What is in a name?
In this podcast we talk about surnames in The UK, especially including some famous names and where they originate from – so we are looking at what is in a name.
Everyone has one, no matter where you are from (with a few notable exceptions) and they are what make us, ‘us’.
Your surname, or family name, links you to thousands of people around the world, and the development of surnames, and their unique qualities are something that has interested people from all over the world for many years.
Your surname is your last name, your family name, and gives you a sense of belonging to that group of people with the same name as you.
Surnames originated in places where highly concentrated populations meant that first names were not sufficient enough to differentiate between people, some were from physical appearances, some from family, some from geographical features and some were from trades and jobs.
The variation in the meaning behind a surname is wide and far reaching.
In some areas around the world, the surname is written first, but the aim of the surname is still for the same common goal, to differentiate people from other groups.
Some surnames originated in far off lands and were changed slightly to fit into the country where people emigrated to and some are composite names, made from both the mother’s and fathers family to make what we call a double-barrelled name.
During the reign of King Richard 1, known as “The Lionheart”, 1189 – 1199 surnames became necessary when governments introduced taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to “develop” often leading to some unusual variants of the original spelling.
Let us know your surname and if you know the origins, then please share it with our listeners in the comments below.
Find your surname here
And here and here and here
Emmanuel shares his bucket list with us.
To be fair, he was asked with little or no time to think about it, so maybe, if we did it again, as we most probably will do, the bucket list would probably be very different than this one.
It is quite an interesting exercise to redo a bucket list, as in fact, it almost forces people to really think about what they would lreally like to do – hence a bucket list is created almost by accident.
Ayurveda the science of life is an medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent.
Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population report using it.
Ayurveda therapies have varied and evolved over more than two millennia.
Therapies include medicines, special diets, meditation, yoga, massage, laxatives, enemas, and medical oils.
Medicines are typically based on complex herbal compounds, minerals, and metal substances (perhaps under the influence of early Indian alchemy or rasa shastra).
Ancient Ayurveda texts also taught surgical techniques, including rhinoplasty, kidney stone extractions, sutures, and the extraction of foreign objects.
The main classical Ayurveda texts begin with accounts of the transmission of medical knowledge from the gods to sages, and then to human physicians.
In Sushruta Samhita (Sushruta’s Compendium), Sushruta wrote that Dhanvantari, Hindu god of Ayurveda, incarnated himself as a king of Varanasi and taught medicine to a group of physicians, including Sushruta.
Ayurveda has been adapted for Western consumption, notably by Baba Hari Dass in the 1970s and Maharishi Ayurveda in the 1980s.
Some scholars assert that Ayurveda originated in prehistoric times, and that some of the concepts of Ayurveda have existed from the time of the Indus Valley Civilization or even earlier.
Ayurveda developed significantly during the Vedic period and later some of the non-Vedic systems such as Buddhism and Jainism also developed medical concepts and practices that appear in the classical Ayurveda texts.
In Ayurveda texts, Doṣa balance is emphasized, and suppressing natural urges is considered unhealthy and claimed to lead to illness.
Ayurveda treatises describe three elemental doṣas viz. vāta, pitta and kapha, and state that balance (Skt. sāmyatva) of the doṣas results in health, while imbalance (viṣamatva) results in disease. Ayurveda treatises divide medicine into eight canonical components.
Ayurveda practitioners had developed various medicinal preparations and surgical procedures from at least the beginning of the common era.
Listen to Renu, an Ayurveda practioner in north India talk about Ayurveda.
Le Tour de France comes to Toulouse
STAGE 11: ALBI – TOULOUSE 17 July 2019
Wednesday 17 July – Following the first rest day of this year’s race, the Tour de France continues with stage 11 from Albi to Toulouse.
The 167 kilometres route meanders through the south of France against the backdrop of the Pyrenees on what is described as a flat stage, although there were plenty of hills to climb for the riders.
The last sections were pretty flat, so a bunch sprint is the most likely outcome.
This is the last flat stage before the climbs in The Pyrenees.The finish was in Compans Cafarelli, not far from the city centre.
The Proust Questionnaire is a questionnaire about one’s personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust.
At the end of the nineteenth century, when Proust was still in his teens, he answered a questionnaire in an English-language confession album belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future French President Félix Faure, titled “An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc.” At that time, it was popular among English families to answer such a list of questions that revealed the tastes and aspirations of the taker.
Proust answered always with enthusiasm. The original manuscript of his answers of 1890, at the time of his volunteer internship or some little time afterwards, titled “by Marcel Proust himself,” was found in 1924. It was auctioned on May 27, 2003 for the sum of €102,000.
The French television host Bernard Pivot, seeing an opportunity for a writer to reveal at the same time aspects of his work and his personality, traditionally subjected his guests to the Proust questionnaire at the end of the French broadcast Apostrophes.
Inspired by Bernard Pivot, James Lipton, the host of the TV program Inside the Actors Studio, gives an adapted version of the Proust Questionnaire to his guests. Lipton has often incorrectly characterized the questionnaire itself as an invention of Pivot.
A similar questionnaire is regularly seen on the back page of Vanity Fair magazine, answered by various celebrities. In October 2009, Vanity Fair launched an interactive version of the questionnaire, that compares individual answers to those of various luminaries.
Another version of the questionnaire, as answered by various Canadian authors, is a regular feature on the radio program The Next Chapter.
For the benefits of this quick-fire question podcast, we have simplified it even further and we make no claims that it reveals the true personality of the person – especially as the questions are asked in English to a non-native person.
What it is, is a lot of fun.
So what’s an animated podcast ?
Good question !
It’s a podcast with pictures, learning tips and clues. In short, it’s just a helping hand to help you understand the conversation and the context.
This is Animated Podcast number 2 in a series of 10, in which each one has a specific focus and gets progressively more challenging.
The second one, Calculate your Carbon Footprint, is a conversation around the World Wildlife Quiz which asks lots of How questions; how many, how much, how far, how big etc.
Who is it designed for ?
It’s a perfect opportunity for new learners (pre-intermediate) to focus on adverbs of frequency to talk about everyday actions and activities, and also learn everyday vocabulary.
It’s a great way for Intermediate learners to consolidate knowledge.
Enjoy and Welcome to the English Podcasts Youtube Channel !
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