http://prezi.com/uxfcnrmiecad/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Third source: Verse that Perseveres.

Pettingell, Phoebe. "Verse That Perseveres." New Leader 93.3/4 (2010): 34-36. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 May 2015.

Like the first article that describes the inspiration beowulf had on modern epics like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, this article describes more of the structure and built that goes into making an epic and how great stories such as the Illiad and Beowulf gave us the structure for modern poetry and story telling. It created a frame work for character and story development, helped to define how imagery is used to set a scene, and placed an importance in blending cultural norms into the story and creating an attention grabber.

Second source: The Cinematic Sexualizing of Beowulf.

Risden, E. L. "The Cinematic Sexualizing Of Beowulf." Essays In Medieval Studies 26.(2010): 109-115. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 May 2015.

This was an interesting article and one that at first I didnt feel would apply to my theme of Beowulfs impact on modern literature and story telling , but after going through it a second time I noticed it added an interesting insight into the topic, societal norms and what sells movies and stories. Many stories, films, and so on and so forth have found inspiration within the epic Beowulf, but Beowulf lacks something you find in lots of modern adds, stories, etc,........SEX. They say sex sells and if Fifty Shades of Grey tells us anything is that yes, it does. Beowulf, if put to the screen and modern narration, has incredible cinematic and visual detail that by just reading you can visualize just about everything. The epic keeps even the lightest readers interested. However in today's society people love the spicy sexiness that is added into everything. The point is however that by studying Beowulfs cultural and societal norms, we note that outside of the epic story itself, the structure of the story is built around societies wants and needs with in a story and why some one would want to keep reading or watching. 

The first source for my final project is from The National Endowment for the Humanities. (http://www.neh.gov/news/old-english-new-influences) The source itself is very brief, but provides great insight into the impact that old English literature, especially Beowulf, had on the modern epics such as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. In Lord of the rings especially, anglo saxon themes becomes apparent in regards to charaters and the role they play. Saruman for example derives from searu which means "treachery" or "cunning." So Saruman is a treacherous man. Not only do themes play in to the modern epics, but so do the characters, dragons, mermaids, horned monsters all play into the story telling of danger and adventure that the old English epics portrayed. Another big point made is alliteration. This alliteration and use of more compound structuring of phrases and sentences helps to bring forth who a person is by not just labeling them a warrior or evil individual, but using terms like helmberend or "helmet bearer" to really help to visualize who these individuals are and to use words to create this more refined and detailed image of a character and those around him.

For my final project I plan on assessing beowulfs impact on the English language by presenting it in a prezi format

Germanic mythology

• ·         Early Germanic tribes- mythology that was written comes from sources written down centuries

Later

• ·         6^th century onward writing became more common with the spread of Christianity and Roman conquest
• ·         Northern Germanic tribes converted later and recorded more
• ·         First written account of German religion comes from Julius ceaser
• ·         Next major source- tacitus- notes worship to roman gods (mercury), prominent god was woden, which didn’t show up till 3^rd century
• ·         Connections between gods named days of week, ie Wednesday, wodensday
• ·         Conducted ceremonies in forests and woods, casting lots to determine will of gods, future, etc. Called hlotum, hlot, then lot
• ·         Cast from old norse to throw away, cast lots
• ·         Word lot lead to words like lottery and lotto, games of chance
• ·         Words that described methods of predicting future with nature lead to words such as spectate, latin words from watch
• ·         Aster-astrology/ con-stella- constellation watching stars used to determine fate
• ·         Du-aster= disaster, when bad fate was seen in stars
• ·         Early germans had own pantheon of gods
• ·         Eul marked the 12 day winter festival, eul log, eul time.
• ·         Sinter claus, st Nicholas, then santa claus- based off odens wild hunt through the sky on an eight legged horse
• ·         Each of the three tribes comes from the sons of german “sky god”, tiu, tier.
• ·         Thursday is thors day, thunder god, thor=thunder
• ·         Friday is named after a Germanic goddess, friga or frea, possibly eastra
• ·         East comes from direction of suns rise, eastra and fertility can connect to easter
• ·         Bunnys and eggs represent fertility and fertility with eastra
• ·         Loki-father of hel, daughter banished to cold dark world of evil dead, name borrowed by Christianity became name of Christian concept of hell
• ·         Secured in kings james bible to describe hades
• ·         Germanic tribes had split belief of land of the dead (Viking funeral) burial at sea in ship
• ·         Soul can be traced back to place where the dead went
• ·         Original version of hell was an underwater kingdom of souls
• ·         Cella- sella- cell= place where person is contained
• 
  

            “Hey did you hear, Stacy is such a slut.” “I hate your fuckin guts you slut, you fuckin slut, I hope you die” –Eminem. “You don’t wanna date her, she’s a slut” But wait what is a slut and why is it such a common term amongst today’s youth and what are they exactly saying when they reference a slut. The oxford English dictionary defines a slut as, “A woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits or appearance; a foul slattern.” Its earliest reference was in in 1402 when Thomas Hoccleve used, “The foulest slutte of al a town.” So the way we think of a slut is a promiscuous woman? It seemed correct, many dictionaries such as Merrium Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus, and New International Dictionary. However, at first, I missed something; the definition references a dirty woman of untidy habits, appearances, or foul slattern. In some of these definitions, such as that in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and even in the few previously listed; there are a couple more definitions. In the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Slut is defined as a kitchen maid, a woman of low or loose character, a female dog, bitch. So what does this mean? A slut is a kitchen maid? Someone like Cinderella, who cleans kitchens and homes? In 1609, the term Slut is used as a noun by Charles Butler to describe a piece of rag dipped in lard or fat and used as a light. However, this side path on the word just circles back to the source. The Slut referenced is just the lamp in which a “Slut” uses when cleaning or for light. However, while searching the Dictionary of Confusable Words, the definition of slut said “see slag.” A slag is defined as, “A woman who looks disreputable and who is regarded as sexually immoral. However, slag stresses the sexual side and slut the appearance, so that the two are not really incompatible.” So slut was a cultural term used to describe someone who is dirty and unclean and slag described the sexually loose nature, but like it is defined, the two are much alike.

            At this point I will not just let that be the answer, I wanted to keep digging deeper. Now that there is clearly a cultural impact on the word, its usage, and definition, I went back to the source. Johnson’s Dictionary defines slut as everything previously listed as well as, “an awkward person, animal, or thing,” and “a female dog, a bitch.” So clearly, the dirty animalistic nature of a slut has something to do with the definition. So why is slut partially defined as being a bitch? From the understanding of the word slut so far, a slut is a dirty woman, a maid, and someone of a possibly loose sexual, sloven, prowess. At this point I looked at the word bitch. The oldest known usage was circa 1000 found in Anglo- Saxon and Old English Vocab. The term was used to describe a female dog. So it would now make sense that a female dog could be seen as a kitchen or house maid, seeing how repressive culture was on women at points in history. At this point after searching dictionaries, definitions, and literature, it still leaves me to wonder, where did the word slut come from and why. It is a blend of a cultural repression of women, especially those in the lower classes, loose sexual nature, and being dirty. And after all this time and research I have come to a hypothesis, bitch turned into slut do tooooooooooooo…………..wait for it………..bad linguistics. Yup bad linguistics. You start with bitch which defines a female dog or dirty animal. After being spoken for so long and later picked up by different individuals traveling around the western European region and having it blend with many lisps, accents, and languages, it is possible that bitch was morphed into slutch. Slutch in the Oxford English Dictionary is defined as mud, mire, slush. So we are now at dirt and things that cause someone to be dirty. From here the word could again have morphed into Slag or slut depending on where the word was used and by who. From that point on the word slut stuck and became a part of the English vocabulary to define a very promiscuous woman who is very sexually active. Now the fun part. I can back up my theory on the word bitch morphing into Slut by addressing the words slut and sloot. Urban dictionary, the always trusty and handy index and insight into the world of teenage slang and words defines a slut as………..”a women with the morals of a man.” Another definition is “Someone who provides a very needed service for the community and sleeps with everyone, even the guy that has no shot at getting laid and everyone knows it. She will give him a sympathy fuck either because someone asked her to or she just has to fuck everyone she knows. These are great people, and without them sex crimes would definitly increase. Thank you slut, where ever you are.” Now being around teens and having been one of them, we also liked to use the term sloot. “Sloot is the basic word. The more O's in "sloot", the sluttier the girl is. 2 O's is the minimum; you can add as many O's as necessary to add emphasis to just how slutty the girl is.” And my favorite “A word that I thought I made up but apparently did not.” This helps to back up my theory that the word bitch morphed into slut. Because due to who is using the word and how they are saying it you can turn it into something completely different. 

http://prezi.com/okmyddos6bnv/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

I cant remember the last time I tried to communicate with someone who had a different language background than myself. The biggest thing I noticed, even though it took me a minute, was that my english skills are far more advanced that i know, being a Russian student and studying the language for the past year and a half has taught me how one word can change an entire conversation. Saying your doing great, to a non native english speaker, could be way different than just good. I found myself trying as hard as I could to make my sentences and questions as simple as possible so that someone with only 6 months of english could understand, in short. It really brings english full circle.

Its crazy to think how the world works. We are able to see things change right before our eyes, but when you go to understand what is actually happening, that is when things get skewed. We look back into the history of humanity hundreds and hundreds of years, strange symbols on walls and tablets, languages that hold no meaning in this modern world. There are over six thousand languages, but I could only name maybe 15. It made me thing of how technology has changed so much and how an ever expanding world has had its effect on language. For many European countries English is almost as natural to them as it is us here in america. However, you could go a stones throw away in a place like Canada and all of the sudden everyone is speaking French. The craziest thought is how language, communication, has become so blended. We may have over six thousand languages, many of which are dead, but its incredible that you have over a billion speakers of one specific language on a planet filled with over 6 billion people. One in six compared to one in and undefinable number.

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— worddictions (@worddictions) January 29, 2015

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— worddictions (@worddictions) January 30, 2015

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— worddictions (@worddictions) January 31, 2015

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— worddictions (@worddictions) February 2, 2015

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— worddictions (@worddictions) February 2, 2015