so, how is this different from learning something by memory/repetition?

so, how is this different from learning something by memory/repetition?

It's the difference between Boot Camp and Sesame Street.

>so, how is this different..

well, not to be flip about it, there are four unique rotes in W3 (more in OED), all from varying roots:

1. L. rotare
2. perhaps akin to Old Norse rauta
3. Middle English, rote, perhaps from L. rota [see 1]
4. rote from Middle English, from Old French, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German hruozza, probably of Celtic origin; akin to Middle Irish crott; rota, rotta, rotte from Medieval L. rota, rotta, from Old French rote

the different senses are left as an exercise for the student. <g>

well, maybe if you tell me a few more times, and I turn it around in my head a bit, I'll begin to hear it...

So, who first wrote rote?

maybe if you tell me a few more times ... I'll begin to hear it

Learning by "rote" conjures up visions of memory "drills" and "Drill Sargeants".

This post is a good example of learning "by rote".

...and that sense of rote has nothing to do with my rote, rerote the master, ruthfully.

The sound of the surf, crashing on the shore
Is like a memory pounded, pounded, pounded,
Relentlessly into the brain
Until I am hounded, hounded, hounded,
And washed down the drain
Of the classrooms of yore.

oops..

classrooms of yore

Were the classrooms of yore
Really such a bore?
At least the memories of mine
Pre-date Columbine.

classrooms of yore

Yet learning by rote
Produced intellect of note,
The McGuffey Reader
A strong instructural leader,
Reciting stories and poems
Drove language skills home.

And they'd "cypher" their math
In a similar path.

But I defer to the WorthlesswordMaster's alarm
And mean no school masterish or marmish harm.

Yet learning by rote
Produced intellect of note

What intellect of note
Was ever spawned "by rote"?
More likely it was creatured
By revolt against the teacher.

Chaucer:
"Whanne that April with his shoures sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote."

"Whanne that April with his shoures sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote."

T. S. Eliot

"APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain."

[Hmm. Does Eliot owe a debt to Chaucer?]

Dear vbq: Thanks for the Eliot quote. I sent me on a most pleasant browse.

It sent me on a most pleasant browse.

Whither did you browse ... into Wasteland, perhaps?

I use only Yahoo!s Search Box, just T.S.Eliot Wasteland, and I got enough sites to keep me busy quite a while, because I never looked him up before. I'd heard the "cruelest month" before but had my own interpretation of it, which is one of the charms of poetry. Of which I am
pathetically ignorant.

Of which I am pathetically ignorant.

As written in your post, it could be termed "parenthetically ignorant," perhaps - but pathetic, you are never, my dear Bill.

Dear RC: thank you for your kind words. I think I was botrn with a set of invisible earmuffs that deprive me of comprehension of most poetry.

a set of invisible earmuffs that deprive me of comprehension of most poetry

Did you hear that, WordWind? When you start teaching your English class this year, you'd better be on the lookout for those invisible earmuffs. Removing them should make the poetry teaching a lot easier!

I think I was born with a set of invisible earmuffs that deprive me of comprehension of most poetry.

Ah, but they say poetry is in the heart, and not in the ear, wwh. You have been listening too much, perhaps.

But an interpretation device isn't much good without an input system - and preferably and output one, as well.

Ah, yes, but you see, that involves penetrating the brain. A difficult task in the best of circumstances. But I'll bet she's up to it!

penetrating the brain

Well ... interfacing with it, at least. To paraphrase Mrs Beeton, "... first, find your brain."

Hare, hare!

Perhaps tortoise would be more appropriate for WW's forthcoming task?