Get Your Goat

Get Your Goat Get Your Goat Get Your Goat By Maeve Maddox Until a reader asked me about it, I hadn’t encountered the eggcorn â€Å"to get one’s goad.† eggcorn: the reshaping of a common word or expression in a way that makes sense to the speaker. The expression is â€Å"to get one’s goat† (not goad). The earliest documentation in the OED is dated 1910. In modern usage, the usual meaning is â€Å"to annoy,† â€Å"to make angry,† â€Å"to cause someone to display emotion.† Here are examples: After Ferrer took office, when opponents really wanted to get his goat, they taunted him as â€Å"Stanley Ferrer.† The name made him seethe. Extreme left liberals and ultra-right conservatives both  get his goat. What seems to get his goat the most is that the recession seems to have knocked away people’s interest in the environment. Maitreya is famous for having subdued his temper through learning ‘patience under insult.’ You simply can’t upset him. Insults, curses, even blows will not get his goat or shake his equanimity.   The origin of the expression is, as they say, â€Å"obscure.† Various creative explanations have been put forth, including one that suggests the expression derives from the practice of giving racehorses goats as companions to keep them calm. The convoluted reasoning is that if someone were to â€Å"get† the goat before a race, the horse would be too upset to run well. If the expression does in fact derive from some connection with the animal–and not from some forgotten slang meaning for the word goat–I think it may relate to one of several associations with goats that exist in our culture. I won’t go into all of them now, but one characteristic is liveliness. The wild playful way goats jump about with sudden leaps and turns gives us the words caprice and capricious. It’s not much of a stretch to associate â€Å"to get one’s goat† with this aspect of goat behavior. I once watched someone try to get her pet goat under control. She looked like someone trying to catch a grasshopper without a net. The expression â€Å"to get one’s goat† could have something to do with comparing the struggle to control turbulent emotions to the difficulty of trying to catch a goat. I have found a quotation that bears out this explanation. It predates the one in the OED. In this example, a union president is taken by surprise when presented with a beautiful commemorative gavel: At the last meeting of No. 16 ex-President Colbert proceeded to get the goat of President Knott. [] Mr. Knott was taken completely by surprise, and it was some moments before he could get his â€Å"goat† under control and thank the members of No. 16 for such a magnificent gift. –The Typographical Journal, Volume 35 (1909). Human beings want things to make sense. Speakers who replace goat with goad are making an interesting mental leap. A goad is a pointed object used to prod animals; ergo, a person prodded with a goad would become angry. Nevertheless, the idiom is â€Å"to get one’s goat.† Related post: The Sands and Hands of Time Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and ToesWhen to Form a Plural with an ApostropheSentence Adverbs

Comparison Essay on High School and College

Comparison Essay on High School and College Comparison Essay on High School and College Some people may mistake college as a simple step above high school, but an examination of the two levels of study reveals that there are indeed numerous differences between the two. One of the differences is in the nature of classes in college and in high school. In high school classes, assignments and learning materials that are to be used to complete the assignments are provided for the students. High schools also normally have guidance counselors to help students determine what advanced core and elective courses they may be interested in taking, especially as it pertains to preparing for a college or a vocation. In college, the situation is very different because it is the students who are charged with the responsibility to decide the kinds of classes that they should take until they graduate. If a student has challenges in selecting a unit, the student may make an appointment with a course advisor. However, colleges do have counseling and guidance offices to help students look at what they might be interested in as a career and to help them plan accordingly. Even so, college students are rarely given the materials that they need for their study and therefore , unlike high school, must purchase the necessary texts and other learning material. Another difference is that, compared to college professors, high school teachers tend to be more accommodating towards their students. For instance, high school teachers tend to be more interested in knowing the name of each and every student in their class while college professors rarely relate names to the faces of their students. Also, high school teachers are more likely to closely monitor the grades of their students, ensure that all the students access the required notes, find out why a student may have missed a class, and even remind the students of assignments and future examinations. High school teachers are also more likely to accept a late submission of assignments or even call a student’s parents to inquire about a student who may have missed class. On the other hand, college professors rarely pay attention to the attendance habits of their students and do not make any effort to ensure that all their students pass or score good grades in their subjects. If a studen t misses a class, a college professor is unlikely to follow up and give the student the notes he missed. Instead, it will be up to the student to figure out from whom to get the notes that he missed when he did not attend class. Finally, it is not uncommon to meet a college professor even after graduating from college and not be recognized by that professor, unlike the case of high school teachers who remember some students long after graduation. In high school, it is very easy to get one-on-one time with a teacher because all that one has to do is to schedule a time before or after school. In college, one has to book an appointment in order to have a one-on-one time with a professor, and it is not always a guarantee that after booking the appointment, the professor will keep the appointment. You can buy a comparison essay online at essay writing service. You will get a superior-quality custom compare and contrast paper written from scratch!

Marketing Manager Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Marketing Manager - Essay Example Hiring a competent manager may be a difficult task, especially if you are not equipped with relevant interview questions. It is important to plan the interview because in a new company, the qualities of a marketing manager are very vital. Estimable behavioral qualities may comprise self-direction, motivation, high energy, financial ambition, and persuasive communication. At a beginning, the entrepreneur usually needs someone who is like moldable clay, not somebody who has the traits of a steel rod. They want somebody who will go an extra mile because small industries operate differently from big companies. A marketing manager is charged with the responsibility of making important decisions on behalf of the company (Einhorn, 2010). In this case, the questions for the job interview for the marketing manager aim at assessing their interpersonal communication skills, their analytical skills, marketing approach, and background. Any marketing practitioner is supposed to find out and identify what is trending in the market, the demand of products, their competitors, and prospective customers. They also need to define the product design and observe the development of the product. After developing the product’s pricing strategies, they also need to launch the new product. Finally, marketers need to use various marketing tools to sell the product (Smitt & Albaum, 2004). Open-ended questions are preferred in interviewing a marketing manager. As you ask these open-ended questions, listen not only to the content of a candidates response, but also to the voice and manner behind it. The questions to be asked should be narrowed down to professional experience of the interviewee. Sample questions are; These questions enable the candidate to know why the plan they designed failed and what they can learn from the failure. They are meant to scrutinize the

Critique on The Speakers Corner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Critique on The Speakers Corner - Essay Example However, the police have endeavored to be very tolerant to the speakers and only respond in cases where they have received complaints from member of the public. At times they are forced to intervene on the grounds of profanity which involves the use of offensive language. The speaker’s corner in Britain was established as a result of the increased struggles for civil liberties and a quest for a more democratic society. The speakers’ corner has provided great opportunity for people to express themselves and have their views heard by many listeners across the global. The minority groups, who do not have any other platform to address their concerns, have benefited from the speakers’ corner since it has granted them a chance to be heard. However, the popularity and strength of the speakers’ corner has been eroded by the rapidly emerging trend of blogging and the use of other social media platforms in communicating personal views and opinions. In the current set-up, speakers’ corner is set loose its meaning and will soon become a thing of the past if the current trend is to

Being Pregnant Essay -- Original Writing Personal Narrative

Being Pregnant Through out my teenage years I always had it made. I had security, support of my family, and other things. When I turned 16 I had found out something that would change my life forever, I was pregnant. As a teenager I was anorexic, therefore meaning I had a problem with getting fat. If I had gained just a little bit of weight I went on a crash diet (eating nothing at all for a period of time) till I lost the weight I had gained. For a period of time I had went through a spell of doing nothing but eating. My mom had started to ask questions, and I had told her everything was ok; I was just going through one of my eating spells. My uncle had accidentally dropped me on a cement block therefore resulting in hurting my tailbone. So for the rest of my life my tailbone would freeze up where I could not move or just hurt all the time. The moral of this part is when I was 16 my tailbone had frozen up and my mom and brother had taken me to the hospital. I would have never known this would be a turning point in my life. The doctor took x-rays to find out what was wrong and later sent us home telling us he would call us if anything abnormal showed up. Later on that day we were all just watching television then the phone rang. Little did I know what he was about to tell me would result in the actions I had to take. I answered the phone and it was the doctor. He had proceeded to tell me the x-rays were fine except one thing, and the words he had told me put me ... Being Pregnant Essay -- Original Writing Personal Narrative Being Pregnant Through out my teenage years I always had it made. I had security, support of my family, and other things. When I turned 16 I had found out something that would change my life forever, I was pregnant. As a teenager I was anorexic, therefore meaning I had a problem with getting fat. If I had gained just a little bit of weight I went on a crash diet (eating nothing at all for a period of time) till I lost the weight I had gained. For a period of time I had went through a spell of doing nothing but eating. My mom had started to ask questions, and I had told her everything was ok; I was just going through one of my eating spells. My uncle had accidentally dropped me on a cement block therefore resulting in hurting my tailbone. So for the rest of my life my tailbone would freeze up where I could not move or just hurt all the time. The moral of this part is when I was 16 my tailbone had frozen up and my mom and brother had taken me to the hospital. I would have never known this would be a turning point in my life. The doctor took x-rays to find out what was wrong and later sent us home telling us he would call us if anything abnormal showed up. Later on that day we were all just watching television then the phone rang. Little did I know what he was about to tell me would result in the actions I had to take. I answered the phone and it was the doctor. He had proceeded to tell me the x-rays were fine except one thing, and the words he had told me put me ...

Children’s development of emotional self-regulation Essay

The early years of a child’s life are the most important in terms of their general well-being, their emotional and social development, and their physical, intellectual and emotional growth. Children develop at different paces and a very high proportion of what they learn takes place in the first five to seven years of life. What happens in the home is extremely important to development in early childhood. There is also a growing perception that this is a time when children are most open to high quality care and learning experiences. Children’s development of emotional self-regulation is important for many aspects of their health and wellbeing, including their ability to tolerate frustration, curbs aggressive impulses, delay gratification, and express emotions in socially acceptable ways. Children who are able to regulate their own emotions are better able to interact with their peers, whereas poor emotion regulation in preschool-aged children has been related to higher levels of externalizing behaviors. Children’s deficits in the ability to self-regulate their own behavior have been linked to rapid weight gain and obesity in middle childhood. Children who are good in self-regulation will have better relationships with their teachers and classmates. Read more:Â  Personal factors that affect child development essay You will also do better academically. You will have the motivation to enjoy school and the people around you. You will be confident in the way you talk and act in front of people. This skill will help you to grow up with the proper manners and attitude towards other people. You will gain more knowledge in interaction and conversing with different types of people. Parents play an important role in children’s development of self-regulation of emotions in the early years. At birth, infants lack control over their emotional arousal. Instead, infants’ emotional arousal is regulated by their own biological needs and how parents respond to those needs. Parents comfort infants when they express negative emotions as well as arouse positive emotions in their infants through play and other stimulating interactions. For example, if a one-month-old baby experiences an aversive stimulus, the infant’s crying signals to the parent that he or she is upset. Parents’ actions such as calming or soothing the infant serve to regulate the child’s emotions. Therefore, young infants rely heavily on their parents to regulate their emotions. As children age, they require less assistance in regulating emotions. For example, a four-year-old might self-sooth in response to an aversive stimulus instead of immediately crying. Throughout the first year of life, infants gradually increase their ability to control their own emotional states and they begin to self-regulate emotions before the second half-year of life. Individual differences in children’s abilities to regulate their emotions are apparent by this time, and whether they intend to or not, parents substantially influence these individual differences. Parents can help their infants and toddlers regulate their emotions by learning to say no from the very start! No means no. If there is one thing I cannot stand and I see very often is when a parent cannot say no to their children. Stop being so damn afraid of your child, let them throw a tantrum, they’ll get over it! I cannot express that enough. Discipline is the system in which parents guide and teach their children. This word is often confused with the term punishment. The purpose of discipline is to teach children the difference between right and wrong, to incorporate a sense of limits and appropriate behavior. Teaching discipline is a challenging task for parents and caregivers and not one that is taught overnight. It takes many years for most children to be able to achieve self-control. Also, as children grow and develop, so do the types of things that they must be taught. The method of discipline must grow and change with the child. Caregivers need to be flexible because of changes in children and their environment as children mature and grow. Time out is a very effective form of mild punishment. Time-out literally means time-out from all the things the child enjoys, for example – rewards, parent’s attention, reinforcement, toys, music and all other interesting activities. Time-out has two major goals. The immediate goal is the stop the problem behavior as quickly as possible and the long-term goal is to help the child learn self-discipline. The good thing about time-out is that it does not emotionally harm the child and it models calm and good behavior on the parent’s part. Time-out works best with children age two to twelve. This method should be considered with certain types of behaviors including impulsive, aggressive, hostile and emotional behaviors. Time-out does not work to get a child to begin doing a behavior, but it is very effective in stopping bad behaviors. Time-out can be used initially with one or two target behaviors and once the parent and child get used to the technique it can be expanded to more problem behaviors. The child should be placed in time-out for one minute for every year of life. For example a 5 year old would sit in time out for five minutes. You should use a small portable timer to remind the child when the time-out is over. Once the timer rings parents and or caregivers should ask the child why they went to time-out. Once they produce the answer the parent drops the issue and goes about their daily activities as usual. Time-out is not designed to make a child feel bad or humiliated it should be used to instill that when they act a certain way they will be disciplined for it and take those minutes in time-out to help them realize for themselves that what they did was wrong. Scolding is another common form of mild punishment that should be used by parents. When scolding a child for bad behavior it is important to move close to the child, maintaining good eye contact, being stern, and expressing your feelings while naming the undesirable behavior. It is important to be brief and calm, showing disapproval for the behavior not the child. Another type of mild punishment is natural consequences. Some examples include not wearing an appropriate outfit to school and getting sent to the principal’s office or being careless in not packing a lunch and being hungry at lunchtime. Logical consequences occur for behaviors that do not have natural consequences. Some examples include not eating all of your dinner and then not having any dessert; or riding the bicycle in the street and having the bike taken away for three days or in the case of my 8 years old daughter, rushing through her homework just so she can play on her iPad or watch TV. I, in return take away her iPad and TV privilege’s until she realizes that taking her time and doing her homework without rushing through it, rewards her with her favorite activities such as playing on her iPad, watching TV, etc. Self-regulation in early development is influenced by a child’s relationships with the important adults in her life. As parents and caregivers, providing the experiences, support, and encouragement that help very young children learn to self-regulate is a critical element in quality care.

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