Why 'Run' Is The Most Complex Word in the English Language

                                                                                         BY EMILY PETSKO

      English can be hard for other language speakers to learn. To use just one example, there are at least eight different ways of expressing events in the future, and conditional tenses are another matter entirely. For evidence of the many nuances and inconsistencies of the English tongue, look no further than this tricky poem penned in 1920. (For a sample: “Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!”)

      As author Simon Winchester wrote for The New York Times, there’s one English word in particular that’s deceptively simple: run. As a verb, it boasts a record-setting 645 definitions. Peter Gilliver, a lexicographer and associate editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, spent nine months sussing out its many shades of meaning.

      “You might think this word simply means ‘to go with quick steps on alternate feet, never having both or (in the case of many animals) all feet on the ground at the same time,’” Winchester writes. “But no such luck: that is merely sense, and there are miles to go before the reader of this particular entry may sleep.”

      This wasn’t always the case, though. When the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1928, the word with the most definitions was set. However, the word put later outpaced it, and run eventually overtook them both as the English language's most complex word. Winchester thinks this evolution is partly due to advancements in technology (for instance, “a train runs on tracks” and “an iPad runs apps”).

      He believes the widespread use of run—and its intricate web of meanings—is also a reflection of our times. “It is a feature of our more sort of energetic and frantic times that set and put seem, in a peculiar way, sort of rather stodgy, rather conservative,” Gilliver told NPR in an interview.

      So the next time you tell your boss you "want to run an idea" by them, know that you’re unconsciously expressing your enthusiasm— as well as all the other subtleties wrapped up in run that previous words like set failed to capture.

(Available in: http://mentalfloss.com/article/582820/run-most-complex-word-in-english-language. Accessed on May 17th, 2019. Adapted.) 

       Assessing learners’ oral skills are considered as a crucial process in most EFL teaching and learning programs. However, it can be challenging for teachers to make a valid, reliable, and fair assessment. This study aimed to investigate Saudi college students’ and teachers’ point of views toward the effectiveness of oral assessment techniques used to assess learners speaking-skills in the EFL classroom. Two different questionnaires were administered to 12 EFL teachers and forty-two students’ who are majoring in English at the Languages and Translation College at King Saud University. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from respondents, treated statistically, analyzed and revealed in the following sections. The findings of the study revealed that EFL teachers are using a variety of communicative oral assessment techniques and are utilizing effective assessment procedures in assessing their students’ speaking skills. For students, the results revealed that students are generally satisfied with the assessment techniques and procedures that, teachers use in assessing their language performance. Recommendations and suggestions are offered for all concerned parties.

(Available in: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/0/390 Accessed on May 16th, 2019. Adapted.) 

TEXT I

Critical Literacy, EFL and Citizenship

We believe that a sense of active citizenship needs to be developed and schools have an important role in the process. If we agree that language is discourse, and that it is in discourse that we construct our meanings, then we may perceive the foreign language classrooms in our schools as an ideal space for discussing the procedures for ascribing meanings to the world. In a foreign language we learn different interpretive procedures, different ways to understand the world. If our foreign language teaching happens in a critical literacy perspective, then we also learn that such different ways to interpret reality are legitimized and valued according to socially and historically constructed criteria that can be collectively reproduced and accepted or questioned and changed. Hence our view of the EFL classroom, at least in Brazil, as an ideal space for the development of citizenship: the EFL classrooms can adopt a critical discursive view of reality that helps students see claims to truth as arbitrary, and power as a transitory force which, although being always present, is also in permanent change, in a movement that constantly allows for radical transformation. The EFL classroom can thus raise students’ perception of their role in the transformation of society, once it might provide them with a space where they are able to challenge their own views, to question where different perspectives (including those allegedly present in the texts) come from and where they lead to. By questioning their assumptions and those perceived in the texts, and in doing so also broadening their views, we claim students will be able to see themselves as critical subjects, capable of acting upon the world.

[…] 

We believe that there is nothing wrong with using the mother tongue in the foreign language classroom, since strictly speaking, the mother tongue is also foreign - it’s not “mine”, but “my mother’s”: it was therefore foreign as I first learned it and while I was learning to use its interpretive procedures. When using critical literacy in the teaching of foreign languages we assume that a great part of the discussions proposed in the FL class may happen in the mother tongue. Such discussions will bring meaning to the classroom, moving away from the notion that only simple ideas can be dealt with in the FL lesson because of the students’ lack of proficiency to produce deeper meanings and thoughts in the FL. Since the stress involved in trying to understand a foreign language is eased, students will be able to bring their “real” world to their English lessons and, by so doing, discussions in the mother tongue will help students learn English as a social practice of meaning-making.

(Source: Adapted from JORDÃO, C. M. & FOGAÇA, F. C. Critical Literacy in The English Language Classroom. DELTA, vol. 28, no 1, São Paulo, p. 69-84, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.scielo.br/pdf/delta/v28n1a04.pdf). 

Read text 1 and answer questions 16 and 17.

TEXT 1

Kofi Annan, the seventh secretary general of the United Nations, who died on Saturday at 80, was always complicated. His legacy is as complicated as he was. The first sub-Saharan African to lead the global organization and the first UN staffer to rise through the ranks to a leadership post that had always gone to someone from the outside, he was a reserved yet engaging diplomat. He consistently expressed a powerful level of concern for global poverty and human rights, as well as a human decency that often distinguished him from his imperious predecessors.

https://www.thenation.com/article/remembering-kofi-annan/

Access on August 22nd, 2018.

Instruction: Answer questions 36 to 40 based on the following text.

Klingon to Dothraki: Invented languages gain popularity

1. The idea of invented languages is not new. People have been trying to create new tongues
2. for a long time. One of the most famous examples is Esperanto, created by Ludwik Zamenhof
3. in 1887 which he hoped would become __ globally spoken unifying language. The fact that it
4. is based on 16 very simple rules and took words from languages already present makes it very
5. easy to learn. This was a conscious decision by Zamenhof who hoped that if everyone spoke
6. one language, there would be fewer wars and conflicts.
7. So far, none of the existing constructed languages has achieved a large number of
8. speakers. Klingon, the invented language of Star Trek has around 20-30 speakers. Na’vi, the
9. language created for the movie “Avatar” has one fluent speaker, 10 intermediate speakers,
10. and over forty novices. Dothraki, which was crafted specifically for __ series Game of Thrones,
11. boasts seven intermediate speakers and around a hundred novices. For now, Garadálava has
12. exactly one speaker: Fynn Schlemminger himself.
13. However Esperanto is a notable exception: it’s estimated that the language has around
14. some 1,000 native speakers, and many parents teach it to their children. TV series, movies,
15. books, and especially the Internet have given invented languages a chance like never before.
16. According to the BBC, Esperanto, which was created almost exactly 100 years ago, is currently
17. experiencing a boost, mostly thanks to the language learning app Duolingo, and a highly
18. engaged online community. Wikipedia is also available in this language.
19. With the amount of time and effort it takes to learn a new language, it is rather unlikely
20. that __ invented tongue will achieve world domination in the same way English has. But it is
21. clear that there is rising interest in creating new languages. “Yes, there might be more of them
22. in the future, or more people will try their hand at it,” said Carpenter.

Fonte: adaptado de http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/25/from-klingon-to-dothraki-is-inventing-your-own-language-that-hard-

Instruction: Answer questions 31 to 35 based on the following text.

German student invents own language

1. Fynn Schlemminger _____ exactly what he wanted to do for his A-levels special project:
2. create a language from scratch. And that’s exactly what he did. The invented language is
3. called Garadálava, and, according to its creator, it is unique. “The premise of creating
4. Garadálava was to make it unlike any spoken language. I came up with a phonology people
5. usually interpret as harsh or pointed, featuring some guttural sounds and a very unmelodious
6. tone,” he explained.
7. All languages are, to a point, constructed because they went through corrections and
8. reforms over time. However, there is one main difference according to a professor of linguistics
9. at Wellesley College. Angela Carpenter, who has been teaching a course on invented languages
10. since 2010, said the main difference is that “an invented language originates in someone's
11. mind and is developed and expanded upon mostly by that person. A natural language ______
12. within a speech community, usually from another language, dialect or creole, over a period of
13. time.”
14. When Schlemminger began working on Garadálava, he started with a sketch, an idea of
15. how the language should sound and feel like.
16. “You begin with the more superficial things, the shape of the language so to speak, some
17. basic words, a sound inventory, sentence order. After that you simply go into more detail and
18. mostly rotate between making up words and grammar rules, until you are done,” he said to
19. Euronews. To him, the experience of creating a language was not unlike making a sculpture,
20. creating a work of art.
21. “Inventing a language is a very creative process that also requires knowledge of linguistic
22. structures to make it a viable language. Having to create your own language really ______
23. you to understand linguistic structure and the complex nature of language communication,”
24. explained Carpenter.

Fonte: adaptado de http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/25/from-klingon-to-dothraki-is-inventing-your-own-language-that-hard-