Search results for 'tag:Constructions tag:Accents' matching tags 'Constructions' and 'Accents'

Re: Whitesmoke.com review?

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:05:35 GMT

Thanks for all the info. I was just about to purchase their software when I decided to do a last minute google for reviews.

I don't think I'll be purchasing it after all.

Its a pity really. I really need help when it comes to grammar and sentence construction. My english sucks.
Can I pretend its my second language? Perhaps I should start to practice a foriegn accent..

Re: AMERICANS PLEASE HELP!!

Kooyeen — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:19:02 GMT

First of all, you need some grammar too, because I noticed typical Asian mistakes, or non native constructions anyway.

Anonymous
i'm live in PRC <-- I live in...

Here's the best tips I can give you:

1 - Get a grammar book, and read it, learning the most common structures. "English grammar in use" by Cambridge University Press seems a good one.
2 - Learn how to recognize the sounds of vowels and how to speak like a native speaker. I used "American Accent Training", by Ann Cook. It is one of the best.
3 - Practice, replacing your first language with English every time you feel like it. You should start to think in English.

Point #2 is the most important. I improved my listening skills by at least 50% (from understanding 25% to understanding 80%). The link is http://www.americanaccent.com/ ,if you want to take a look.

Re: were late / would be late

Kooyeen — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:09:09 GMT

Oh my, I'm so surprised! I would never have thought you said it yourself! By the way, you said "If I'd have known", and not "If I'd known" (which can't mean "If I would have known", because you would be leaving out a syllable...).
Anyway, I'll tell you the truth: I've always thought it was non-standard, same register as "ain't". Low register, only common in certain dialects. I don't remember a single grammar book saying it was acceptable. In fact, I only remember people criticizing it. Here are a few comments like the ones I've always heard:

Also in the midwest, I often heard, "If I would have . . . ., I would have . . . . ." Drove me nutz! (Avangi)
http://www.englishforums.com/English/CondtitionalTense/zndwv/post.htm#482524

The construction, actually any construction with 'would' in a hypothetical if-clause, is considered non-standard. (Jim)
http://www.englishforums.com/English/HadHaveHad/chrcq/post.htm#201527

To me, it evokes comical people from remote mountain regions or from city slums who are uneducated and have some accent that most listeners dislike. But maybe research would reveal it to enjoy a wider demographic distribution. To my ear, it's about as obtrusively wrong and amusing as 'them' for 'those'. It's definitely not acceptable for standard written usage. On the other hand, it's not the most awful mistake one can make. (Native from San Diego)
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=97201#3

Would have for had - In spoken English, there is a growing tendency to use would have in place of the subjunctive had in contrary-to-fact clauses, such as If she would have (instead of if she had) only listened to me, this would never have happened. But this usage is still widely considered an error in writing. Only 14 percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the previously cited sentence, and a similar amountâbut 16 percentâaccepts it in the sentence I wish you would have told me about this sooner. (A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English)
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html

On the other hand, some people seem to use it all the time, regardless of region or cultural influences, and so it's a common feature of informal English to them. One example:

Hmmm...never thought of that construction as a mountain dialect but normal everyday American! I never knew it was incorrect! (Native from the Midwest)
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=97201#5

That's why I was so surprised, considering you are a writer and knowing you use "correct" English most of the time. This can only mean two things now... I have to choose between:
1) I start to use it as well, feeling ashamed of not knowing is was so common.
2) I don't start to use it, and I start to tease you because it's not like you to speak bad English.

LOL, just kidding. Seriously, I don't know what to say. I think I'll consider the fact that people are actually more tolerant of it than I thought, so it's not that bad. But do you also use it in your writing? You know, just because I don't like prescriptive grammar, doesn't mean I don't want to know about it. In fact, prescriptive grammar is part of descriptive grammar.
I'll appreciate any opinions on this. Thanks.

Re: Me or I

Bokeh — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:40:43 GMT

MrPedantic wrote:
The problem for non-native speakers, though, is that native speakers are very tolerant of each other's grammatical slips â in fact, most people don't notice them â but immediately notice if those grammatical slips are combined with a foreign accent.

I guess that's because with a native those slips usually form the individual's identity (upbringing, social background, etc) whereas with a non-native they do not have that significance and hence just show as erroneous. What sounds even worse though is when a non-native deliberately uses constructions that he knows are erroneous prescriptively in an attempt to take on such an identity.

Re: No condition

Marvin A. — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 05:16:23 GMT

Well, I can understand what it's trying to say, but that construction would sound ridiculous on this side of the Atlantic. Although, I suppose if you said it with an English accent, we'd be so enthralled by the accent, that we would overlook the grammar.

Re: Who's learning Indian English?

MrPedantic — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:01:27 GMT

Milky wrote:

<Someone who knew little or no English and went to work in India might learn Indian English.>

How about those American and British Standard English speakers who want to trade, or have other collaborations, with India?

If you regularly deal with speakers of Indian (or American, or South African, or Singaporean) English, it's useful to be aware of the ways in which their use of language differs from your own. For instance, many BrE speakers are needlessly irritated by the politeness of Indian call centre workers; and the greater use of progressive constructions might sound strange at first.

But I don't think it's necessary to learn it as another language (i.e. as one that you speak and write), any more than it's necessary to talk to Americans in an American accent and with American turns of phrase.

MrP

Re: the tense

Marius Hancu — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 14:55:03 GMT

Khoff wrote:
there is the sentence " They will need something bigger when they've had a baby." I'd like to ask why "they've had a baby" I would say "when they have a baby" so why "have had"???

Have had the baby shows completion of the process (of the birth, in this case). Thus, after that fact is completed, they can start to re-consider their needs in terms of accomodation.

when they have a baby is either a state (of having a baby) or an instantaneuous (difficult to imagine, but we can do that) process of getting it. While this construction is possible, it does not mean the same, by avoiding the accent on the completion of a process which takes time.

Re: get/have sth. P.P.

paco2004 — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 01:35:29 GMT

S have/get O done

This construction has three usages from semantic viewpoints: [1] causative, [2] suffering and [3] completion.

Causative Sense

The accent comes on "have"/"get"
GET constructs sound stronger than HAVE constructs.
HAVE constructs are preferred in formal/polite speech.
GET constructs are preferred for imperative use.
HAVE constructs are preferred in past tense sentences.
(EX-1) [to oneself] I have to get my hair cut at the barber.
(EX-2) [to one's own son] Get your fingernails cut! (=Clip your fingernails!)
(EX-3) [at a laundry] I'd like to have these things dry cleaned.
(EX-4) [at a store] I'd like to buy this. Could you have it delivered?

Suffering Sense

The accent comes on "done".
GET is more common when S has any responsibility of the suffering.
(EX-5) He got his leg broken while he played rugby. "He broke his leg" is more common.
(EX-6) We had our roof blown off in the gale.
(EX-7) She had a book stolen from the library. "Someone stole a book from the library" is more common in this case. Furthermore, one might take the sentence to mean "She carried a book that had been stolen from the library" or "She made someone steal a book from the library" if the accent comes on "had" instead of "stolen".

Completion Sense

The accent comes on "done".
(EX-8) She worked hard to have/get the work done. "To finish the work" is more common.

Usage of Intransitive Verbs (GET only)

(EX-9) Let's get him started.
(EX-10) She seems relieved to get him gone.

An Error in âBlack Englishâ

dranfu — Sun, 01 May 2005 06:46:25 GMT

Hi Guys,

I'm a new member to this forum, but I'm already excited to be a part of it. Anyhow, I'll tell you alittle about myself. I'm a second year journalism major at Michigan State University with aspirations of becoming a NewYork Times writer. One day I hope to publish my own magazines, but that dream is still in the making.

Below is an essay I wrote on the subject "Ebonics." Basicaly, I would like any feedback on the article. Was it persuasive? Was it clear? Was it enjoyable? Any critical mistakes that I should have noticed? Any and all advice would be appreciated, and please do not worry about huring my feelings; after all, only honest criticism will help. The essay is also avaliable here: http://politicalessays.blogspot.com/, where the essay is accompanied by pictures and colorful borders and tables.

Hope you enjoy it!

An Error in âBlack Englishâ

"The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone" (Kundar 125). Milan Kundar, a skilled, prolific writer, highlights here an ageless truism: that a person need not be guilty of some transgression to feel ashamed of it. This applies to individuals as well as an entire people.

In America, it has been widely accepted that the "everyday speech" of African Americans, which is often referred to as âBlack Englishâ or Ebonics, is an inferior form of Standard English. Many consider it to be little more than a collection of grammatical mistakes and slang phrases. Even our own Secretary of Education once publicly warned Americans about the dangers of "elevating black English to the status of a language" (qtd. in Fillmore 13).

Unfortunately, current beliefs about âBlack Englishâ are enormously flawed; even worse, these beliefs have produced terrible consequences for African Americans, who sometimes feel angry and humiliated by the insinuations that their speech is the result of poor schooling and a low intelligence. Worst of all, these misconceptions are contributing to the continuation of social disharmony and racial polarization. The basis for these beliefs is that âBlack Englishâ is somehow an illegitimate form of English. In reality, however, âBlack Englishâ is a very legitimate dialect of the American English language, no more error-ridden or slang filled than any other dialect.

Many misunderstandings, half-truths, and stereotypes spring up when attempting to define âBlack English,â due to the number of words and catchphrases used to describe it. However, to understand what âBlack Englishâ really is, we first need to decide what it is not.

Contrary to popular belief, âBlack Englishâ is not Ebonics. Many people think of Ebonics as the specific language used by some African Americans. At âDa Ebonics Page,â a popular Ebonics joke site, a translator will translate Standard English sentences into âEbonocizedâ English at the click of a button. Type, âEbonics is misunderstood,â and the translator will return, âEbonics iz misunderstood Ya' dig?â( Da Ebonics Page). The result is not surprising, but neither is it Ebonics.

Formed by combining the words âebonyâ and âphonics,â the term âEbonicsâ was coined in 1973 by Dr. William Roberts, an African American social psychologist, during a conference sponsored by the National Institutes of health. It was during this conference that Dr. Williams defined Ebonics as, âthe linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendent of African originâ (Baugh par. 4). In other words, Ebonics is a scientific study of the linguistic aptitude of African slave descendents. It is not the proper term for the way that some African Americans speak.

Another misconception about âBlack Englishâ is that it is simply slang. The Oxford English dictionary defines slang as (1) Language of a highly colloquial type, considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense (âslangâ). Slang is not particular to one group or culture, but is used by many different groups and cultures. Words like âhomey,â âpeeps,â and âCuz,â words often considered to be âblack" words, are certainly all slang phrases; however, words like âbunk,â âcanoogle,â and âmilfâ are also slang words, but these are words used most often by white suburban teenagers. Now, just because some people in a larger group of people use slang words does not mean that the entire "language" is a slang language. In America, however, some people feel perfectly justified calling "Black English" slang, even though the actual slang associated is used mainly by younger people in the community. But Perhaps this is why in 1996, Jessie Jackson responded to a school boardâs decision to use âBlack Englishâ in the classroom by saying, âYou don't have to go to school to learn to talk garbageâ (Fillmore par. 25). Could it be that he assumed that the school board meant to teach children using slang?

Now, if âBlack Englishâ is not slang, and if âBlack Englishâ is not Ebonics, then what is âBlack Englishâ? Well, most importantly, âBlack Englishâ is a dialect of the American English language, similar in style and structure to the Southern American dialect. To demonstrate this point, letâs turn to a fictional conversation between Sally and Rashonnda. Sally grew up in the suburbs of Michigan and speaks in a standard Michigan dialect, while Rashawn grew up in Detroit and speaks with a thick âBlack Englishâ dialect.

Sally: Can I see that Magazine?

Rashawn: Which one, girl, the one I just bought?

Sally: Yeah, are you done with it?

Rashawn: Yeah, it ainât nothin' good in it anyway.

In this conversation, there are two word constructions, âainâtâ and ânothing,â that some people might consider âblack English,â but these words are not unique to âblack English.â On the contrary, they are used widely in the south and in many rural areas throughout the U.S. Letâs return to the fictional conversation, but this time letâs replace Rashonnda with Mary Joe, a woman from the Deep South who speaks with a heavy southern accent. Both women are white.

Sally: Can I see that magazine?

Mary Joe: Which one, Honey, the one I just got today?

Sally: Uh huh, are you done with it?

Mary Joe: Yeah, it ainât nothinâ good in it anyway.

In this second transcript, the same two incorrect forms of âIs notâ and âNothingâ are used. All that has changed is the race and regional background of the second speaker.

It is highly unlikely that most people would consider Mary Joeâs language inferior; more than likely, they would probably consider it the result of the region that she grew up in. Likewise, the likelihood that someone would scorn Mary Joe by accusing her of speaking Ebonics is rare. Why then is it so widely accepted that the dialect spoken by many African Americans, a dialect so similar to the southern dialect, is inferior? Why has the language of African Americans become the target of so much ridicule and scorn? Perhaps it is because, as Linguist John Baugh claimed, âthe distinction between âlanguagesâ and âdialectsâ is usually made more on social and political grounds than on purely linguistic onesâ (Baugh 9). In other words, âBlack Englishâ is considered inferior by some because it is associated with black people, who themselves have been wrongly considered inferior. And while it is true that since the civil rights revolution, Americans have made strides toward eradicating that perceived inferiority, the old, historical stereotypes of the uneducated, dim-witted African American still exist and pervade some Americans' thinking.

American has been called the land of equality, but until simple stereotypes like the ones about âBlack Englishâ are eradicated, our cultural progress toward racial harmony will be stalled. To avoid this, we need to stop calling the way that black people speak âBlack Englishâ and âEbonicsâ and instead call it what is: English. Perhaps then we can move one step further.

Works Cited

Baugh, John. âEbony and Phonics.â Public Broadcast Company. 2005. 14 Feb. 2005

Da Ebonics Page. Ed. Joel Thoms. 2005. 18 Apr. 2005

Fasold, Ralph. âEbonic Need Not Be English.â Center for Applied Linguistics. Dec. 1999: 23 pars. 14 Feb. 2005. http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/ebonic.htm>

Fillmore, Charles. âA Linguist Looks At the Ebonics Debate.â Center for Applied Linguistics. Jan. 1997: 36 pars. 13 Feb. 2005

âSlang.â The Oxford English Dictionary. 2004.

Please look through this essay (2) ;)

leruffiant — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 12:47:55 GMT

The Influence of Dadaism with the emphasis on the works of Kurt Schwitters

Introduction
The reason why I wanted to write about Dadaism and Kurt Schwitters is that I âdiscoveredâ Kurt Schwitters on a Compositional forum I attended at my old University. The way of dadaist performance, which may seem spontaneous - but jet ârealâ and ânaturalâ is in a way what a lot of performances today seem to lack. I think that this is something I think more performers should strive for. Dadaism may sound a bit inaccessible for the average listener of today â but what many people donât realise is that the Dadaists where hugely influential on todayâs music. I think it must be said that Dadaism is not widely known for its contribution in music, but more in poetry, painting and sculpture. I shall try to focus on musical aspects of Dadaism in this essay â especially the influential âUrsonateâ by Kurt Schwitters, and geographically and period-wise I am going to limit myself to the Hanover Dada (As Richter points out in his book Dada you had several periods of the movement, being Zurich Dada from 1915-1920, New York Dada from 1915-1920, Berlin Dada from1918-1923, Hanover Dada, Cologne Dada, Paris Dada from 1919-1922, Post-Dada, and finally Neo-Dada).

The Origins of Dada
Where and when did Dadaism begin? The answer to that, unlike many other directions and genres in art is not a very clear one. According to Hans Richter in the book Dada â art and anti-art â 1964, Raoul Hausmann, the chief of the Berlin Dada movement believes that it was himself that discovered Dada in 1915. On the contrary, Claude RiviÃ¨re, names Picabia as the originator of Dada.
All of this put aside, I really think that one should focus on the ideas and concepts of Dada, rather to decide who to give credit for whom started the movement. But as for now â we can say that Dada was established around 1915, and it was something that happened in different parts of the world for similar reasons. The reasons why many believe Dada happened was that in 1915, after the outbreak of the First World War began, many artists travelled to neutral Switzerland. Amongst them was Hugo Ball and Emmy Hemmings, and we can with certainty say that Ball was the first one to publish a Dada text (published after his death in 1927 under the title âFlucht aus der Zeitâ), first dated 1st if February 1916, and it was a diary he wrote â which Richter often quotes in his book to support different stories.
The first Dadaist music can said to have come from âCabaret Voltaireâ â mentioned in Balls diaries as a âgroup of young artists and writers has formed with the object of becoming a centre for artistic entertainment. The Cabaret Voltaire will be run on the principle of daily meetings where visiting artists will perform their music and poetry. The young artists of Zurich are invited to bring their ideas and contributionsâ. This was basically a night-club in Zurich (No1 Spiegelgasse) where they got together and shared ideas â they had readings of modern French poetry which alternated with recitals by German, Russian and Swiss poets. They played old music as well as new. Tristan Tzara was one of the poets frequenting Cabaret Voltaire â and as Richter says:
âHe declaimed, sang and spoke in French, although he could do so just as well in German, and punctuated his performances with screams, sobs and whistles.. Bells, drums, cow-bells, blows on the table or on empty boxes, all enlivened the already wild accents of the new poetic language, and excited, by purely physical means, an audience which had begun by sitting impassively behind its beer-mugs. From this state of immobility it was roused into frenzied involvement with what was going on. This was Art, this was Life, and this was what they wanted!â

The Futurists had already introduced provocation in art, and this as an art form was called Brutism. This was very much inspired by the Futurist Luigi Russoloâs Noise Organ which he made in 1911 â which could conjure up all the distracting sounds of everyday existence. Both Futurism and Dadaism was very much about provocation and was extreme in many ways. As Futurism showed an excitement about chaos, war, noise and destruction â the Dadaists also tried to follow this through in their artistic expression and with a world in rapid change the art movements also gained a furious momentum. One could say that Futurism had a very clear agenda or programme whilst Dada was against having any clear agenda or programme.

Automatic poetry: Springs directly from the poets bowels or other organs, which have stored up reserves of usable material.

Ball 18th April: Dada as a name for the magazine is agreed. No-one, to this day know who invented the word Dada, or what it means. But, as Richter says: Da, da (Russian) means Yes, yes â and is an appropriate description of their way of life.
Different meanings though: Rumanian / Russian: Yes, yes â French: Rocking Horse â German: Idiot naivety.

A man from Hanover - Kurt Schwitters,1887-1948

âSchwitters (Ill. 69) was absolutely, unreservedly, 24-hours-a-day PRO-art. His genius had no time for transforming the world, or values, or the present, or the future, or the past; no time in fact for any of the things that were heralded by blasts of Berlinâs Trump of Doom. There was no talk of the âdeath of artâ, or ânon-artâ, or âanti-artâ with him. On the contrary, every tram-ticket, every envelope, cheese wrapper or cigar-band, together with old shoe-soles or shoe-laces, wire, feathers, dishcloths â everything that had been thrown away â all this he loved, and restored to an honoured place in life by means of his art (Ills. 67-74)â â Hans Richter

Schwitters never had the acceptance of his contemporary Dadaists, which one could say is quite sad â he was frozen out for unknown reasons by Huelsenbeck of the club Dada â which upon Schwitters request to join the club Dada had said that the club was not for âevery Tom, Dick and Harryâ. Schwitters failed to be recognised in his time â but in the last years, people have taken a renewed interest in him. A factor in this is probably the release of his Ursonate on CD in the mid-nineties. When Schwitters failed to join the club, he made his own movement called MERZ in Hanover, which the name he extracted from âCommerzbankâ. This word would be the name of an early picture of Schwitters, but later on he gave the word a lot more meaning, by saying that it was the term for his art. He started to use this term on all of his works, and he also released a regular column named Merz. The term Merz is in some way understandable, given the materials he worked with. He re-used commercial items in a way that it was never used before â and thus, maybe the word Merz became a metaphor for this.

The Music
One could argue that what I would today call music (Schwittersâ poetry), would maybe then be classified as non-sense Dada-poetry. But the phonetic and rhythmic qualities are so exaggerated in Dada poetry, that for me â this becomes music. The Ursonate is Schwitters most extensive and most complex sound seal. The structure follows, ironically broken, the structure of a classical Sonate - the border between linguistic and musical composition is waived. The Ursonate lived own legendary presentations on development and permanent changes in Schwitters. In order to let it accessible become deliverable and other interpreter, Schwitters looked for nevertheless over many years for appropriate possibilities of fixing it. Shape wins the work therefore in three different forms: as performance, as pressure version and as clay/tone carriers.

In this tension between improvisation, completion, and different shapes to exceed in the complexity of topics, layers and parts as well as in the consequence, borders the Ursonate is comparable to the Merzbau. Schwitters called it its most comprehensive and most important poetic work. The Merzbau was Schwitters lifework â it was a massive 3d sculpture consisting of relics of old friends in small cages. One sculpture was started in Hanover, when the war started he had to leave the first Merzbau, he later started a new one in his exile in Norway. That was later destroyed by accident. A reconstruction of the sculpture can now be seen in the parish museum in Hanover. The reason why the Merzbau is comparable to the Ursonate, is that in both cases he used scraps, bits and pieces gathered from literally everything to make his art â it was both non-sense that made sense. Both comprehensive and complex â he developed them all through his life, making changes as Schwitters changed personally.

Looking in to the chaos: Why Dada was influential on todayâs art
On the one hand Schwitters was focusing on the Gesamtkunztwerk, but on the other hand â one could say that Schwitters was simply art. A master propagandist and businessman, leaving stickers everywhere he went with the words âJoin Dadaâ, âAnna Blumeâ or âMerzâ. He sold his collages to everyone he wanted to â even if they didnât want to buy them, Schwitters is said to have had a very persuasive nature. When he performed his poetry people often burst in to hysterical laughter, but he continued any way. Maybe he wanted people to laugh, that is never to be revealed. But when such things happened he turned his voice up to volume ten, continuing to perform his art. I think this is something that says it all. His methods of working was later adapted (or reinvented) by many artists who got a lot more credibility for their work, and I think that works like the Ursonate is still valid as a original piece of art today. Dadaism has often been called anti-art because of its âI donât care if you think if this is art or notâ attitude. But the techniques used in most dadaist work is highly sophisticated. Schwitters can seem to be on the brink to madness sometimes with his schizophrenic style poetry â and maybe he was a little mad. But if one look closer on such works as the Ursonate one will see a highly structured and well made piece of music! âDada is our style of the time â that does not have any style â do you understand?â â Schwitters
âThe Ursonate was my fatherâs reply to make a melody out of something that was
spoken rather than being played by instruments.â â Erik Schwitters

Dadaism was a movement that happened between two wars. In many ways it made a path for art saying that it was okay for art not to be understood â art can also be anti-art. Art was to be created for its own sake â not by some conformist ideas and a rigid set of laws and ideas. Dadaism reflects in many ways the free human being â driven by nature rather than laws. Kurt Schwitters was seen as a outsider in many ways, and even though his art was self-classified as Merz â and the tension between Merz and Dada was significant, I think it is important to see the two movements as one. The scrapbook method is still used today, in plunderphonics and sampling. The ideas of gathering everyday material and reusing it is found in music concrete â comparable to Schwitters way of gathering any material that had a nice surface, or something appealing and putting it together in a context again. Whereas Schwitters decomposed sentences from magazines and other texts to create his popular poem âAnna Blumeâ, people like John Oswald with his plunderphonics are decomposing popular music and putting it together in a new context. Who knows what would have happened if Schwitters had access to the same technology as we do today? If we look close enough â we can see aspects of Dadaism, Merz, Anti-art and the automatic poetry in newer contemporary art: Music as a process often uses a set of mathematical rules to build its music upon (the Ursonate by Schwitters can be analysed in a similar way), Plunderphonics (as described earlier), Acousmatic art (the Merzbau can be said to be a similar concept, but with other objects than sound), Stockhausen with his early electronic works uses non-sense and manipulation of concrete sources â and adopts the same art for arts sake attitude â and the list can probably go on for longer. The Dada movement has probably had way more impact than most people, and even artists of today realise! I would dare to suggest that the whole avant-garde movement as we know it today, has strong roots in Dadaism and Futurism.

NOTE!! Please note that the argument / conclusion in this essay is not quite finished!

References
http://www.soroptimist.de/kshome.htm (A Kurt Schwitters tribute page)
http://www.kurt-schwitters.org (Parish museum Hanover)
http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/section/18/563.htm (Norwegian documentary - 1991 on Schwitters with English subtitles)