American Gun Culture

Last lesson Farrah told us some facts about America and their rights to bear arms and now I'm going to summarize this information for you.

There are three reasons why the Americans wear weapons:
- One of them struggle against the British. People have guns to make sure that the government doesn't go bad.
- Another reason is the frontier life. People who live in at the frontier have to protect them of their own because there is no police quite close.
- They also need the guns for hunting.

We also talked about a group of guys who are called "Redneck". They wear old jeans, caps, drink beer and they also have a beer belly. They are uneducated and they don't care about what other people think.

At the end, we watched a short video on "Youtube" and it was about the shooting in Arizona. A young republican man wanted to kill the congress woman. He shot the woman into her head, but unfortunately the woman lives. The doctor mentioned that she is in good condition for someone who is shot in head.

I'm glad that in Austria people need a licence to wear guns.

Thanksgiving !

In our last lesson Farrah told us some facts about Thanksgiving.

So what is Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November every year. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in the year 1621, in those days the pilgrims wanted to celebrate their first harvest. When the pilgrims arrived in the new country they had nothing to eat and so the native Americans taught the pilgrims how to grow corn. Without this help they weren't able to survive.

When and how is Thanksgiving celebrated?
Thanksgiving is celebrated every 4th Thursday of November. This celebration is very common in Canada and in the USA.
Thanksgiving is normally celebrated with the whole family, so on this day you meet everybody in your family and you spend some time together. Popular dishes for the meal are: turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn pudding, green beans, pumpkin pie, ...

The day after Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday". It's the beginning of the Christmas shopping time. On this day shops open very early in the morning or even at midnight. Some shops have great discount offers and it's like a "happy hour". So all people stand in front of closed doors, they don't queue up and this is called "doorbusters".

I think that I would stay at home on this "Black Friday" because I prefer comfortable shopping. You have to know that I hate stress.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallows' Eve.
Hallowed means holy. Eve is the day before a holy day. Halloween was an ancient British Celtic festival. At Halloween the souls of the dead returned. People lit bonfires to frighten evils spirits. Now bonfires are only burnt on November 5th.

Bonfire night!
- Masks
- Costumes
- Ghosts

Witches on broomsticks with black cats,...
skeletons, bats and spiders...
and Halloween lanterns have all become part of Halloween.
Children play trick-or-treat. They ask for a treat, hoping to get sweet.

Here is a short video of Halloween:


I chose this video because it tells a lot about Halloween's history.

Farrah

Farrah, a young student from the USA, visited our class.

Farrah is 22 years old and lives with her parents and her boyfriend in Maryland. Maryland is close to Washington D.C.
First she lived in Pergkirchen for a while but now she is living in Linz until May.

In her free time she likes listening to music, watching television and movies, going out with friends and she also likes travelling.
In Austria Farrah visited some places like Vienna, Salzburg, Linz, Perg and Saalbach. She also travelled to Germany, France, UK, Belgium, Greece and Switzerland.

Farrah told us some differences between Austria and the USA. So in the USA everything is much bigger than in Austria, but she really likes Austria.

In Maryland Farrah has a parrot, which is able to speak, a dog, a cat and a turtle.

All in all it was a very interesting lesson.
I am looking forward to seeing her again.

Advertising

I read an article the other day in the online version of „economist.com“ and it talks about advertising.

Basically what it talks about is that media and advertising executives began to ask worrying questions. Would marketing money return to all media, or just a few? For example but the answers are becoming clear. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief of WPP world’s biggest ad agency, mentioned that there are two surprises. First the health of the American advertising market and the second is the recovery of old media.

It is also said that advertising is still moving out of newspapers and it’s returning slowly to magazines. At the moment the greatest old-media winner is television – in most countries the main advertising medium.

There was a rebound effect at work: car dealers and banks stopped advertising in the year 2008 but they decided that they can’t stay out forever. Television is recovering stronger than other media.

A lot of newspaper readers have moved online because they are worth less to advertisers. An American statistic shows that in the first quarter of 2010 the average American spent 158 hours per month in front of the box. That is two hours more than in the year before.

The danger from friends

Many companies work with social networks, for example Facebook. At the moment companies are beginning to see social networks as an alternative means of building brands.

It is also mentioned that Silicon Valley has not just created strong competitors for advertising money, such as Google. Facebook will turn out to be a potent combination of Craisglist and Google.

I thought you might be interested because Facebook is a social network which is used by everyone and at the moment advertising is a topic of our English lesson.


Vocabulary:
WPP - Wire and Plastic Products Plc
Craigslist – social network

The development of advertising

I’ve just read an article called "The development of advertising" and it talks about the history of advertising.

The beginning of advertising was during the Industrial Revolution, in the 19th century. Advertising was a very important form to promote novelties and fringe products. After some time brand-naming was the next important step because a lot of companies produced the same goods.

From 1873 to 1894 there was the economic depression. At that time the goods stayed unsold and prices and profits fell. The small industrial firms took this situation and combined with other small businesses and widened the range of goods. This period is called “monopoly capitalism”, so after the crisis the larger manufacturing used mass advertising to promote their new range of products.

Some examples of the changes to manufacturing and distribution can be found in the soap trade. From about the 1850s a lot of anonymous bars of soap on the market, they were produced by small manufacturers and distributed by wholesalers and door-to-door-sellers. So there was the new idea of using more aggressive selling methods. Lord Leverhulme decided to ‘brand’ his soap by selling it in distinctive packages, for example.

A lot of other companies followed his example (Lord Leverhulme’s idea). So the following new advertisings should contain ‘logical and considered’ as well as eye-catching and witty slogans.
At the end smaller firms who were not able to advertise were squeezed or bought by the larger companies.

My favourite spot - Ariel washing powder advertising

My favourite advertising spot is from Ariel (washing powder), because it's very funny and I really like the "move" of the two women.
The spot takes place on a house corner. Two women crash together and one of them is carrying a flowering plant. After the crash both of the women are dirty and one of the women start to shake the dirt away. She shakes and shakes and the dirt flies away.

Unfortunately I haven't found the clip!