Does your child need extra help this summer?

 Private tutoring is available from 1st to 9th grade by a NYS certified teacher. Flexible times (mornings, afternoons, evenings, or weekends) in a relxed setting. If you are interested please call 873-8930, Mrs. Linda Garrity, St. John the Baptist School.

Happy Birthday George Orwell!

Eric Arthur Blair,better known by his pen name George Orwell, was born 25 June 1903. His work is marked by a profound consciousness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.

In "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell provides six rules for writers:

* Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you
are used to seeing in print.
* Never use a long word where a short one will do.
* If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
* Never use the passive voice where you can use the active.
* Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
* Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Orwell is considered the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture. His most famous works are the satirical novel Animal Farm and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.