the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
The Gendarmerie Nationale (A military force which acts as a National Rural Police)
France has about 359,000 military personnel.
France spends 2.6% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense.
This is the highest in the European Union.
France and the UK spend 40% of the EU defence budget.
About 10% of France's defence budget is for its nuclear weapons force.
Foreign relations
France is a member of the United Nations.
It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and has veto rights.
It is also a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
It hosts the headquarters of the OECD, UNESCO and Interpol.
In 1953, the United Nations asked France to choose a coat of arms to represent them internationally.
The French emblem is now on their passports.
France was a founding member of the European Union.
In the 1960s, France wanted to exclude the United Kingdom from the organisation.
It wanted to build its own economic power in continental Europe.
France and Germany became closer after World War II.
This was to try to become the most influential country in the EU.
It limited the influence of the new Eastern European members.
France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
However, under President de Gaulle, it left the joint military command.
In the early 1990s, France received criticism for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies.
For instance it has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in the Ivory Coast and Chad.
France is a member of the G8 group of leading industrialised countries.
France has the eighth-largest economy in the world by Gross domestic product (GDP) (which takes into account how much it costs to live in different countries and inflation rates).
France and 11 other European Union members jointly launched the euro on 1 January 1999 and started using it in 2002.
France's economy has nearly 2.9 million registered companies.
The government has a considerable influence over railway, electricity, aircraft, and telecommunications firms (as it owns big companies like SNCF and EDF (French electricity)).
France has an important aerospace (design of aircraft and spacecraft) industry led by Airbus.
It can also launch rockets from French Guiana.
France has invested a lot in nuclear power.
This made France the smallest producer of carbon dioxide among the seven most industrialised countries in the world.
As a result, 59 nuclear power plants generate  most of the electricity produced in the country (78% in 2006, up from only 8% in 1973, 24% in 1980, and 75% in 1990).
France is the leading agricultural producer and exporter in Europe.
France exports wheat, poultry, dairy products, beef, and pork.
It is also famous for its wine industry.
France received 10 billion euros in 2006 from the European Community as subsidies to its farmers.
On 1 January 2008, it was estimated that 63.8 million people live in France, including in the Overseas Regions of France.
61,875,000 of these live in metropolitan France, the part of the country that is within Europe.
The major ethnic groups living in France today are descended from Celtic people and Roman people.
The significant minority groups living in France are:
Teutonic, that is Germanic peoples
people from North Africa
Sub-Saharan African - people from Africa who live south of the Sahara desert
people from Indochina
people from the Basque Country of southwest Europe
French is the official language of France.
It belongs to the Romance language group, which includes Italian and Spanish.
Many regional dialects are also used in France.
Alsatian, a German dialect, is spoken in Alsace and in parts of Lorraine in eastern France.
French was the language of diplomacy and culture in Europe between the 17th and 19th century and is still widely used.
France is a secular country and the constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
The population is about 51% Roman Catholic, and 31% of people are agnostics or atheists.
5% are Muslim, 3% say they are Protestant and 1% say they are Jewish.
10% are from other religions or do not have an opinion about religion.
There are also Zoroastrian, Unitarian Universalist, Jain and Wiccan communities.
Religions founded in France include Raelism.
34% of French citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
27% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
33% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".
French literature began in the Middle Ages.
French was divided into several dialects at the time.
Some authors spelled words differently from one other.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, French literature and poetry reached its best.
The 18th century saw writings of authors, essayists and moralists as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Many famous French novels were written in the 19th century by authors such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Jules Verne.
They wrote popular novels like The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte-Cristo, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables.
Other 19th century fiction writers include Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Théophile Gautier and Stendhal.
The Tour de France cycling race in July is one of the best-known sporting events.
It is a three-week race of around 3,500 km that covers most of France and ends in the centre of Paris, on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées.
Football is another popular sport in France.
The French team won the FIFA World Cup in 1998 and 2018.
They also won the UEFA European Football Championship in 1984 and 2000.
France also hosts the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race.
France also hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2007 and finished fourth.
France is closely associated with the Modern Olympic Games.
At the end of the 19th century, the Baron Pierre de Coubertin suggested having the Olympic Games again.
France hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1900 and 1924, in Paris.
France will host the Summer Olympics in 2024, in Paris.
France also hosted the Winter Games three times: in 1924 in Chamonix, in 1968 in Grenoble, and in 1992 in Albertville.
The roots of modern haute cuisine lie in chefs like La Varenne (1615–1678) and the notable chef of Napoleon, Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833).
These chefs developed a lighter style of food compared to the food of the Middle Ages.
They used fewer spices, and more herbs and creamy ingredients.
Typical ingredients like roux and fish stock, and techniques such as marinading, and dishes such as ragout, were invented.
Carême was an expert pâtissier (pastry-maker), and this is still a mark of French cooking.
He developed basic sauces, his 'mother sauces'; he had over a hundred sauces in his repertoire, based on the half-dozen mother sauces.
French cuisine was introduced in the 20th century by Georges Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935).
He was a genius at organisation.
He worked out how to run large restaurants, as in a big hotel or a palace; how the staff should be organised; how the menu was prepared.
He had methods for everything.
Escoffier's largest contribution was the publication of Le Guide Culinaire in 1903, which established the fundamentals of French cookery.
Escoffier managed the restaurants and cuisine at the Savoy Hotel and Carlton Hotel in London, the Hôtel Ritz Paris, and some of the greatest cruise ships.
Gastro-tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to make people familiar with the rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of the French countryside in the 20th century.
Gascon cuisine has also had great influence over the cuisine in the southwest of France.
Many dishes that were once regional have become common all over the country.
Cheese and wine are a major part of the cuisine, playing different roles regionally and nationally.
In the north of France, people often prefer to use butter to cook.
In the south, they prefer olive oil and garlic.
In France, each region has its own special dish; choucroute in Alsace, quiche in Lorraine, cassoulet in the Languedoc-Roussillon, and tapenade in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
France is the number one tourist destination in the world.
In 2007, 81.9 million foreign tourists visited France.
Spain comes second (58.5 million in 2006) and the United States comes third (51.1 million in 2006).
Some of the most famous attractions in Paris, are the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.
Another one is Mont Saint Michel, in Normandy.
A European Disneyland is located in a suburb east of Paris.
The resort opened in 1992 and is also a popular tourist destination in Europe.
Former good articles
G8 nations
G7 nations
Finland (Finnish: Suomi) is a country in Northern Europe and is a member state of the European Union.
Finland is one of the Nordic countries and is also part of Fennoscandia.
Finland is located between the 60th and 70th latitudes North.
Its neighbours are Sweden to the west, Norway to the north, Russia to the east and Estonia to the south, beyond the sea called Gulf of Finland.
Most of western and southern coast is on the shore of the Baltic Sea.
The capital of Finland is Helsinki; the second largest city is Tampere.
The official currency of the country is the euro (EUR); before 2002 it was the markka, the Finnish mark (FIM).
The president of Finland is Sauli Niinistö.
5.5 million people live in Finland.
Finnish and Swedish both are the official languages of Finland; the most spoken languages is Finnish, mother tongue of about 90% of the population.
Swedish is spoken by the Swedish speaking minority of Finland, called the Finnish Swedes, who make up 5% of the total population.
Finland became independent of Russia on 6 December 1917.
Finland is a highly industrialised First World country.
The most important Finnish industrial products are paper, and steel products such as machines and electronics.
Nokia (the mobile company) is originally a company of Finland, named after a small town called Nokia.
The people of Finland are called Finns.
Most Finns speak Finnish as their mother tongue.
About six percent of Finns have the Swedish language as their mother tongue.
They live mostly in the western part of Finland and on Åland (Finnish Ahvenanmaa)
Finns also study mandatory English and Swedish in school.
Most Finns work either in services (that is: shops, banks, offices or businesses) or in factories.
Finns often like saunas and nature.
Many Finnish families have summer cottages, small houses where they go to relax on their summer holidays.
The most important festivals that Finnish people celebrate are Midsummer and Christmas.
The most popular sports in Finland are ice hockey, skiing, track and field and association football (soccer).
Finns have also won events in swimming, motor sports and gymnastics.
There is a group of a few thousand Samis (also called Lapps) in the most northern part of Finland, called Lapland.
Most of the Samis live in Norway and Sweden.
Many Sami people farm reindeers.
Originally, Samis were hunter-gatherers.
In the past the Sami were nomads, but nowadays they live in regular houses.
Very few people in Finland are from other countries.
In 2016 about 4% of residents were born in another country.
Nature and weather
Most of Finland is covered by pine forest.
The swan, which was considered holy long ago, is the national bird of Finland.
Wood is the most important natural resource of Finland.
It is estimated that up to one-third of all wood resources of the European Union are in Finland.
The national animal of Finland is the brown bear.
The largest animal is the elk, a type of moose, which is a member of the deer family.
There are hundreds of rivers and thousands of fresh water lakes.
It is estimated there are almost 180,000 lakes in Finland.
Many islands in the Baltic Sea belong to Finland, too.
Thousands of islands are part of the Åland archipelago.
Tourists from all over the world come to see the fells and the northern lights in Lapland.
The highest mountain of Finland is Halti, which is 1328 meters high.
The largest lake is Saimaa, 4,400 square kilometres.
The longest river of Finland is Tornionjoki.
The largest river (by watershed) is Kemijoki, 552 kilometres long.
The weather in Finland varies widely by season.
Summer usually lasts from May to early September, and temperatures can reach up to +35 °C.
Autumns are dark and rainy.
Winter snow usually begins to fall in Helsinki in early December (in Lapland it can fall as early as October) and in the winter the temperature can drop to -30 °C.
Winter usually lasts to mid-March, when the snow melts in Helsinki (in Lapland the snow usually doesn't melt until early May), and Spring lasts till late May.
Spring can be erratic, and the weather can change from frost to sunshine within a matter of days.
The famed Northern Lights are common in Lapland.
People first came to Finland 10,000 years ago.
That was just after an ice age, after a glacier that covered the ground had receded.
Some think the first people in Finland already spoke a language similar to the Finnish language that is spoken today.
It is known that an early form of the Finnish language was spoken in Finland in the Iron Age. (
The Iron Age in Finland was 2,500–800 years ago).
The first residents in Finland hunted animals, as "hunter-gatherers".
Some people started to farm crops about 5,200 years ago.
Farming slowly became more and more popular and became the major way of life until the modern age.
The ancient Finns were pagans.
The most important god of the Finnish pantheon was Ukko.
He was a god of sky and thunder, much like Odin, another Scandinavian god-king.
These powers were common among the pagan god kings in pantheons ranging from the Finnish Ukko, to the Scandinavian/Germanic/Saxon Odin, all the way east to Zeus of the Greeks and Jupiter of the Romans.
Around a thousand years ago, when most of Europe was adopting Christianity, Finland also began following Christianity.
During the Reformation of Christianity in the 16th century, most Finns became Protestants.
Some pagan practices still remain amongst the now Christian Finns, such as bear worship.
From the Middle Ages Finland was a part of Sweden.
Then, in the year 1809, Russia took Finland from Sweden.
Finland was a part of Russia, but after a short period of time it became autonomous.
The Finns essentially controlled Finland, though the Tsar was in control officially.
Finns could create their own laws and had their own currency, (called the markka), their own stamps and own customs.
However, Finland did not have its own army.
the Social Democrats organised the general strike of 1905 ().
The Red Guards were formed.
On , Russian artillerymen and military engineers rose to rebellion in the fortress of Sveaborg (later called Suomenlinna), Helsinki.
The Finnish Red Guards supported the Sveaborg Rebellion with a general strike, but the mutiny was quelled by loyal troops and ships of the Baltic Fleet within 60 hours.
After independence
On 6 December 1917, Finland became independent, which meant that it no longer was a part of Russia.
There was a communist revolution in Russia and after 1922 Russia was a part of the Soviet Union.
There were communists in Finland too, who tried to create a revolution in Finland
This attempt at revolution caused the Finnish civil war.
The communists lost the civil war, and Finland did not change its old capitalist system
Stalin, who was the leader of the Soviet Union, did not like having a capitalist country as its neighbour.
Stalin wanted Finland to become a communist state and be a part of the Soviet Union.
The leaders of Finland refused: they wanted to stay independent.
The Soviet Union sent many troops across the eastern border of Finland to try to make Finland join them, which resulted in the Winter War.
The Soviet Union eventually won, and took most of Karelia and other parts of Finland.
Adolf Hitler was the dictator of Germany, and he wanted to invade the Soviet Union.
Finland wanted to retrieve the areas that it had lost, so they joined the German invasion, which started with Operation Barbarossa in 1941.
The Finnish part of the Second World War is called the Continuation War in Finland.
However, Finland was not a fascist or an antisemitic country.
Finns were interested in freedom rather than dictatorship.
While Germany was losing the war, Finland had already progressed into the Soviet Union in order to regain the areas lost in the previous peace.
Finland wanted to end the war with the Soviet Union, which resulted in peace.
Once again Finland had to give up the areas they had conquered.
This time, the peace with the Soviet Union made Finland and Germany enemies.
Finns fought the Germans, and Germans retreated to Norway, burning down all of Lapland behind them.
This is called the Lapland War.
Finland remained independent.
After the war, many factories were built in Finland.
Many people moved from farms to cities.
At that time, big factories manufactured products like paper and steel.
More and more people worked in more advanced jobs, like high technology.
Also, many people went to universities to get a good education.
Finland was one of the first countries where most people had Internet connections and mobile phones.
A well-known company that makes mobile phones, Nokia, is from Finland.
Finland joined the European Union in 1995.
The Finnish currency was changed to the euro in 2002.
Finland has a mixed economy.
Free market controls most of production and sales of goods, but public sector is involved in services.
In 2013, taxes were 44% of gross national product.
This is 4th largest in Europe, after Denmark, France and Belgium.
The largest company in 2014 was oil refinery Neste Oil.
The second largest was Nokia.
Two forest industries Stora Enso and UPM-Kymmene, were numbers three and four.
Number five was Kesko which sells everyday goods in K-supermarkets.
Elections are organized to select 200 members to the Parliament of Finland.
Also selected are the president of Finland, members of town and city councils and Finnish members to the European Parliament.
The elections are secret and direct.
People vote directly for the person they want to be elected.
In presidential elections votes are only cast for a person, not for a political party.
All the other elections are proportional.
The system is a combination of voting for individuals and parties.
The right to vote is universal and equal.
In general elections everybody has one vote.
Famous Finnish people
Alvar Aalto, architect
Markku Alen, 1978 World Rally Champion
Valtteri Bottas, current Formula One driver
The Dudesons, also known as Duudsonit, a four-man stunt group with several TV shows and a movie.
Close friends with the Jackass crew
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, artist
Marcus Gronholm, 2000/02 World Rally Champion
Mika Häkkinen, 1998 and 1999 Formula One World Champion
Tarja Halonen, former President of Finland
Tuomas Holopainen, founder of the internationally famous band Nightwish
Sami Hyypiä, football coach; 2005 UEFA Champions League winner
Juha Kankkunen, 1986/87/91/93 World Rally Champion
Urho Kekkonen, former President of Finland during the cold war
Jari Kurri, 5 time Stanley Cup Winner, NHL Hall Of Famer
Eino Leino, poet
Elias Lönnrot, compiler of National epic Kalevala
Jari Litmanen, footballer; 1995 UEFA Champions League winner
Tommi Makinen, 1996-99 World Rally Champion
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a president and military commander
Karita Mattila, world famous opera singer, winner of the first Cardiff singer of the world competition
Hannu Mikkola, 1983 World Rally Champion
Paavo Nurmi, famous Olympic long distance runner
Kimi Räikkönen, 2007 Formula One World Champion
Keke Rosberg, 1982 Formula One World Champion
Timo Salonen, 1985 World Rally Champion
Timo Sarpaneva, famous designer mainly in glass
Teemu Selanne, 2007 Stanley Cup Winner
Jean Sibelius, the most important Finnish composer
Lauri Törni, later known as Larry Thorne, a winner of the Mannerheim Cross during the Continuation War
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux
Tarja Turunen, former member of the internationally famous band Nightwish
Ville Valo, Lead Singer songwriter of HIM
Ari Vatanen, 1981 World Rally Champion
Tapio Wirkkala, designer and artist
Finland Travel Community - Discussion Forum (English)
Finland -Citizendium
1917 establishments in Europe
In botany, a fruit is a plant structure that contains the plant's seeds.
To a botanist, the word fruit is used only if it comes from the part of the flower which was an ovary.
It is an extra layer round the seeds, which may or may not be fleshy.
However, even in the field of botany, there is no general agreement on how fruits should be classified.
Many do have extra layers from other parts of the flower.
In general speech, and especially in cooking, fruits are a |sweet product, and many botanical fruits are known as vegetables.
This is how ordinary people use the words.
On this page, we describe what botanists call a fruit.
The fleshy part of a fruit is called the mesocarp.
It is between the fruit's skin (exocarp) and the seeds.
The white part of an apple, for example, is the "fleshy" part of the apple.
Usually, when we eat a fruit, we eat the "fleshy" part.
Types of fruits
If the entire fruit is fleshy, except for maybe a thin skin, the fruit is called a berry.
A berry might contain one seed or many.
Grapes, avocados, and blueberries are berries.
They all have a thin skin, but most of the fruit is fleshy.
Don't get confused by the name of fruits like strawberries, because actually they are not berries.
The seeds are on the outside: on a real berry, the seed or seeds are inside the fruit.
Pepo
A pepo (pronounced pee' po) is a modified berry.
Its skin is hard and thick and is usually called a "rind".
Pumpkins and watermelons, for instance, are pepos.
Hesperidium
A hesperidium is another modified berry.
It has a leathery skin that is not as hard as the skin of a pepo.
All citrus fruit like oranges and lemon are hesperidiums.
A pome (pohm) is a fruit that has a core surrounded by fleshy tissue that one can eat.
The core is usually not eaten.
Berries are different - the seeds are inside the fleshy part, not separated from it by a core.
apples and pears are pomes.
Drupes are also called stone fruit.
A drupe is a fleshy fruit with a hard stone around the seed.
We usually call this 'stone' the 'pit' of the fruit.
Peaches and olives are drupes.
Actually, the almond fruit is a drupe, too, though we eat the seed that is inside the 'pit' of the almond fruit.
Botanical fruits
Since fruits are produced from fertilised ovaries in flowers, only flowering plants produce fruits.
Fruits are an evolutionary 'invention' which help seeds get dispersed by animals.
The botanical term includes many that are not 'fruits' in the common sense of the term.
such as the vegetables squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, tomato, peas, beans, corn, eggplant, and sweet pepper and some spices, such as allspice and chillies.
Accessory fruits
A fig is a type of accessory fruit called a syconium.
Pomes, such as apples and pears, are also accessory fruits: the core is the true fruit.
Non-botanical fruits
any produced by non-flowering plants, like juniper berries, which are the seed-containing female cones of conifers.
fleshy fruit-like growths that develop from other plant tissues (like rhubarb).
Area of agreement
berry fruits: redcurrant, gooseberry, cranberry, blueberry Also, but not commonly known as berry fruits, are tomato, avocado, banana.
false berries: raspberry, strawberry, blackberry: they are aggregate fruits (see below).
The yew berry is not a fruit at all because the yew is a conifer.
stone fruits or drupes: plum, cherry, peach, apricot, olive.
citrus fruits, like oranges, grapefruits, and tangerines.
aggregate fruits: raspberries, blackberries.
multiple fruits: pineapples, figs.
Many fruits come from trees or bushes.
For plants, fruits are a means of dispersal, usually by animals.
When the fruit is eaten, the seed(s) are not digested, and get excreted.
Where fruits have big stones, just the soft parts are eaten.
Most fruits we eat contain a lot of water and natural sugars, and many are high in Vitamin C. They have a large amount of dietary fibre.
Fruits are usually low in protein and fat content, but avocados and some nuts are exceptions to this.
Not only humans, but our closest living relatives (primates) are keen fruit-eaters.
So are many other groups of herbivorous mammals and many birds.
Seedless fruits
Seedlessness is an important feature of some fruits of commerce.
Commercial bananas, pineapple, and watermelons are examples of seedless fruits.
Some citrus fruits, especially oranges, satsumas, mandarin oranges, and grapefruit are valued for their seedlessness.
Seedless bananas and grapes are triploids, and seedlessness results from the abortion of the embryonic plant which is produced by fertilisation.
The method requires normal pollination and fertilisation.
List of fruit
A farm is a piece of land used to grow crops  and/or raise animals.
People who grow these plants or raise these animals are called farmers.
This work is called farming.
Land that is used to grow plants is called farmland.
Land that is used to feed animals with its grass is called pasture.
Land that can be used to grow plants for food is called arable land.
Many farms are very large and can cause damage.
In some places farms are many and small, and can also cause damage.
Farms provides most of the food for people.
Some people farm to eat the food they produce (subsistence agriculture).
Other farms, including large ones, sell their products to markets far away in urban areas (commercial or industrial farming).
Most subsistence farms are in poorer countries, while industrial farms are in richer countries.
Kinds of farms
A farm that produces fruits or nuts is called an orchard.
A farm that produces grapes is called a vineyard.
A farm that raises and trains horses is called a stable.
A farm that produces milk and dairy products is called a dairy farm.
If the animals are raised for meat it is a ranch.
A large farm that produces non-essential crops like tobacco, coffee, cotton or sugarcane is called a plantation.
Geography (from Greek: , geographia, literally "earth description") is the study of earth and its people.
Its features are things like continents, seas, rivers and mountains.
Its inhabitants are all the people and animals that live on it.
Its phenomena are the things that happen like tides, winds, and earthquakes.
A person who is an expert in geography is a geographer.
A geographer tries to understand the world and the things that are in it, how they started and how they have changed.
Geography is divided into two main parts called physical geography and human geography.
Physical geography studies the natural environment and human geography studies the human environment.
The human environmental studies would include things such as the population in a country, how a country's economy is doing, and more.
There is also environmental geography.
Maps are a main tool of geography, so geographers spend much time making and studying them.
Making maps is called cartography, and people who specialize in making maps are cartographers.
Physical geography (or physiography) focuses on geography as an Earth science.
It aims to understand the physical problems and the issues of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, and global flora and fauna patterns (biosphere).
{| style="border:1px solid #ddd; text-align:center; margin: auto;" cellspacing="15"
|  ||  ||  ||
| Biogeography || Climatology & Meteorology || Coastal geography || Environmental management
| Geodesy || Geomorphology || Glaciology || Hydrology & Hydrography
| Landscape ecology || Oceanography || Pedology || Palaeogeography
| Quaternary science
Human geography is the social science that covers the study of people and their communities, cultures, economies and their interaction with the environment.
Geographers studying the human environment may look at:
The oldest known world map dates back to ancient Babylon from the 9th century BC.
The best known Babylonian world map is the Imago Mundi of 600 BC.
Star charts (maps of the sky) are of similar age.
During the Middle Ages, people in Europe made fewer maps.
People in the Islamic world made more.
Abū Zayd al-Balkhī created the "Balkhī school" of mapping in Baghdad.
Geography Trainer 1.3 - Educational game aimed at school children
www.geoknow.net - Geography resources at your fingertips!
PopulationData.net
PopulationMondiale.com
Using Literature To Teach Geography in High Schools.
ERIC Digest.
Teaching Geography at School and Home.
The National Geography Content Standards.
Grammar is the study of words, how they are used in sentences, and how they change in different situations.
The Ancient Greeks used to call it grammatikē tékhnē, the craft of letters.
It can have any of these meanings:
The study of a language: how it works, and everything about it.
This is background research on language.
The study of sentence structure.
Rules and examples show how the language should be used.
This is a correct usage grammar, as in a textbook or manual/guide.
The system which people learn as they grow up.
This is the native-speaker's grammar.
When we speak, we use the native person's grammar, or as near as we can.
When we write, we try to write with correct grammar.
So, speaking and writing a language each have their own style.
Different languages
All languages have their own grammar.
Most European languages are rather similar.
English makes few changes to its word endings ('suffixes').
In the Italic or 'Romance' languages (such as French, Italian, and Spanish), word endings carry a lot of meaning.
In English we have just a few: plurals and possessives (John's) are the most common.
In our verbs we have dropped most endings except one: I love, you love, but she loves.
That final 's' comes from the Anglo-Saxon, which had more suffixes.
Verbs do have endings which show changes in tense: walked, walking.
Word order is the other big difference.
Romance languages normally put adjectives after the nouns to which they refer.
For example, in English, a person may say I like fast cars, but in Spanish, it is Me gustan los coches rápidos.
The order of the words has changed: if just the words, without the grammar, are translated into English, it would mean 'to me they please the cars fast'.
This is because Spanish and English have different rules about word order.
In German, verbs often come near the end of sentences (as: Die Katze hat die Nahrung gegessen), whereas in English we usually put them between subject and object, as: the cat has eaten the food.
Written grammar changes slowly but spoken grammar is more fluid.
Sentences which English speakers find normal today, might have seemed strange 100 years ago.
And they might not, because many of our favourite sayings come from the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, and from Shakespeare.
Different people speak with grammar that differs from that of other people.
For example, people who use the dialects called General American English and BBC English might say, I didn't do anything, while someone who speaks what is called African American Vernacular English or AAVE might say, I didn't do nothing.
London working class version: I ain't done nuffink!
These are called double negatives, and are found almost entirely in spoken English, and seldom written.
These differences are called dialects.
The dialect a person uses is usually decided by where they live.
Even though the dialects of English use different words or word order, they still have grammar rules.
However, when writing in American English, grammar uses the rules of General American English.
When people talk about using 'proper English', they usually mean using the grammar of general British English, as described in standard reference works.
The models for spoken English in Britain are often called Received Pronunciation or BBC English.
Nouns are 'thing' words like 'table and 'chair'.
They are objects, things you see in everyday life.
Proper nouns are names of specific places, people, or other things like days of the week.
The name 'James' is a proper noun, as is 'Wednesday' and 'London'.
Nouns can also be abstract things, such as 'suffering' or 'happiness'.
Verbs are words that describe actions: "Ryan threw the ball".
State: "I am worried".
The basic verb form is called the infinitive.
The infinitive for existence is "to be".
A famous example is the speech of Hamlet: To be or not to be, that is the question.
Past tense = was
Present tense = is
Future tense = will/shall
Adjectives describe nouns.
For example, the pretty in "pretty bicycle" says that the bicycle is pretty.
In other words, the "pretty" is describing the bicycle.
This can also happen with a place.
For example, the tall in "that's a tall building" is describing the building.
Grammar studies syntax which is how the "parts of speech" fit together according to rules and create sentences.
Sentences fit together and create paragraphs.
The Great Lakes are five large lakes in east-central North America.
They hold 21% of the world's surface fresh water.
Four of the Great Lakes are on the border between Canada and the United States of America.
The other, Lake Michigan, is completely inside the United States.
All together, by volume, they are the largest group of fresh water lakes in the world.
No one of the Lakes is larger than Lake Baikal (Russia) or Lake Tanganyika (East Africa).
Though the five lakes have separate basins, they form a single, connected body of freshwater.
The lakes connect the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean.
Lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie are approximately equally high and ships can easily pass from one to the next.
Water flows from Lake Superior and Lake Michigan into Lake Huron; then through the Detroit River into Lake Erie; then through Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario; and then through the Saint Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean.
Water also drains from the Chicago River on the south.
Many rivers flow through a large watershed into the lakes.
The lakes have about 35,000 islands.
The Great Lakes region includes the five lakes and many thousands of smaller lakes, often called inland lakes.
The unusual shape of the Great Lakes has created the possibility of large waves called seiche.
If a storm causes a fast, strong increase in air pressure on one side of a lake, the water level on that side of the lake will drop and suddenly push up the water level on the opposite side of the lake.
A 10 foot tall wave in Chicago caused several deaths in 1954.
Ecological threats
The Great Lakes are home to a variety of species of fish and other organisms.
In recent years, overfishing caused a decline in lake trout.
The drop in lake trout increased the alewife population.
In response, the government introduced salmon as a predator to decrease the alewife population.
This program was so successful that the salmon population rose rapidly, and the states surrounding Lake Michigan promoted 'salmon snagging'.
This has been made illegal in all of the Great Lakes states except for a limited season in Illinois.
Lake Michigan is now being stocked with several species of fish.
However, several invader species such as lampreys, round goby, and zebra mussels threaten the native fish populations.
Accidentally introduced species are a big problem.
Since the 19th century about 160 species have invaded the Great Lakes ecosystem, causing severe economic and ecological impacts.
According to the Inland Seas Education Association, they deprive fish of food, cause blooms of toxic algae, and foul boats, spawning areas and drinking water intakes.
On average a new invasive species enters the Great Lakes every eight months.
Two important infestations in the Great Lakes are the zebra mussel,  first discovered in 1988, and the quagga mussel in 1989.
These molluscs are efficient filter feeders.
They compete with native mussels, and also reduce available food and spawning grounds for fish.
Also, the mussels hurt utility and manufacturing industries by clogging or blocking pipes.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the economic impact of the zebra mussel will be about $5 billion over the next decade.
Because the quagga mussel is good at filtering plankton from the lake water, sunlight reaches deeper into the lake.
This increases the growth of algae.
Chemicals from industrial plants run off the land into rivers and arrive in the lakes.
Some of these chemicals are highly toxic, such as mercury.
Contaminated water from sewer overflows also reaches the lakes, and beaches get closed because of the threat of pathogenic bacteria.
Lakes of Canada
Geography of Ontario
Lakes of the United States
The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for open content such as software.
It was made by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU project.
It was initially created for use with software documentation, but can be applied to other types of works as well, such as Wikipedia.
As a copyright license, the GFDL is a type of contract between the creator of a copyrightable work (such as a book, an encyclopedia article, a painting, or a piece of music) and anyone else who might want to use it.
The GFDL is considered "copyleft" because the license is meant to make it easier to use and re-use the copyrighted work, not to restrict its use.
If a copyrightable work is released under the GFDL, the creator of the work is saying that anyone else may reproduce, distribute, or modify the work, as long as they follow a set of requirements specified in the GFDL.
Among the requirements of the GFDL are that any new work created from the original work is also licensed under the GFDL—that is, once something is licensed as GFDL, it will always stay licensed as GFDL, and anything which uses it also is licensed as GFDL.
Finally, any work licensed with the GFDL must contain, somewhere, the entire text of the license.
This provision has been criticized, because it is not always easy to include an entire, long license with a copyrighted work.
In a book, for example, it is easy to include one extra page with the license, but if the work is something like a song, or a photograph, it is not easy.
The GFDL has other requirements that are more complicated.
For example, if part of the work is labeled as an "invariant section," it cannot ever be removed or changed by someone using the work ("invariant" means "does not change").
Works licensed under the GFDL may be included in with non-GFDL-licensed works only if it is clear which parts of the work are licensed as the GFDL.
For example, in a book of poetry it would be easy to label some poems as licensed under the GFDL and some not licensed under it.
But it would not be easy to label if part of a song was licensed as GFDL and the rest was not, so this would not be allowed.
Any use of GFDL material which violates the terms of the GFDL is potentially copyright infringement.
Infringement issues are managed through a community based approach with the approval and assistance of the Free Software Foundation.
A number of online projects use the GFDL.
An online project to license its content under the GFDL is Wikipedia.
The GFDL has been criticized by many people who wish that it made it even easier for content to be re-used.
Among the criticisms are that it is very hard to combine GFDL material with other copyleft licenses, that it is not always clear and easy to understand, and that some of its requirements, such as the "invariant sections", are not free at all.
The GFDL was released in draft form for feedback in September 1999.
After revisions, version 1.1 was issued in March 2000, version 1.2 in November 2002, and version 1.3 in November 2008.
The current state of the license is version 1.3.
All previous authors of the work must be credited.
All changes to the work must be logged.
All derivative works must be licensed under the same license.
The full text of the license, unmodified invariant sections as defined by the author if any, and any other added warranty disclaimers (such as a general disclaimer alerting readers that the document may not be accurate for example) and copyright notices from previous versions must be maintained.
Technical measures such as DRM may not be used to control or obstruct distribution or editing of the document.
Non-commercial educational
Simple English "translation" of the GFDL text
Share-alike
FSF guide to the new drafts of documentation licenses
GFDL official text
Free Software and Free Manuals, essay by Richard Stallman
Apple's Common Documentation License , an alternative license
Glass is a hard material that can be made in many shapes.
It is usually transparent, but it can also be made in colours.
Glass is mainly made of silica; glass made of silica only is called silica glass.
Glass used to make windows and bottles is a specific type called soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silicon dioxide (SiO2), sodium oxide (Na2O) from sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), calcium oxide, also called lime (CaO), and several minor additives.
By changing the proportions, and adding different ingredients, many kinds of glass can be made.
Coloured glass is made by adding small amounts of metal oxides.
For example, a blue colour is given by tiny amounts of cobalt oxide.
Crystal glass is made by adding lead and zinc oxides.
It is not actually a crystal because all glass is a non-crystalline solid.
Crystal glass is called cut glass if it has been cut by hand:
" 'Cut glass' is glass that has been decorated entirely by hand by use of rotating wheels.
Cuts are made in an otherwise completely smooth surface of the glass by workers holding and moving the piece against various sized metal or stone wheels".
The myth that glass is actually a liquid comes from the fact that old windows in houses and churches (200–300 years old) are sometimes a little out of shape: thicker at the bottom than the top.
This is actually due to the process of glass making in the past which led to the glass pane being thicker at one edge than the other.
It was sensible to install the windows with the thick edge at the bottom.
Sometimes a window can be found with the thick edge at the top of the window.
Glass can be recycled over and over.
Glass bottles and jars can easily be recycled to make new glass bottles and jars or used in industry as aggregate (building material) or sand.
Corning Museum of Glass
A comprehensive guide to art glass and crystal around the world
Working Description Furnace & Moleria - Murano Glass
Informative website about the glass industry
Substances used in the Making of Colored Glass
Almost 400 articles and images about glass (mostly art glass)
God is a being or spirit worshipped as a deity.
He is considered to be the creator of the universe in some religions.
Theists believe that God is the creator of the world and created everything that exists and has ever existed.
Some theists think God is immortal (cannot die) and has power without limits.
People who are not theists are atheists.
Agnostics think we cannot know for sure whether God or gods exist, but still might (or might not) believe at least one deity exists.
People who believe that the definition of "God" should be defined before taking a theological position are ignostic.
In some religions, there is only one deity, God.
This is called monotheism.
Some monotheistic religions are the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), the Bahá'í Faith, and Sikhism.
In some religions there are many gods.
This is polytheism.
Some polytheistic religions are Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism, paganism, Wicca and some variants of Buddhism.
Some say that there is one God who can come in many forms, or that there is one God that is more powerful than the other gods.
People who believe in God but not the gods of traditional religions are deists.
In philosophy and theology, people normally write about a God that has a personality but no body and is everywhere at once; that God made the world and time and is separate from the world; that no-one made God; that God knows everything and has all power; that God is both free and good; and that God is perfect and the start of all morality.
There are different names for God in different religions.
Some examples are Yahweh, Elohim in Judaism and Christianity, Allah in Islam, Baha in Bahá'í Faith, and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism.
In English, people write the words "god" and "gods" are in lowercase letters.
People that believe in only on god (monotheists) like to write God with a capital letter.
Some people that believe in more than one god (polytheists) also like to use capital letters when writing about their gods.
Most people that believe in God or gods do not believe in the gods of other religions.
Many people have asked themselves if God exists.
Philosophers, theologians, and others have tried to prove that it exists.
Others have tried to disprove the hypothesis.
In philosophical terminology, such arguments are about the epistemology of the ontology of God.
The debate exists mainly in philosophy, because science does not address whether or not supernatural things exist.
There are many philosophical issues with the existence of God.
Some definitions of God are not specific.
Arguments for the existence of God typically include metaphysical, empirical, inductive, and subjective types.
Some theories try to explain order and complexity in the world without evolution or scientific method.
Arguments against the existence of God typically include empirical, deductive, and inductive arguments.
Conclusions sometimes include: "God does not exist" (strong atheism); "God almost certainly does not exist" (de facto atheism); "no one knows whether God exists" (agnosticism); "God exists, but this cannot be proven or disproven" (deism or theism); and "God exists and this can be proven" (theism).
There are many variations on these positions, and sometimes different names for some of them.
For example, the position "God exists and this can be proven" is sometimes called "gnostic theism" or "strong theism".
Believing in God
By the year 2000, approximately 53% of the world's population were part of one of the three main Abrahamic religions (33% Christian, 20% Islam,  less than 1% Judaism), 6% with Buddhism, 13% with Hinduism, 6% with traditional Chinese religion, 7% with various other religions, and less than 15% as non-religious.
Most of these religious beliefs involve God or gods.
Some religions do not believe in a god or do not include the concept of gods.
God in the Abrahamic religions
Abrahamic religions are very popular monotheistic ones.
Well-known Abrahamic religions include Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Monotheistic means the people in these religions believe there is only one God.
The name of God is usually not allowed to be said in Judaism, but some Jews today call him YHWH (Yahweh) or Jehovah.
Muslims say the word Allah, which is the Arabic word for "God".
Believers in the Abrahamic religions (except Islamic believers) believe that God has created human beings in his image, but this idea is not easily understood by humankind.
One artistic idea is that of an wise elder man in use since the Renaissance.
The Christian Bible talks about God in different ways.
Within Christian canon the Old Testament talks about "God the Father", whilst the Gospels in the New Testament are about Jesus, or "God the Son".
Many Christians believe that Jesus was God's incarnation on Earth.
Christians consider the  Holy Spirit to be God as well, the third person of God.
In the New Testament, there are three beings who are said to be God in different forms: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (also known as the Holy Ghost).
This is called the Trinity.
Although the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible, the word used for God in chapter one of Genesis is actually plural, and the phrase "in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit' is used in the New Testament, (e.g. Matthew 28:19).
Another word that Christians believe has exactly the same meaning as "Trinity" is the word "Godhead", which is in the Bible.
Christians believe that God incarnated in a human body, through the normal birth process, normally growing up into a man named Jesus or (Yeshua), coming to Earth specifically to give every person an opportunity of salvation from their own evil, called sin.
The effect of personal evil far transcends the repercussions humans cause to one another in the world, but affects one's relationship with God the Father, and that aspect of the self cannot be addressed through one's own self-improvement efforts, but requires God to intervene in order to set one right.