her works are rooted in her experiences as one of Romania’s German-speaking racial minority. Muller describes how dictatorship(独裁)causes a fear and sense of distance that stays in an individual’s mind. With precise language, she recalls images from the past.

Svetlana Alexievich (from Belarus)

The Nobel Prize winner in Literature 2015. Svetlana Alexievich represents life during and after the Soviet Union(苏联)through the experience of individuals. She uses interviews to create a picture of a wide range of voices. Her books are a combination of oral history and deeply psychological literature, composed of stories collected on a simple tape recorder.

Louise Glück (from America)

The Nobel Prize winner in Literature 2020. The prize committee stressed “Her unmistakable poetic voice with plain beauty makes individual existence universal”. Childhood, family life, the close relationships with family is a theme that has remained central to her. She seeks the universal, and in this she takes inspiration from myths and classical themes.

Annie Ernaux (from France)

The Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 2022. She usually describes the events in her life and the lives of those around her. “The courage and clinical sensitivity with which she uncovers the roots, separations and collective restriction of personal memory” is the reason she was awarded the prize according to Swedish Academy.

【推荐2】Our lives are full of habits. Unfortunately a great many of them are bad habits. One way to break these bad habits is to fill our lives with good habits. Most people decide one day that they need to make changes to their lives and then they go all out to make big sweeping changes. This may work for them for the first few days, but then they get burned out.     1     This is a very unproductive way to spend your time and energy.

    2     Say your goal is to get up an hour earlier every day. One day you start setting your alarm for an hour earlier and you keep this up for one week. Then because you are naturally resistant to change, you go back to your old habit. A better way is to set your alarm one minute earlier every day. After two months you are getting up an hour earlier and you will not even notice the change.     3    

This approach can work for just about anything. If you are exercising for half an hour every day and you want to increase that time to one hour then add a minute every day. After one month you will have reached your goal with very little resistance from your body and mind.     4    

This method of change is gentle, but very powerful. Think of everything you can accomplish if you just continuously improve a little at a time. The change itself creates the momentum (动力) you need to keep going.     5     What one minute change can you make to your life today?