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Showing posts from June, 2020

Votes for Women

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I am taking a course on FutureLearn called Beyond the Ballot. It is about the campaign by women in Britain to get the vote in the early part of the 20th century.  I am learning a lot about the different groups involved in trying to win the vote and about the organisations and individuals who were opposed to it happening.  The suffragettes are one group of women who decided to take direct action to forward their cause. Their motto was " Deeds not Words " and they committed acts of what would now be called terrorism on a large scale. I had heard of women chaining themselves to railings as they did outside Buckingham Palace and parading with placards  but I did not know about the blowing up of the contents of post boxes or the arson attempts on buildings and the physical assaults on politicians such as Prime Minister Asquith. Come this way madam The suffragettes who took part in demonstrations or committed outrages as they were known were liable to arrest, trial , and , if  the

Language of a Pandemic : Part 2 , June 2020

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Two and a half months into lockdown what are the words and the phrases that surround us on television, the radio, social media and a multiplicity of websites?  I first wrote about this in mid April 2020. So here is an update. Here is my selection :- Covid 19,  the novel coronavirus, is the evil heart of our troubles. As a result we have :- Shops, restaurants, bars and cinemas , all closed. Temporarily ? Sanitiser,  gel and  plain old soap as  the weapons against disease. The R number, the rate at which infection spreads. It has to be below one we are told. Cases  of coronavirus registered,  numbers hospitalised  , deaths recorded, facts ,  figures and statistics updated. The  daily government briefing. Analysis by scientists .nd questions. Questions from press and public. Slogans , sound bites  and catch phrases. Stay alert, protect the NHS , save lives. Shielding the vulnerable and those most at risk. Testing, results, antibodies , resistance, immunity. Vaccina