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Eng: 103
In-Class TeamLetter/Euphemism Assignment
Write a one-page minimum, two- maximum, single-spaced, typed letter. Use correct
business letter format. You may make up some type of letterhead that relates
to the assignment. Do your required reading in the textbook and check out
the learning aids for this letter in Assignments/Handouts first. Part of
this assignment involves the use of auspicious (or favorable) language.
Role play:
You are working for the mayor of the city of St. Louis, Missouri. The city
has undergone tremendous upheaval in the past several decades with many businesses
relocating to the suburbs or leaving for other more progressive cities. However,
it is now a new millennium, and many in your office think the city is in
the course of a major revival. Your challenge is to write a letter minimizing
your
city's flaws and encourage local businesses to stay in or relocate to the
city of St. Louis.
Many older USA cities are in distress, but your area has more than its share
of adversity.
St. Louis is suffering from a loss of tax base, with numerous businesses
relocating to newer, more attractive cities. It faces the challenge of
underemployed citizens,
many of whom are welfare dependent, a cutoff of federal housing funds because
of mismanagement of current subsidized housing, and a seriously impaired
public school system. Problems abound: a rise in the number of high school
dropouts,
loss of accreditation for the public school system, residents pulling up
stakes and moving to suburban or rural areas, overcrowded, potholed and
under-reconstruction highways, dilapidated viaducts and sewer lines, urban
decay, river and stream
flooding, arson fires, threat of earthquakes, and more.
Although your city is the home of the Gateway Arch, the World Champion
St. Louis Cardinals and the once Superbowl champion St. Louis Rams, a
new first-class
baseball and football stadium and convention center, a burgeoning biotech
economy, and expanding light rail system, and site of an historic visit
of the Pope,
Billy Graham , and many national dignitaries, it is, nevertheless, in
deep trouble. You want to minimize the idea of trouble and maximize the
positive
in your letter while refering to the city's problems in a way that makes
them more palatable.
Try to euphemize several of the following in your letter, at
least three for full credit. Do not use any negative terms in your letter. Anything
unpleasant
or bad must be reworded to sound positive.
| a. traffic jams | g. urban sprawl |
| b. absentee landlords and dilapidated housing | h. homeless people |
| c. police brutality | i. gang activity |
| d. street crime | j. air and water pollution |
| e. racism and white flight | k. tornadoes |
| f. earthquakes | l. river flooding |
Some background information from Encarta encyclopedia that you may find applicable:
Saint Louis, in eastern Missouri, on the Mississippi River, just south of its confluence with the Missouri River; incorporated as a city 1823. St. Louis, which became an independent city with county status in 1876, covers an area of about 158 sq km (about 61 sq. mi.) and is the center of a large metropolitan area that extends into five counties in Missouri and five counties in Illinois. From 1950 to 1990 the number of inhabitants in St. Louis declined by almost 54%, but the rest of the metropolitan area population grew by nearly 115%.
Economy
St. Louis is chiefly a commercial center, taking advantage of its central location in the U.S. and its excellent transportation facilities, but it also has important financial institutions and manufacturing industries. The city is a leading railroad center and is one of the nation's busiest inland ports, with ship connections to the Upper Mississippi, to Chicago and the Great Lakes, to the Ohio River system, and to the Gulf of Mexico. St. Louis is also a node in the Interstate Highway System and is a center for warehousing and the trucking industry. Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is nearby. It is a high tech and medical center for the midwest region.
The structure of manufacturing in the St. Louis area has traditionally been one of the most diversified in the U.S. Until recently the major growth industries were the aerospace and motor-vehicle industries. While these remain, health-care, tourism, and other service industries now dominate. Major manufactures include chemicals and pharmaceuticals, electrical and electronic equipment, processed food, beer, metal, wood and paper goods, printed materials, and refined petroleum.
The Urban Landscape
St. Louis occupies a rolling limestone plateau that rises gently from the downtown area near the Mississippi River. Manufacturing and commercial facilities are located along both sides of the Mississippi, including East St. Louis, Illinois, and in recent decades have been established along railroad and highway corridors in St. Louis County to the west. Collections of skyscrapers built since World War II in western suburbs such as Clayton rival downtown St. Louis as office and business districts.
Points of Interest
The symbol for the new St. Louis is the architecturally striking Gateway Arch (1964), located on the riverfront. Designed by the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, this stainless-steel arch rises 192 m (630 ft) and contains an observation deck at the top. The arch, part of Jefferson National Expansion Memorial National Historic Site, commemorates St. Louis's role as a gateway to the West. Near the arch are the Old Cathedral of St. Louis of France, built between 1831 and 1834, and the Old Courthouse (1839), in which the important Dred Scott slavery case initially was tried in 1846. Just west of the arch is the downtown area, the site of the Wainwright Building (1891; designed by the U.S. architect Louis Sullivan), which had an important early influence on the building of skyscrapers. The downtown Memorial Plaza is surrounded by public buildings, including City Hall, Kiel Center, and Soldiers' Memorial. Nearby is Busch Memorial Stadium, the home of the major league baseball Cardinals, and the TWA dome, the home of the St. Louis Rams football team. To the west of downtown is the large Forest Park (site of a world's fair in 1904), which encompasses the St. Louis Zoo, St. Louis Science Center, St. Louis History Museum, and the St. Louis Art Museum. Near Forest Park is the richly decorated, Byzantine-style St. Louis Cathedral (or New Cathedral; completed 1934). The Missouri Botanical Garden is south of downtown.
Educational and Cultural Institutions
Among the institutions of higher education in the St. Louis area are St. Louis University (1818), Washington University (1853), the University of Missouri-St. Louis (1963), Webster Univerity (1915), Concordia Seminary (1839), Fontbonne College (1917), Harris-Stowe State College (1857), and Maryville College (1872). St. Louis Community College with three campuses and a College Center (1963)
Also in and near the city are the National Museum of Transport, Museum of Westward Expansion, The Dog Museum, the Bowling Hall of Fame, and Laumeier Sculpture Park. The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1880, is one of the oldest in the U.S. Also of note is the Opera Theater of St. Louis.
History
In 1764, Pierre Lacléde Liguest (1724-78), a French merchant, selected the site of St. Louis for a trading post. Construction of a village, named for Louis IX of France, began the following year. From its founding St. Louis was both a market and an outfitting point for fur traders and explorers of the American West. It was transferred to the Spanish (1770), returned to France during the Napoleon I era and, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, became part of the United States. The city's population, predominantly French until well into the 19th century, grew rapidly from 1840 to 1860, as many German and Irish immigrants arrived and the railroad reached here. As a transportation center and the largest city of the region, St. Louis was a strategic point during the American Civil War, but it stayed firmly under Union control, and no major battle was fought in or near the city. St. Louis continued to grow quickly after the war, and by 1900 it was a major manufacturing center. In 1904 a world's fair and the Olympic Games were held in the city. St. Louis enjoyed steady growth in the first half of the 20th century, but after 1950 its population declined, and large areas fell into disrepair. St. Louis civic leaders made plans in the late 1970s to conserve neighborhoods and to revitalize the downtown district, anchored by the new Cervantes Convention Center in the north, Busch Memorial Stadium in the south, and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (Gateway Arch) in the east.
Population
(1980) 453,085; (1990) 396,685.
In 1990 blacks made up about 47% of the St. Louis city population, in 2000, about 54%. From an original focus near downtown, black neighborhoods extend west and northwest into St. Louis County. Much of the southern half of the city of St. Louis has a German atmosphere, with solidly built brick houses and now home to an estimated 60,000 Bosnian immigrants; the Hill, an Italian district, is in west central St. Louis.
EUPHEMISM
(AHD & CDQ)
euphemism (y¡´fe-mîz"em) noun
The act or an example of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive: "Euphemisms such as 'slumber room' . . . abound in the funeral business" (Jessica Mitford).
[Greek euphêmismos, from euphêmizein, to use auspicious words, from euphêmia, use of auspicious words : eu-, eu- + phêmê, speech.]
"Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head, make their point of constructive criticism and continue on in calm forbearance. Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne."
Quentin Crisp (b. 1908), British author. Manners from Heaven, ch. 5 (1984).
SLANG
(AHD & CDQ)
slang (noun)
1.A kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful speech, made up typically of short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness, humor, irreverence, or other effect.
2.Language peculiar to a group; argot or jargon: thieves' slang.
(verb) slanged, slanging, slangs verb, intransitive
1.To use slang.
2.To use angry and abusive language: persuaded the parties to quit slanging and come to the bargaining table.
(verb, transitive) To attack with abusive language; vituperate.
"All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry."
(G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. The Defendant, "A Defence of Slang" (1901)
METAPHOR
(AHD)
metaphor (noun) – metaphoric or metaphorical (adjective) – metaphorically (adverb)
• Abbr. met., metaph.. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in "a sea of troubles" or "All the world's a stage" (Shakespeare).
• One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol: "The high-rise garbage repository is a metaphor for both accomplishment and failure" (Richard Sever).
[Middle English methaphor, from Old French metaphore, from Latin metaphora, from Greek, transference, metaphor, from metapherein, to transfer: meta-, meta- + pherein, to carry.]
English 103
TEAM LETTER #1
(Please submit with letter)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a business letter encouraging businesses to stay or relocate in the city of Saint Louis
AUDIENCE: The reader of your letter (2nd person)
CRITICAL
THINKING SKILLS: Recognizing the use of euphemistic language
EVALUATION (50 points):
Scoring Rubric
6= 50 points 4= 30 points 2= 10 points
5= 40 points 3= 20 points 1= 0 points
6 Superior
5 Strong
4 Competent
3 Weak
2 Inadequate
1 Incompetent