ng audience, including one that Shakespeare later borrowed - All s well that ends well.does bread always fall buttered side down ?: An expression of a pessimistic view of life.: The BBC broadcast a short programme based on this question in 2007. Instead of what might have been an interesting investigation into why some people are pessimistic glass-half-empty people and others take an optimistic glass-half-full approach, we were presented with a rather silly pseudo-science attempt to explain the hydro-dynamics of bread and toast, as if the question were a real one. Of course, bread and toast don t always land butter or jam side down - they sometimes do and they sometimes don t, depending on circumstances.question is rhetorical, adding a long-suffering pessimistic weariness to similar unanswerable queries, like why did the chicken cross the road? and why are the cameras always on this side of the pitch? . buttered-side down scenario is often cited as an example of Murphy s Law, or Sod s Law, that is, if anything can go wrong, it will laquo ;. In fact, it is a 19th century phrase/notion and long pre-dates Murphy, who was (probably) an American aerospace engineer and is credited with coining his law in the late 1940s.Knickerbocker; or, New York Monthly Magazine published this little ditty in 1835: never had a slice of bread, large and wide, did not fall upon the floor, always on the buttered side! idea that bad luck in some way causes bread to fall buttered side down was preceded by the converse, and no less perverse, superstition that bread falling buttered side down causes bad luck. This was recorded in John Timbs popular science journal Knowledge for the People, published in Boston, USA, in 1832 may here notice a remarkable Latin superstition, that if a child s slice of bread and butter be let fall with the buttered side downwards, it is an unlucky omen ; if with the other side, lucky.in Rome, do as the Romans do .: It is polite, and possibly also advantageous, to abide by the customs of a society when one is a visitor .: Why should an English proverb single out Rome and Roman values ??as especially to be emulated? Couldn t we have had a when in Ipswich, do as the Ipswichians do for example? As it turns out, it s all to do with the travel arrangements of a couple of early Christian saints.Augustine: Letters Volume I was translated from the Latin by Sister W. Parsons and published in 1951. Letter 54 to Januarius contains this original text, which date from circa 390AD: I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but here [Milan] I do not. Do you also follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal? Use of the proverb in English isn t recorded until much later - well into the Middle Ages. Robert Burton s The Anatomy of Melancholy was first published in 1621. Burton makes oblique reference to the phrase, without using it explicitly:
... like Mercury, the planet, are good with good, bad with bad. When they are at Rome, they do there as they see done, puritans with puritans, papists with papists ...
. What is students opinion about this matter?
have already proved main statements of my issue. However, I can not make any conclusions until I will conduct a research, which will show us what is students level of linguistics, do we need to pay attention to it and how can we improve our education system., Before starting the research I looked through my students books in English, I found out very interesting thing. In the student s book for eleventh form every eleventh exercise is written about English culture or by English writers. Meanwhile in my student s book for Advanced level every twelfth exercise is written also about English culture or by English writer.to make certain that Russian students also comprehend this importance I created a questionnaire, which consists of next questions:
Do you think that to be successful at learning foreign languages ??you should be aware of its culture?
Meanings of which proverbs do you exactly know:
. Jack of all trades;
2. Don t look a gift horse in the mouth;
. Why does bread always fall buttered side down;
. When in Rome, do as Romans do?
- Do you think that you should pay more attention to this matter? were unpredictable. It appeared to be that students, who are studying at college now, do not want to be aware of the culture of England and they do not think that they should pay attention to this matter. It probably happened so, as they already know everything, unfortunately, they do not., Students from my school want to be aware of the culture and want to pay more attention to this matter. Moreover, most of them know all pr...
