Producing an index is like squeezing “ a grape in a winepress”, wrote

a 19th-century French scholar, “so that not even tiniest drop of precious 【M1】__________

juice has been allowed to escape”. Reading an index is more like wine-

tasting. Take the smallest sap and you can guess the vintage. 【M2】__________

Indexes are to books like menus are to meals: often the best bit. 【M3】__________

The index should be prosaic—it is, after all, a mere tool—but it can

read like poetry. Indexes are a solution, but they are also a puzzle.

The indexes were both an aid and a problem of its own. “Many 【M4】__________

people read only them,” tutted the hard-to-please Erasmus. An anxiety

has always hung them—that, while they enhance convenience, they 【M5】__________

threaten serendipity. To claim to have read a book when you have only

read the index, said Jonathan Swift, “like a traveler claiming to describe 【M6】__________

a palace when he had seen anything but the privy. “ 【M7】__________

But indexes could and can be fun. Brevity is the soul of wit, and

what is briefer than an index? At times they were astonishingly

ambitious: the Victorians strive to produce a “key to all knowledge”. 【M8】__________

Like railways, an author rhapsodized, indexes have “cleared the way;

they have leveled mountains and straightened the most torturous paths…

What a timesaver!”

They are still saving time. Where Victorian keys to everything

failed, Google has succeeded, says Mr. Duncan. For what is the search

engine but a giant, electronic index? Type in the word, and everything

appears instant. What a timesaver! And yet it is hard not to feel, like 【M9】__________

Erasmus, that something has lost. The mountains have been leveled, the 【M10】_________

paths straightened. The serendipity has gone.

Linguistics is the science of language, and linguists are scientists

who apply the scientific method for questions about the nature and 【M1】__________

function of language.

Linguists conduct formal studies of speech sounds, grammatical

structures, and meaning across all the world’s over 6,000 languages.

They also investigate the history of and changes within language families

and how language is inquired when we are infants. Linguists examine the 【M2】__________

relationship among written language and spoken language as well as the 【M3】__________

underlying neural structures that enable us to use language.

Clearly, many of the questions linguists pose overlapped with fields 【M4】__________

in the life sciences, social sciences, and humanities, thus make 【M5】__________

linguistics a multidisciplinary field. As a multidisciplinary field,

linguistics attempt to understand how language is stored in the human 【M6】__________

mind/brain and how it is part of everyday human behavior through its

sister fields of neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, anthropology,

sociology, and computer science.

This is important to note that the term “linguist” may cause some 【M7】__________

confusion because it is known to be used differently in non-academic

domains. Sometimes language experts are referred as linguists, but those 【M8】__________

individuals do not necessarily conduct the same kind of scientific

research on language carried out by those with advanced degrees in 【M9】__________

linguistics. “Polyglot” is the term used for a person who has knowledge

of multiple languages. And as it is possible for a person to be both a 【M10】_________

linguist and a polyglot, it is just as possible that a linguist speaks only one

language.

Individual purposes for pursuing education can vary. Understanding

the goals and means of educational socialization process may also differ

according to the sociological paradigm used.

The early years of schooling generally focuses around developing 【M1】__________

basic interpersonal communication and literacy skills. This lays a

foundation for more complex skills and subjects. Later, education

usually turns toward gaining the knowledge and skills needed to create

value and establishing a livelihood. 【M2】__________

People also pursue after education for its own sake to satisfy innate 【M3】__________

curiosity, out of interest in a specific subject or skill, or for overall

personal development.

Education is often understood as means of overcoming handicaps, 【M4】__________

achieving greater equality, and acquiring wealth and status for all.

Education is also often perceived as a place that children can develop 【M5】__________

according to their unique needs and potential, with the purpose of

developing every individual to their full potential.

Some claim that there is education inequality because children do

not exceed the education of their parents. This education inequality then 【M6】__________

associated with income inequality. Although critical thinking is a goal of

education, criticism and blame are often the unintended by-products of

our current educational process. Students often blame their teachers and

their textbooks, despite of the availability of libraries and the Internet. 【M7】__________

When someone tries to improve education, the educational establishment

itself occasional showers the person with criticism rather than gratitude. 【M8】__________

Better by-products of an educational system would be gratitude and

determination. Gratitude for all resources ( housing, food,

transportation, water and sewage treatment, hospitals, health care,

libraries, books, media, schools, the Internet, education, etc.) and the

determination to develop oneself would be productive than criticism and 【M9】__________

blame because the resources are readily available and because, unless you 【M10】_________

blame others, there is no need for you to do something different

tomorrow or for you to change and improve.