The Stock Market, Wall Street.

The New York Stock Exchange is by far the the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization its listed companies at US$14.242 trillion as of Dec 2011.

The NYSE floor is placed at 11 Wall Street, is composed of four rooms to make easier the trading. The main building is placed at 18 Broad Street, between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange place and was designated a National Historic Landmark.  

Who works in the stock exchange receives the name of broker.

What a broker does? Well,  a broker is the person or business intermediary between a purchaser and a seller, and he is paid for it with a commission. A well as this person or business takes charge of advise about matters related to the deal. A broker in the United States must pass two licenses examination  from the National Association of Security Dealers.

Nowadays, the New York Stock Exchange works through computers which process the information so fast, they cross information of bid and ask.  What we saw on films or TV shows, people shouting, talking on the phone, it’s something of the past, because now all the operations are carried out by computers. 

The stock market has a typical vocabulary, we will see some of these words:

-                       -Junk/high yield bounds: they are bound with a really high risk and high return. This is one of the reasons of the actual financial crisis.

-                     - Bear market/bearish:  this gives name a period of continuous falling down of the stock prices.

-                   -  Bull market/bullish: it is the opposite of I have explained previously (bear market).

And this is the famous bull of Wall Street.

 -    IPO (Initial Price Offer):  It is the first price of the any new stock that starts in the stock market.

-           Dividend/ yield: it’s a fixed amount of money that a company gives per share.

-        Commodities: This is a synonym for goods, and the most important market is the London commodities.

-        PER (Price Earnings Ratio) is the result of a division between the price of a stock and the earnings per sh

are. It is a very useful information about a company.

- Chart is the graphic where appears the price of the stock along the time.

- Shares/stock/equity, these are stock’s synonyms.

- Shareholders, they are the owner of the stocks.

- Target price, is the estimated price of a stock in a determined time.

- Fund, they are companies in charge of managing the money.

- Index, is the generic name of all the stocks markets.

- Exchange, is the place in which options, futures, and shares in stocks, bonds, indexes, and commodities are saled.

- Margin: A margin account lets a person borrow money from a broker to purchase securities. The difference between the amount of the loan, and the price of the securities, is the margin.

These words are used every day in the financial world. And a very famous proverb for all these world is the trend is your friend, which means what you have to do what everybody does, if you follow the trend in market you possibly will be rich, but you have to know how play with money.

http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/undervaluedovervalued/a/wall-street-vocabulary.htm http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsa_de_Nueva_York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stock_Exchange http://www.investopedia.com/university/broker/broker.asp#axzz2FaKGVFlZ http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agente_(econom%C3%ADa)

The national flag of the United States of America

Thirteen bars and fifty starts. This is how we named our blog and it is also the main characteristic of the American flag but do you all know why the American flag is made of bars, stars and the colors white, blue and red? I will devote this post just to explain the meaning and importance of this flag.

This peculiar flag is made up by fifty stars, thirteen bars and the colors red, blue and white. Did you know what the stars and the bars symbolize? Maybe some of you do so, I will explain it to the ones who don’t. On one hand, The stars, that are white, symbolize the fifty states of the US.

On the other hand, the bars. The bars are all equal and they are settled horizontally. The colors used for this bars are red and white. These bars represent the union of the first thirteen colonies that got separated from the British Crown in 1777.

As for the colors, according to a book named Our flag, they had no meaning at all at the beginning in 1777. However, they did get a meaning in 1782; white as their skin, read as their blood and blue as their sky and their justice.

Curiosities:

1. Did you know that the first American flag had no stars at all? Instead of stars, it had a small representation of the British flag.

2.  The first American flag that had stars contained thirteen.

3. The number of stars increased when the states added to America.

4. The last state which added to America was Hawái in 1960.

6. This flag is the only one in the world that has been waved on the moon.

By Francisco Manuel Alfonso Sánchez

Academy Awards

Something I consider very interesting and relevant in the United States is the Academy Awards.

In this post, I’ll explain a little its history, and taking into consideration that this blog is dedicated to the language of The United States, I’ll talk about some memorable Acceptance speeches that actors, actresses, directors… have made along the history.

The first Academy Awards ceremony took place out of the public eye during an Academy banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Two hundred seventy people attended the May 16, 1929 dinner in the hotel's Blossom Room; guest tickets cost $5.

The Academy used a system which consisted of keeping the results in secret but giving a list in advance to newspapers for publication at 11 p.m. on the night of the Awards. This policy continued until 1940 when the Los Angeles Times published the names of the winners in its evening edition. This prompted the Academy in 1941 to adopt the sealed-envelope system still in use today.

The event moved from banquet room to a theater venue in 1942, held at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Today, the Oscar Ceremony is held at the Hollywood and Highland Center®.

In 1953, the first televised Oscar ceremony occurred. Broadcasting in color began in 1966, affording home viewers a chance to fully experience the dazzling allure of the event. Since 1969, the Oscar show has been broadcast internationally, now reaching movie fans in over 200 countries.

And now, I’ll show you the memorable Acceptance speeches mentioned above.

One of the speeches which draws my attention is the Gwyneth Paltrow’s speech, for winning the best actress statuette for Shakespeare in love. What is remembered is her simpering acceptance speech, a performance so self-indulgently lachrymose that the phrase ‘to do a Gwyneth’ has entered the language as a generic description for anyone who loses of sense of emotional proportion the moment the step up to accept an award.

Here it's the video:

Another memorable Acceptance Speech is the Marlon Brando’s speech. At the 45th annual Academy Awards show he boycotted the ceremony and sent American Indian Rights activist, Sacheen Littlefeather, in his stead. When Brando’s name was called as winner of the coveted Best Actor award, Littlefeather took to the stage dressed in traditional Apache clothing, refused the proffered Oscar trophy with a polite wave of her hand, and read a brief statement explaining that Brando would not accept the award in order to protest the manner in which Native Americans were portrayed in the entertainment industry.

Here’s the video: 

Another curious Acceptance speech was the Adrien Brody’s speech. Accepting the award at age 29, his acceptance speech was filled with youthful exuberance. As Brody bounded onto the podium he took presenter Halle Berry in his arms, tilted her back and planted a passionate Hollywood kiss on her lips. 

And finally, the acceptance speech made by James Cameron, in which he says ‘’I’m the king of the world’’, imitating Leonardo Di Caprio in the movie ‘Titanic’.

Source:

 http://oscar.go.com/about-the-show

American English in print media

Newspaper and also magazines play an important role in society. They keep people informed about the news and not only the news in their countries but what is going on in the whole world. 

Print media is, at least in the USA , the term that people use to refer to all this specific reading material that contains information about the recent events.

In newspapers, there are some articles. When there are several articles all under the same point of information, they are called sections. These sections are:

 - The front page,  where the summaries of the most important news are written. This section is full of headers of the mains news. The header is the “title” that tells us the subject of the news.

- There can also be a page devoted to important subjects such as economy and happenings.           This section is known as “local news” .

- The sports section, where the news related to sports are printed.

- Then, the forecast section is where the things related to the weather are (and also news about natural disasters but that can be in the front page as well) . 

- Finally, there is the section of ads. In this section, one can find from things to rent to people to meet and chat with.

- There also are newspapers that include sections like health and technology but not all of them do so it really depends on the printing house.

The use of language, in headers, has to be very brief so that people can understand what the news is about in a flash. Then, the news is described in depth and full of details.

A little piece of the history of newspapers:

The very first newspaper published in America, was printed by Richard Pierce and edited by Benjamin Harris in Boston on September 25 in the year of 1690.

During years, technology developed and so did newspapers. Their format, presentation and design was altered a lot of times but it was in the 20^th century when the first internet on-line appeared. 

Here is a link where you can share one of the most famous American on-line newspapers:

http://www.nytimes.com/ 

Sources: http://www.historybuff.com/library/reffirstten.html and wikipedia.

By Francisco Manuel Alfonso Sánchez.

The Origins of American state names

I think it’s interesting to know the origins of American State names.

I’ll give you a list with the fifty states of north America and their name’s origins.

State	Origin	Meaning
Alabama	Choctaw	‘I open the thicket’
Alaska	Eskimo	‘great land’
Arizona	Papago	‘place of the small spring’
Arkansas	Sioux	‘land of the south wind people’
California	Spanish	‘earthly paradise’
Colorado	Spanish	‘red’
Connecticut	Mohican	‘at the long tidal river’
Delaware	Named after the English governor Lord de la Warr
Florida	Spanish	‘land of flowers’
Georgia	Named after king George II
Hawaii	Hawaiian	‘homeland’
Idaho	Shoshone	‘light on the mountains’
Illinois	French	‘warriors’
Indiana	English	‘land of the Indians’
Iowa	Dakota	‘the sleepy one’
Kansas	Sioux	‘land of the south wind people’
Kentucky	Iroquois	‘meadow land’
Louisiana	Named after King Louis XIV of France
Maine	Named after a French province
Maryland	Named after Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s queen
Massachusetts	Algonquian	‘place of the big hill’
Michigan	Chippewa	‘big water’
Minnesota	Dakota Sioux	‘sky-coloured water’
Mississippi	Chipewa	‘big river’
Missouri	Probably French	‘muddy water’
Montana	Spanish	‘mountainous’
Nebraska	Omaha	‘river in the flatness’
Nevada	Spanish	‘snowy’
New Hampshire	Named after Hampshire, England
New Jersey	Named after Jersey (Channel Islands)
New Mexico	Named after Mexico.
New York	Named after the Duke of York
North Carolina	Named after King Charles II
North Dakota	Sioux	‘friend’
Ohio	Iroquois	‘beautiful water’
Oklahoma	Choctaw	‘red people’
Oregon	Possibly Algonquian	‘beaver place’
Pennsylvania	Named after Quaker William Penn + Latin for ‘woodland’
Rhode Island	Dutch	‘red clay’ island
South Carolina	Named after King Charles II
South Dakota	Sioux	‘friend’
Tennessee	Name of a Cherokee settlement
Texas	Spanish	‘allies’
Utah	Possibly Navaho	‘upper land’
Vermont	French	‘green mountain’
Virginia	Named after Queen Elizabeth I
Washington	Named after George Washington
West Virginia	Derived from Virginia
Wisconsin	Possibly Algonquian	‘grassy place’
Wyoming	Algonquian	‘place of the big flats’

Source:

‘’The English Language’’, David Crystal.

By: Patricia Domínguez