The Fire Inspector Who Rewired Language
Grammar: Subjunctive
A Level 6 English lesson exploring culture.
What's in this lesson
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL lesson on culture, practising subjunctive. The worksheet has a reading, target vocabulary, a grammar reference with practice and discussion questions.
From the reading: The Fire Inspector Who Rewired Language
"The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena," Benjamin Lee Whorf wrote in 1940, "we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organised by our minds — and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds." Whorf was not a professor. He had no university post, no graduate students, no research budget. He was, by trade, a fire-prevention inspector for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company in Connecticut, surveying warehouses and factories for hazards. Be that as it may, the field notes he kept in the margins of his working life would ignite one of the most heated controversies in twentieth-century linguistics.
Vocabulary
- field notes
- heated controversy
- lexical gap
- posthumous recognition
Grammar: Subjunctive
- Formulaic subjunctive
- Come what may, the committee will vote. — fixed phrase; verb uninflected
- Be that as it may
- Be that as it may, her evidence remains compelling. — concedes a point, holds position
Discussion questions
- Have you noticed that some ideas feel easier to think in one language than another?
- Why do you think non-experts sometimes make better scientific discoveries than trained specialists?
- Have you ever caught yourself thinking differently depending on which language you were using?
The Fire Inspector Who Rewired Language
Grammar: Subjunctive
What's in this lesson:
Full lesson plan with reading, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.
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