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| Cover of "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes", by Arthur Conan Doyle. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
One of the primary complaints of the new Common Core standards for
Language arts is that it radically reduces student “facility with
language” (in the words of Sandra Stotsky).
That is, it systematically removes the study of all kinds of literature, replacing it with “informational text.” A look at the Sherlock Holmes story, “The Blue Carbuncle” will give us an example, just one of many of the reductive impact on student thinking, on the very ability to think, in fact.
That is, it systematically removes the study of all kinds of literature, replacing it with “informational text.” A look at the Sherlock Holmes story, “The Blue Carbuncle” will give us an example, just one of many of the reductive impact on student thinking, on the very ability to think, in fact.
The average adult in today’s society already accepts whatever he is told, never glancing beyond the surface or examining the method by which any given story is told. The imposition of Common Core will turn everyone into robotic, work-place laborers with no danger of having an original thought.
“The Blue Carbuncle” is a Sherlock Holmes story in which the intrepid
detective discovers the identity of the thief who stole the blue stone
and under pressure of discovery, forced the stone down the gullet of the
Christmas goose which had been given to him by his sister. The thief
loses track of the goose, confusing its identity among the flock, and
the sister unwittingly sells the goose containing the stone. That goose
then ends up in Holmes’ kitchen where his cook finds the stone in the
goose’s crop.
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| Mick with Bob Katter - politician (centre) and Bec |
The story gets more interesting from a language/rhetoric view point when one realizes the origin of the word “carbuncle.”
Today it is used to refer to a large pus filled sore, basically a boil. The meaning in Holmes’ day, now considered obsolete, is a cabochoned, or rounded rather than faceted, shape. To understand how we get from gem stone to boil, one only needs to know that the word “carbuncle” comes from the Latin “carbunculus” meaning a small glowing ember, the diminutive of coal.
The carbuncle gem, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, was a cabochoned gem of almandine which is a garnet containing iron and aluminum, making the carbuncle a brilliant, deep red. However, garnets come in a wide variety of colors, depending on the mineral content.
