//This is a rant//

Every little girl has seen them, we all know of them, the sugary sweet Disney princess movies that have captured the hearts and imaginations of little girls all over the world. Whether your favourite princess was Snow White, Cinderella or Ariel (personally I always loved Aurora from Sleeping Beauty), we all knew the songs and the stories and at some point in our lives, fallen for at least one of those Tall, Handsome princes that sweep our favourite heroine off her dainty feet.

And why wouldn’t he? I know very few straight women that wouldn’t be attracted to a Tall, Striking stranger. I’m sure it wasn’t just me that had daydreamed about being a princess, with the dresses, and the tiaras, and finding my prince that would sing to me, and we’d dance and he’d tell me I was the most beautiful thing in the world. Surely that’s healthy for a little girl? Apparently not.

Here we are, facing another pointless dilemma brought up my overprotective parents. Some argue that the merchandising of dolls such as the Disney princesses creates gender divides, as well as giving girls unrealistic beliefs of men and love. "Princess Dolls are promoting a very narrow and prescriptive view of femininity, and one that ought to be outmoded in the 21st century. I think they are regressive,” says Dr Melanie Waters, lecturer in English literature and specialist in feminist theory at Northumbria University. They encourage girls to be passive, and to nurture. There is also, says Dr Waters: “an aggressive focus on beauty, hair accessories and other images that promote the idea that girls should be concerned with their appearance”.

Now I don’t want to seem anti-feminist at all, I still get incredibly annoyed that for every £1.00 a man earns, a woman gets only 82p, but I feel that these people are looking far too much into the world of Disney. Were you all cursed by an evil enchantress when you were children? Because I’ve never met a Seven year old girl that hasn’t wanted to grow up and be a princess, Disney obsession or not. Then to say these girls are being brainwashed into becoming appearance obsessed, relationship craving bimbos, is just stupid. Surely all you extremist parents have enough to worry about without throwing Disney movies into the mix?

We’re constantly told that Princesses are giving girls a reason to be obsessed with being beautiful, or you won’t fall in love, and live happily ever after, but what about their positive traits? Each of the Disney Princesses are uncommonly kind, generous and hardworking. Some of them even take their destiny into their own hands, for example, Pocahontas giving up love, to lead her people, or Mulan, risking her life pretending to be a male warrior and save her father.

But of course, the way these princesses look, is far more important than how they act, or what they believe, right? Because they’re giving the “wrong impression” with their tiny waists, long legs and big busts. But what I can’t get my head around is how parents constantly tell their children not to judge purely on looks, and yet they are telling others and their kids that Disney films are bad due to the unrealistic way the women LOOK in the film. But why am I even bothering to express my comments on these movies, after all, the only reason they were created was to rile up mollycoddling mothers, oh and that other tiny reason, what was it again? Oh yeah, to entertain children, and give them something to enjoy and connect with.

As Disney continue to create new Disney Princess films over the years, introducing “Rapunzel” and their first black princess “Tiana” in “The Princess and the Frog”, both being very independent and self reliant, showing that Disney are making progress, people are still falling back and over-analysing the films from the 1920’s, which infuriates me, as this distasteful deprecation is making it harder to fully enjoy classic children’s films with your child without feeling riddled with guilt because you are the reason they are going to die alone with nothing but their hallucinogenic prince charming to keep them company.

Not only that, I find it terribly sad that people are so sure that women are so unbelievably stupid, and gullible, that it only takes a couple of Disney films and some merchandise to turn them into appearance obsessed, hopeless romantics that can’t care for themselves at all. “We’ve had one date! It must me love, after all, Cinderella only met Prince Charming once, then they got married! That’s how relationships work, Right?”

Please, if not for me, but for your own kids, just let them watch Disney films. Your kids wont be younger for much longer, at least give them the satisfaction of being able to lose themselves in the magic of Disney when they’re younger, before they come crashing down to reality as they grow up.

//OH MY GOSH AN ACTUAL PIECE OF WRITING//

Noah, the Whale and Me.

The village hall was dark and uncomfortably hot due to the spotlights blazing and the sea of bodies crushed together, yet still dancing to the infectious rhythms and ear-popping drums that made your entire body vibrate, and your ribs want to burst out your chest. In front of me were four men I had only seen on NME or my CD covers. There was Charlie Fink, the skinny, gaunt and soulful lead singer, Fred Abbott, the older, wiser and totally at ease pianist, Urby Whale, the small, wild Bass guitarist and, finally, Tom Hobden, the young and free fiddler and backing singer.

I had waited for this moment for at least three years. After falling in love with their first album “Peaceful the World Lays Me Down” and then feeling my heart brutally break during their second album “The First Days of Spring”( in which Fink writes about his brutal breakup with folk singer Laura Marling), I was practically buzzing for at least a week before the gig itself. I knew all the words, I had the third album, “Last Night on Earth” in my bag. I was ready to bask in music of Noah and the Whale, to listen to the songs that were so melancholic of the past, yet hopeful for the future.

The concert passed in a whirl of light and sound. The band had told jokes, stories, played flawlessly, and sang their hearts out. I, in return, had laughed, grinned stupidly, and sang until I was hoarse, as did the rest of the audience. The gig was cosy and intimate, and though I knew barely anyone at the gig, I still felt a sense of belonging as we all chanted along to Charlie’s rich, baritone voice, as Toms rose and fell into the background. I had never felt so much like a part of something.  As the show ended, I looked back at the empty stage and wished I could have told them how much I had enjoyed the show.

It was only when I was walking around the back of the venue when I saw a group of four, all in matching suits and trilby hats, all holding instruments, and chatting away. It had to be them. It had to be, I couldn’t think of any other buttoned up, suited and booted musical artists that were playing in Bristol… So I casually composed myself, notified my friend Ellie, and we did what any completely calm and composed fan would do.

We grabbed a pen and some merchandise, and we ran.

I don’t think I had ever run so fast in my life. Me and Ellie sprinted to the back entrance, as I frantically tried to think of ways to sound witty, funny, and genuine all at the same time. In the end, as we ran up to them, all my ideas of greetings and wit just melted out of my head and were replaced with thoughts of “Charlie is so short!”, “Should I ask if I can have Tom’s hat?”, “I will tell this story to EVERYONE.” So as Tom and Charlie turned round and greeted us, I settled for meekly saying “Hi…” and giving them my CD to sign.

They were everything I expected of them, and more. They were quietly confident, intelligent, charming and genuinely seemed flattered when I told them I adored their music. Fortunately, Ellie was thinking a little straighter than I was, so she asked them for a picture, of which they happily accepted.

They smelt of wood smoke and pine, and as I stood between Tom and Charlie, with their arms around me, I thought my heart might just explode. As they returned the camera, I wanted to tell them how much I had idolised them, how their music had helped me through so much, how their gig was a triumph, but instead I just gaped and grinned and said ‘thank you’ more times than it should be humanly possible.

It was only after the band has said their farewells and left when me and Ellie completely lost the plot. My skin was still warm where Charlie and Tom were huddled around me, and my CD covered in their signatures. We ran, and jumped and laughed and generally looked completely mad, before heading home.

It’s safe to say I didn’t sleep that much that night.

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The form would probably be a music blog post, mainly because a music magazine would probably want more focus on the gig itself. I focused a lot on Tom and Charlie, saying “They smelt of wood smoke and pine”, and I didn’t go into too much detail about the gig itself, such as not telling them the set list, only that the band had “played flawlessly”. The purpose of this article mainly to entertain, so I used phrases that could be humorous and easy to read, such as when “all my ideas of wit just melted out of my head and were replaced with thoughts of “Charlie is so short!”, “Should I ask if I can have Tom’s hat?”, “I will tell this story to EVERYONE.”.  Although it’s other purposes are to review and inform, as I gave them information about the band, such as album history, and information on the type of music, saying it was “melancholic when thinking of the past, yet hopeful for the future” as well as giving a short review of the concert itself. The Audience would be roughly based on just Noah and the Whale fans. Their fans are usually young adults aged from 16 to 25, though there are exceptions with some older fans, and some younger, so I made sure to make my piece of writing mature, but not too much so, so I can, hopefully, keep everyone engaged. I made sure to give information about Charlie and Tom, saying “they were quietly confident, intelligent, charming and genuinely seemed flattered when I told them I adored their music.”

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I hope you enjoyed this?
Maybe?

Types of Nouns

A Noun is a naming word. There are several different types of noun.

Common Noun

The name of any non specific person, place or thing. Common nouns do not have capital letters.

(Chair, boy and spoon.)

Proper Noun

The name of a specific place, person or thing. Proper nouns have capital letters.

(Iceland, Jonsi and Mini Cooper.)

Concrete Noun

The name of an object that actually exists in physical space.

(table, cushion and paper.)

Abstract Noun

The name of a concept rather than something you can physically touch.

(love, happiness and humour.)

Collective Noun

The name of a group of people, or things all of one kind.

(Flock, staff, or team.)

Types of Verbs

Full Verbs (Sometimes called Lexical Verbs)

These act as main verbs and describe an action, thought, or feeling. There is no limit to these words in this class.

Auxilary Verbs

These usually accompany a Main Verb;

(To have, to be, will, must, ect.)

Modal Auxilary Verbs

Lexis meaning possibly, probably, or certainty.

(Will, would, shall, should, might and can.)

Primary Verbs

These can function as either Main Verbs, or Auxilary Verbs. There are three:

(Be, have and do.)

//VERBS CAN BE ACTIVE OR PASSIVE//

They have tense:

Simple Present - I write,

Present Continuous - I am writing,

Simple Past - I wrote,

Perfect Past - I have written,

 and Future - The Auxilary Verb 'will' is used to create the future tense; I will write.

//THEY HAVE MOODS//

Indicative - Questions and facts (Rachel is shouting),

 Imperative - Commands (Shout, Rachel!),

 or Subjunctive - Conditions, Wishes and Suppostions (If Rachel were to shout...).

How exciting.

Types of Lexis

There are two types of lexis:

Low Frequency Lexis (LFL),

and High Frequency Lexis (HFL)

LFL are words that aren't commonly used. For example, LFL for a British person:

Hot, Sunny, and Happy.

LFL for a normal person:

Established, ought, lexis, demographic & abundence.

HFL are words that are often used, such as;

Is, the, and, but and because.

(I suppose HFL for British people would be:

Tea, rain and annoyed.)

Frameworks (THE LANGUAGE BIBLE)

Lexis/FrameworksWhat type of words does it use?

What are the relationships between them?

(Word classics, lexical cohesion, lexical fields, semantic relationships and figurative language.)

Grammar, Morphology and Syntax

How are the words created?

What kind of larger structures such as phrases and sentences are used?

(Word formation, phrases, clauses, sentence types and function and grammatical cohesion.)

Phonology

How is sound used?

(Sound pronounciaton, phonemes and sound symbolism.)

Pragmatics

How does the context affect the text's production and reception?

How do these texts operate in real life?

(How do they rely on social conventions, shared understanding and implied meanings?)

Discourse and structure

How is the text structured?

(Discourse patterns and discourse types.)

Graphology

What visual aspects of the text are present?

(Shape, signs, logos, typographical features and space.)

Dear lord that's a lot to learn

//Hello there//

My name is Beth, and as you can probably tell, I don't write much. But hopefully I'm going to change that. That is if I don't forget, or just can't be bothered. My English teacher has sent me here to write, so they'll be a mash up of writing from class, and hopefully some just for the hell of it. Okay... Here we go!