Low Down

  When bad men do what good men dream, psychiatrists are called upon to explain why. Murder is the crime of crimes. Murder inspires the ultimate in feelings of repugnance, fear, and fascination. Given the horrible circumstances of many murders, the neophyte forensic psychiatrist’s first interview with a murderer is usually an astonishing experience. For the murderer is not a blood-dripping monster but is usually a quiet, reasonably cooperative, guy-next-door type of human being who is uncomfortably like any other person—including the psychiatrist. The comparison between the guy next door and the blood-dripping monster becomes even more unnerving when one realizes that even good men’s consciences are regularly roiled by murderous fantasies and dreams.   The FBI defines murder as the unlawful taking of life for the purpose of achieving expressing power, brutality, personal gain, and, occasionally, sexuality. In the criminal justice system, murder is considered to be a subset...

  It is necessary to draw a distinction between formal speech or 'spoken prose' and the informal speech used in most spontaneous conversation. This is not, of course, a simple binary opposition: there are many intermediate gradations, ranging from the extremely formal (ceremonial formulae, some political speeches), through the fairly formal (news-reading, lectures), to the fairly informal (television interviews, most classroom teaching) and the very informal (gossip, family quarrels)". But for the purposes of this discussion a firm division will be made: any types of discourse which fall more or less under the first two categories I will call 'formal', those in the last two 'informal'. Informal speech is usually both spontaneous and colloquial; formal speech is characteristically neither. Some intermediate types of discourse may be one but not the other: the speech of a character in a play, as delivered by an actor, may use colloquial language but is not sp...

  In non-formal contexts learners are encouraged to monitor and self-correct or peer-correct whenever they can. The best learning takes place when the learner is aware that the error has been made, to make this process more effective the learners may use some strategies : ü      listening to the news I weather forecast I sports report I ü      announcements etc. on the radio ü      discussing work I current problems with family or colleagues ü      making arrangements I exchanging news etc. with acquaintances ü      making arrangements I exchanging news etc. over the telephone ü      chatting at a party I other social gathering ü      hearing announcements over the loudspeaker (at a railway ü      station, for example, or airport) ü      receiving instructions on how to do something I get somewhere ü ...