Mapping Manchester: Cartographic Stories of the City
Historic Reading Room
25 June 2009 to 17 January 2010
Maps can tell us many different stories about the places where we live and work. This exhibition shows how mapping is particularly ingrained into urban life; it demonstrates how maps work and how they have evolved over time - reflecting changes in technology, society and economic conditions.
Mapping Manchester explores the growth of the city, road networks and public transport, Manchester as the industrial powerhouse of the nineteenth century, the social geography of housing, changing moralities illustrated by statistical maps, and leisure mapping such as plans of Belle Vue - arguably the world's first theme park.
On display are maps, plans and photographs of Manchester published over the last two hundred and fifty years. These range from the first large-scale survey of the city, published in 1794, to a 2008 statistical map of binge-drinking hotspots.
This celebration of cartography and the city presents a unique opportunity to see highlights from the collections held by the University of Manchester alongside material generously loaned by Chetham's Library and Manchester City Library and Archives.
comments 
Schools to rethink 'i before e' |
||||
The spelling mantra "i before e except after c" is no longer worth teaching, according to the government. Advice sent to teachers says there are too few words which follow the rule and recommends using more modern methods to teach spelling to schoolchildren. The document, entitled Support for Spelling, is being distributed to more than 13,000 primary schools. But some people believe the phrase should be retained because it is easy to remember and is broadly accurate. Bethan Marshall, a senior English lecturer at King's College London, said: "It's a very easy rule to remember and one of the very few spelling rules that I can remember and that's why I would stick to it.
"If you change it and say we won't have this rule, we won't have any rules at all, then spelling, which is already terribly confusing, becomes more so." Judy Parkinson, author of the best-selling book I Before E (Except After C), told the Daily Telegraph it was a phrase that struck a chord. "There are words that it doesn't fit, but I think teachers could always get a discussion going about the 'i before e' rule and the peculiarities of the English language, and have fun with it. That's the best way to learn." The guidance is being issued as part of the National Primary Strategy for under-11s.
It says: "The i before e rule is not worth teaching. It applies only to words in which the ie or ei stands for a clear ee sound. Unless this is known, words such as sufficient and veil look like exceptions. "There are so few words where the ei spelling for the ee sounds follows the letter c that it is easier to learn the specific words." These include receive, ceiling, perceive and deceit. The document recommends other ways to teach pupils spelling, like studying television listings for compound words, changing the tense of a poem to practise irregular verbs and learning about homophones through jokes such as "How many socks in a pair? None — because you eat a pear." Some education experts have supported the government and questioned the effectiveness of the rule. Jack Bovill, chairman of the Spelling Society, said words such as vein and neighbour made it a meaningless phrase. "There are so many exceptions that it's not really a rule," he said. He added that it would be helpful if spelling was allowed to evolve. |
||||
I before E except after C when the sound is EE 
When I Am Old.
| When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me, And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired, And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells, And run my stick along the public railings, And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick the flowers in other people's gardens, And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat, And eat three pounds of sausages at a go, Or only bread and pickle for a week, And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry, And pay our rent and not swear in the street, And set a good example for the children. We will have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practise a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised, When suddenly I am old and start to wear purple! Jenny Joseph |
I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
We had a meeting at work yesterday, and it was the usual yada, yada, yada. We have a few problems that need to be addressed, but for the moment they are being solved with band-aid solutions. One person suggested fluorescent Post-it notes, someone else suggested white-out, I don't remember what some of the other suggestions were. We will try them and they will work for a while. It's just the usual growing pains, of course, but trial and error... However, at one point in the meeting I glanced across the boardroom table at one of my co-workers, and she was sound asleep. She was sitting up straight, her hands folded in front of her on the table -- asleep. It was all I could do to keep from laughing.
Today she said to me, "Did you happen to notice that I nodded off during the meeting yesterday?"
"Yes, it did not escape me entirely..."
Today I found ten excuses folks can use if they get caught sleeping at work:
1. "They told me at the blood bank this might happen."
2. "This is just a 15 minute power-nap like they raved about in the last time management course you sent me to."
3. "Whew! Guess I left the top off the liquid paper."
4. "I wasn't sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm!"
5. "This is one of the seven habits of highly effective people!"
6. "I was testing the keyboard for drool resistance."
7. "Actually I'm doing a "Stress Level Elimination Exercise Plan" (SLEEP). I learned it at the last mandatory seminar you made me attend."
8. "The coffee machine is broken."
9. "I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work related stress."
10. "Darn! Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem."
Number 4 is my favorite. Now it's late, and I'm off to get some sleep.
New deepmemo features:
- bookmarklet allows you to use deepmemo with your favorite browser, toolbar ...
read more»
