Tag: Reading

Defying(to challenge the power of)predictions (foretell a future), President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, the A.K.P., won a conclusive (convincing)victory (a success or triumph over an enemy in battle or war)in Sunday’s national elections in Turkey, freeing it from the need to form a coalition (a combination or alliance, especially a temporary one between persons, factions, states, etc.)to stay in power. Mr. Erdogan proclaimed (to announce or declare in an official or formal manner)it a vote “in favor of stability,” and that is what it apparently (readily seen)was — though it was Mr. Erdogan who churned (to be changing rapidly or be in a confused state)up much of the turmoil (a state of great commotion, confusion, or disturbance; tumult;agitation)that frightened (afraid)voters back into his camp.

Though the A.K.P. won about half the vote, it did not gain enough seats in Parliament to enable Mr. Erdogan to change the Constitution to create the strong executive (pertaining to or charged with the execution of laws and policies or the administration of public affairs)presidency he has sought since he assumed the office last year. But the A.K.P. majority will mean a continuation (extension or carrying to further point)of 12 years of one-party rule, and most probably a continuation of Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian (of or relating to a governmental or political system, principle, or practice in which individual freedom is held as completely subordinate to the power or authority of the state, centered either in one person or a small group that is not constitutionally accountable to the people)domination (the act or instance of dominating)of the Turkish government.

Mr. Erdogan engineered (a person who operates or is in charge of an engine)Sunday’s vote after the last elections, on June 7, not only failed to secure the seats he needed for his presidential scheme, but cost the A.K.P. its majority and allowed a pro-Kurdish coalition, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, to enter Parliament for the first time. Instead of helping to form a coalition government after that vote, Mr. Erdogan called for new elections.

In the early years of A.K.P. rule, Mr. Erdogan had been hailed (to cheer, salute, or greet)in Europe and the United States as the face of moderate Islam. Turkey’s economy (the management of the resources of a community, country, etc.,especially with a view to its productivity)bloomed (to flourish or thrive), human rights improved as Turkey sought membership in the European Union and Mr. Erdogan achieved a cease-fire with Kurdish rebels (a person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in arms against the government or ruler of his or her country). But much of that has been undermined (to weaken or cause to collapse by removing underlying support, as by digging away or eroding the foundation), and Mr. Erdogan has come under increasing criticism (the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything)in the West, as he has turned steadily toward authoritarian (favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom)rule, assisted by his ally (to associate or connect by some mutual relationship, as resemblance or friendship)and prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu.

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Craft Beer is Booming but Some Brewers Worry About the Future

Looking at the wide array of taps at bars these days, we seem to be in a golden age of beer. The world is awash (containing large numbers or amounts of someone or something)in ales (forming the names of orders of plants), lagers (a kind of effervescent beer which is light in colour and body)and porters (a person employed to carry luggage and other loads, especially in a railway station, airport, hotel, or market), many made by small breweries (a place where beer is made commercially), which are gaining an ever bigger share of the market.

Brooklyn Brewery, a pioneer in the craft beer renaissance (rebirth or revival)along with Boston Beer Company and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., is doing such brisk (keen or sharp in speech or manner)business that it plans to build a second brewery on Staten Island in 2017. Small companies like Brooklyn sold 11 percent of the beer Americans bought last year, up from just 2.8 percent in 2004, according to the Brewers Association, a trade group.

But even success with consumers isn’t enough. Small brewers have good reason to fear that mergers (any combination of two or more business enterprises into a single enterprise)among the industry’s giants will make it harder for them to sell their products if those companies also come to control big beer distributors around the country.When Brooklyn Brewery began selling its lager in 1988, few people took it seriously. Steve Hindy, one of the founders, said some people even sneered (to smile, laugh, or contort the face in a manner that shows scorn or contempt)that it made no sense to name a beer after a place as gritty as Brooklyn.

“We distributed our own beer for 15 years because none of the big distributors cared about us,” he said recently. Brooklyn and other craft labels caught on as more Americans began experimenting with imported beers from Europe. The growth was helped along by the local and artisanal (pertaining to or noting a high-quality or distinctive product made in small quantities, usually by hand or using traditional methods)food movements. And the growing cachet (the state of being respected or admired)of Brooklyn, the place, has helped with marketing, too; international sales of the company’s beers have boomed, growing about 25 percent a year.

Yet while Brooklyn lager can be found in Stockholm, it can’t be found in many states, like California. That’s partly because beer distribution is mostly through wholesalers, some of whom have been acquired (to come into possession or ownership of)by giant beer corporations like Anheuser-Busch InBev. Reuters reported this month that the Department of Justice and regulators in California were investigating whether InBev, which makes Budweiser and Bud Light, was buying up beer wholesalers to curb sales of craft beers in bars and grocery (a store selling foodstuffs and various household supplies)stores.

“When a big brewery buys an independently-owned distributor they would evaluate each one of those brands and not keep all of them,” said Tom McCormick, executive director of the California Craft Brewers Association and a former beer distributor. “The bulk of their attention would be on their in-house brands.”

That fear has been heightened (make or become more intense)by the announcement (a formal public statement about a fact, occurrence, or intention)earlier this month that InBev, the world’s largest beer company, has proposed buying SABMiller, the second-biggest company, for $104 billion. InBev produces about 45 percent of all the beer sold in the United States while Miller Coors, a joint venture (a risky or daring journey or undertaking)between SABMiller and Molson Coors, sells 26 percent, according to Beer Marketer’s Insight (the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something).

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/opinion/craft-beer-is-booming-but-some-brewers-worry-about-the-future.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

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As readers and writers, we’re intimately familiar with the dots, strokes and dashes that punctuate the written word. The comma, colon, semicolon and their siblings are integral parts of writing, pointing out grammatical structures and helping us transform letters into spoken words or mental images. We would be lost without them (or, at the very least, extremely confused), and yet the earliest readers and writers managed without it for thousands of years. What changed their minds?

In the 3rd Century BCE, in the Hellenic Egyptian city of Alexandria, a librarian (a person in charge of a library, especially the chief administrative officer of a library)named Aristophanes had had enough. He was chief of staff at the city’s famous library, home to hundreds of thousands of scrolls, which were all frustratingly time-consuming to read. For as long as anyone could remember, the Greeks had written their texts so that their letters ran together with no spaces or punctuation and without any distinction between lowercase and capitals. It was up to the reader to pick their way through this unforgiving mass of letters to discover where each word or sentence ended and the next began.

Yet the lack of punctuation and word spaces was not seen as a problem. In early democracies such as Greece and Rome, where elected officials debated to promote their points of view, eloquent (having or exercising the power of fluent, forceful, and appropriate speech)and persuasive (able, fitted, or intended to persuade)speech was considered more important than written language and readers fully expected that they would have to pore over a scroll before reciting it in public. To be able to understand a text on a first reading was unheard of: when asked to read aloud from an unfamiliar document, a 2nd Century writer named Aulus Gellius protested that he would mangle (to spoil; ruin; mar badly)its meaning and emphasise (to lay stress upon)its words incorrectly. (When a bystander (a person present but not involved; chance spectator; onlooker)stepped in to read the document instead, he did just that.)

Joining the dots

Aristophanes’ breakthrough was to suggest that readers could annotate (to supply with critical or explanatory notes)their documents, relieving the unbroken stream of text with dots of ink aligned with the middle (·), bottom (.) or top (·) of each line. His ‘subordinate’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘full’ points corresponded to the pauses of increasing length that a practised reader would habitually insert between formal units of speech called the comma, colon and periodos. This was not quite punctuation as we know it – Aristophanes saw his marks as representing simple pauses rather than grammatical boundaries – but the seed had been planted.

Unfortunately, not everyone was convinced (to move by argument or evidence to belief, agreement, consent, or a course of action)of the value of this new invention. When the Romans overtook the Greeks as the preeminent (eminent above or before others; superior; surpassing)empire-builders of the ancient world, they abandoned (forsaken or deserted)Aristophanes’ system of dots without a second thought. Cicero, for example, one of Rome’s most famous public speakers, told his rapt (deeply engrossed or absorbed) audiences (the group of spectators at a public event)that the end of a sentence “ought to be determined not by the speaker’s pausing for breath, or by a stroke (the act or an instance of striking, as with the fist, a weapon, or a hammer) interposed (to place between)by a copyist, but by the constraint of the rhythm”.

And though the Romans had experimented for a while with separating·words·with·dots, by the second century CE they had abandoned that too. The cult (a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing,person, ideal, etc)of public speaking was a strong one, to the extent that all reading was done aloud: most scholars (a learned or erudite person, especially one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject)agree that the Greeks and Romans got round their lack of punctuation by murmuring (a low, continuous sound, as of a brook, the wind, or trees, or of low,indistinct voices)aloud as they read through texts of all kinds.

Source :BBC