The Olympics - Ancient Greek Funeral Games

The Olympics - Ancient Greek Funeral Games Its a curious aspect of sports that even when they are part of a celebration of global peace, like the Olympics, they are nationalistic, competitive, violent, and potentially deadly. Substitute panhellenic (open to all Greeks) for global and the same could be said about the ancient Olympics. Sports, in general, could be described as ritualized warfare where one power competes with another, where each hero (star athlete) strives to defeat a worthy opponent within a setting where death is unlikely. Rituals of Compensation for the Catastrophe of Death Control and ritual seem to be the defining terms. In coming to grips with the eternally present fact of death (remember: antiquity was a time of high infant mortality, death by diseases we can now control, and almost incessant warfare), the ancients put on shows where death was under human control. Sometimes the outcome of these shows was purposeful submission to death (as in the gladiatorial games), at other times, it was ​a  victory. Origin of the Games in Funerals The[re] are a number of possible explanations of the custom of funeral games such as to honor a dead warrior by reenacting his military skills, or as a renewal and affirmation of life to compensate for the loss of a warrior or as an expression of the aggressive impulses that accompany rage over the death. Perhaps they are all true at the same time.- Roger Dunkles Recreation and Games * In honor of his friend Patroclus, Achilles held funeral games (as described in Iliad 23). In honor of their father, Marcus and Decimus Brutus held the first gladiatorial games in Rome in 264 BCE. The Pythian Games celebrated Apollos slaying of the Python. The Isthmian games were a funeral tribute to the hero Melicertes. The Nemean games celebrated either Hercules killing of the Nemean lion or the funeral of Opheltes. All of these games celebrated death. But what about the Olympics? The Olympic games also began as a celebration of death, but like the Nemean games, the mythological explanations for the Olympics are confused. Two central figures used to explain the origins are Pelops and Hercules who are genealogically linked insofar as Hercules mortal father was Pelops grandson. Pelops Pelops wished to marry Hippodamia, the daughter of King Oenomaus of Pisa who had promised his daughter to the man who could win a chariot race against him. If the suitor lost the race, he would also lose his head. Through treachery, Oenomaus had kept his daughter unmarried and through treachery, Pelops won the race, killed the king, and married Hippodamia. Pelops celebrated his victory or King Oenomaus funeral with Olympic games. The site of the ancient Olympics was in Elis, which is in Pisa, in the Peloponnese. Hercules After Hercules cleaned the Augean stables, the king of Elis (in Pisa) welshed on his deal, so, when Hercules had a chance after he finished his labors he returned to Elis to wage war. The conclusion was foregone. After Hercules sacked the city, he put on the Olympic games to honor his father Zeus. In another version, Hercules merely regularized the games Pelops had instituted.

Editing - Definition and Guidelines

Editing - Definition and Guidelines Editing is a stage of the writing process in which a writer or editor strives to improve a draft (and sometimes prepare it for publication) by correcting errors and by making words and sentences clearer, more precise, and more effective. The process of  editing involves adding, deleting, and rearranging words along with recasting sentences and  cutting the clutter. Tightening our writing and mending faults can turn out to be a remarkably creative activity, leading us to clarify ideas, fashion fresh images, and even radically rethink the way we approach a topic. Put another way, thoughtful editing can inspire further  revision  of our work. EtymologyFrom the French, to publish, edit   Observations Two Types of EditingThere are two types of editing: the ongoing edit and the draft edit. Most of us edit as we write and write as we edit, and its impossible to slice cleanly between the two. Youre writing, you change a word in a sentence, write three sentences more, then back up a clause to change that semicolon to a dash; or you edit a sentence and a new idea suddenly spins out from a word change, so you write a new paragraph where until that moment nothing else was needed. That is the ongoing edit. . . .For the draft edit, you stop writing, gather a number of pages together, read them, make notes on what works and doesnt, then rewrite. It is only in the draft edit that you gain a sense of the whole and view your work as a detached professional. It is the draft edit that makes us uneasy, and that arguably matters most.(Susan Bell, The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself. W.W. Norton, 2007)Editing CheckpointsThe final step for the writer is to go back and clean up the r ough edges. . . . Here are some checkpoints:Facts: Make sure that what youve written is what happened;Spelling: Check and recheck names, titles, words with unusual spellings, your most frequently misspelled words, and everything else. Use a spell check but keep training your eye;Numbers: Recheck the digits, especially phone numbers. Check other numbers, make sure all math is correct, give thought to whether numbers (crowd estimates, salaries, etc.) seem logical;Grammar: Subjects and verbs must agree; pronouns need correct antecedents; modifiers must not dangle; make your English teacher proud;Style: When it comes to repairing your story, leave the copy desk feeling like the washing machine repair guy who has nothing to do.(F. Davis, The Effective Editor. Poynter, 2000) Editing in ClassA large portion of everyday editing instruction can take place in the first few minutes of class . . .. Starting every class period with invitations to notice, combine, imitate, or celebrate is an easy way to make sure editing and writing are done every day. I want to communicate with my instruction that editing is shaping and creating writing as much as it is something that refines and polishes it. . . . I want to step away from all the energy spent on separating editing from the writing process, shoved off at the end of it all or forgotten about altogether.(Jeff Anderson, Everyday Editing. Stenhouse, 2007)Tinkering: The Essence of Writing WellRewriting is the essence of writing well: its where the game is won or lost. . . . Most writers dont initially say what they want to say, or say it as well as they could. The newly hatched sentence almost always has something wrong with it. Its not clear. Its not logical. Its verbose. Its klunky. Its pretentious. Its boring. It s full of clutter. Its full of cliches. It lacks rhythm. It can be read in several different ways. It doesnt lead out of the previous sentence. It doesnt . . . The point is that clear writing is the result of a lot of tinkering.(William Zinsser, On Writing Well. Harper, 2006) The Slap-and-Pat Theory of EditingWhat I try to practice is what I call the slap-and-pat theory of editing. Almost everything thats written needs some criticism. Almost everything thats written needs some praise, or deserves some praise. So you try to mix praise with criticism. Ideally, you do it sincerely. That is, you dont praise what you really dont like; but you praise what you really do like. You dont write 12 pages of things that are wrong, without remembering to find something else you like, that is already right.(Editor Samuel S. Vaughan, in an interview with the online journal Archipelago)The Lighter Side of EditingI hate cross-outs. If Im writing and I accidentally begin a word with the wrong letter, I actually use a word that does begin with that letter so I dont have to cross out. Hence the famous closing, Dye-dye for now. A lot of my letters make no sense, but they are often very neat.(Paula Poundstone, Theres Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say. Three Rivers Press, 2006) Pronunciation: ED-et-ing