Friday, February 19, 2010

50 (D-81) Denis Julien was here!

50 (D-81) The first reliable date within Arches is an interesting one. Denis Julien, a French-American trapper with a habit of chiseling his name and the date onto rocks throughout the Southwest, left an inscription in this area: Denis Julien, June 9, 1844.

OK in 1844, but no chiseling today please!

And
YOU MUSTN'T / YOU CAN'T / YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO
climb on any named arch within the park.
IT IS FORBIDDEN.

Jane
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GRAMMAR: Modals
All the auxiliary verbs except be, do and have are called modals. Unlike other auxiliary verbs, modals only exist in their helping form: they cannot act alone as the main verb in a sentence. The modal auxiliary verbs are always followed by the base form (infinitive form without "to").
MUSTN'T = "Must not" expresses prohibition - something that is not permitted, not allowed. We can use "must not" to talk about the present or the future, but we cannot use "must not" to talk about the past.
HERE, "can't" means the same as "mustn't". They both mean that "you are not allowed to climb on the arches"; "it is not permitted to climb on the arches"; "it is forbidden to climb on the arches."

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VOCABULARY:
reliable = "fiable" (The stress is on the second syllable: re-LI-able.)
to chisel =


I enjoy electronically chiseling the posts of this blog into the rock of The Web. I wonder if they will still be here 166 years from now. I wonder if Denis Julien asked himself that same question 166 years ago....

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