Modernism

Many advocates of capitalism agreed with Marx's analysis of capitalism as a process of continual change, but, unlike Marx, believed and hoped that capitalism would essentially go on forever.

Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century, two opposing schools of thought - Marxism and liberalism - believed in the possibility and the desirability of continual change and improvement. Marxists strongly opposed capitalism and the liberals strongly supported it, but the one concept they could both agree on was modernism.

Modernism is a trend of thought which affirms the power of human beings to make, improve and reshape their society, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation. It reaches its extreme limits with the Russian Revolution and the third Chinese revolution, inspired by Marxist ideology. Here, people claimed such confidence in the ability to change their world for the better, which they thought that, in a relatively short time, largely illiterate peasants could begin to build a just, egalitarian and socialist order in a conscious way, armed with science and technology.

Alphabets

An alphabet is a small set of symbols, each of which roughly represents or historically represented a phoneme of the language. In a perfectly phonological alphabet, the phonemes and letters would correspond perfectly in two directions: a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker could predict the pronunciation of a word given its spelling. As languages often evolve independently of their writing systems, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed for, the degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single language.

In most of the alphabets of the Mid-East, only consonants are indicated, or vowels may be indicated with optional diacritics. Such systems are called abjads. In most of the alphabets of India and Southeast Asia, vowels are indicated through diacritics or modification of the shape of the consonant. These are called abugidas. Some abugidas, such as Ethiopic and Cree, are learned by children as syllabaries, and so are often called "syllabics". However, unlike true syllabaries, there is not an independent glyph for each syllable.

Sometimes the term "alphabet" is restricted to systems with separate letters for consonants and vowels, such as the Latin alphabet. Because of this use, Greek is often considered to be the first alphabet.

Breeding stock

"Breeding stock" is a term used to describe a group of animals used for purpose of planned breeding. When individuals are looking to breed animals, they look for certain valuable traits in purebred stock for a certain purpose, or may intend to use some type of crossbreeding to produce a new type of stock with different, and presumably superior abilities in a given area of endeavor.

For example, to breed chickens, a typical breeder intends to receive eggs, meat, and new, young birds for further reproduction. Thus the breeder has to study different breeds and types of chickens and analyze what can be expected from a certain set of characteristics before he or she starts breeding them. Accordingly, when purchasing initial breeding stock, the breeder seeks a group of birds that will most closely fit the purpose intended.

Breeding stock

"Breeding stock" is a term used to describe a group of animals used for purpose of planned breeding. When individuals are looking to breed animals, they look for certain valuable traits in purebred stock for a certain purpose, or may intend to use some type of crossbreeding to produce a new type of stock with different, and presumably superior abilities in a given area of endeavor.

For example, to breed chickens, a typical breeder intends to receive eggs, meat, and new, young birds for further reproduction. Thus the breeder has to study different breeds and types of chickens and analyze what can be expected from a certain set of characteristics before he or she starts breeding them. Accordingly, when purchasing initial breeding stock, the breeder seeks a group of birds that will most closely fit the purpose intended.

Sword

The sword is an evolution of the knife. Its name literally means “hurting tool” from the Old German “Swert”. It is one of the most universally recognised ancient weapons and has taken many forms across many different countries. It is used to both slash and stab in much the same way a knife does.

During the Middle Ages, most European swords had double edged straight blades made for both slashing and stabbing. Examples of these swords include the one handed arming sword and the two handed longsword. Curved swords such as the falchion existed in Europe during the Middle Ages but were not as prominent as the straight ones.

The primary sword used in Japan is the Katana, which has a curved blade that is short in comparison to the Rapiers or Longswords of Europe. It is known for its sharpness and formed an integral component of the culture of the Samurai. The weapon remained in use even as other weapons of the time were neglected. It eventually disappeared after The Satsuma Rebellion. The weapon had a renaissance during World War II where it was used by Japanese soldiers in the Pacific theatre. Although the katana is seen as the primary sword of the Samurai, many other types of swords were used by the Samurai. These include the uchigatana, the odachi, the nodachi and the tachi

In its use by Roman forces the sword was relatively short, but effective in combination with a shield, since the soldier could block a downward slash with his shield and then thrust from below and upward into the midsection of an opponent. This technique was extremely effective when in a closed formation. Examples of the successful use of this technique include the defeat of the outnumbering forces of Queen Boudica in the Battle of Watling Street in the year 60 CE.

The sword was used differently in more modern Europe. It was a very long, cylindrical, and narrow blade with no edge and was used to stab rather than slash. It is the source of fencing as we know it today. Most middle and upper class men would be trained in fencing with the smallsword as it was the primary duelling weapon.

The Scimitar was a curved but short blade used in the Middle East. Its name is derived from the Persian shashimir. The weapon is vaguely similar to the European Sabre in that it is a curved slashing weapon.

The sword fell into disuse after Europe discovered gunpowder and related projectile weapons. Duelling and fencing for social purposes continued well after the invention of the handgun. Duelling fell into disuse even before the end of the 20th century and with it the sword ceased to be used in any practical sense.