Language

A dream had carried the boys so far from home, some 5,000 miles across the ocean to a cramped and dingy apartment in Philadelphia: a hope that ice hockey could change their lives. Ivan Pravilov could fulfill that dream, they were told. He could take them from the daily grind of post-communist Ukraine to the gleaming ice of the NHL. He'd done it before. He'd done if for Andrei Zyuzin, who went on to play for six NHL teams. He'd done it for Konstantin Kalmikov, a third-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1996.

AFTER reading your article "Free Speech at Steak," and having heard what Mr. Vento had to say about his controversial sign, I wanted to throw in my two cents' worth. In a KYW radio soundbite, I heard Mr. Vento say something to the effect that the signs shouldn't bother non-English-speaking folks because they wouldn't be able to read it. So what's the point in posting it? Is there some sort of subliminal suggestion here? In your article, mention is made of his grandparents' having been Italian immigrants.

David Woods is a Philadelphia writer When the body of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is brought before the Romans, does the bard have them say, "Who dunnit?" No, he has Mark Antony deliver the eloquent "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech. And the Roman poet Horace showed his lyrical skill with: "Pick today's fruits, not relying on the future in the slightest. " Carpe Diem . He did not, you will note, say, "Have a nice day. " In both cases, the writers knew a simple truth: that language matters.

The Philadelphia Civic Ballet performed yesterday at Bishop Shanahan High School in Downingtown. The troupe has danced at area schools for 28 years.

Olney residents have further marred the reputation of Philadelphia. Their actions against the Olney Korean community are deplorable, born of fear and ignorance. Language has never caused division in this country. Social and economic incentives to learn English have lured every immigrant community, without exception. The adoption of English by immigrants follows a documented pattern: the first generation tends to be comfortable only in its mother tongue, the second generation is bilingual, and the third generation tends to speak only English.

ON JAN. 3, when the Catholic calendar honors the Feast of the Holy Name, I reflected on a recent experience I had in a market parking lot. A young mother and her daughter, about 6, came to their car next to mine. The daughter climbed into the car first, then the mother. The mother screamed at the child, "J---- C-----, why did you move my [bleeping] seat!" I turned and asked her if that was appropriate language to use with a child. She turned on me with a blast of expletives. The abusive use of the name of Jesus is ubiquitous.

The Oakland, Calif., School District has reminded the nation of what language means to us. It is our very beginning. Once we as toddlers are given the gift of the communicating self, we can forever discover, learn and expand in a world of common symbols. Perhaps nothing defines us more than our linguistic skills; nothing determines as much about where we can and cannot go. How we talk may be the first - and last - clue about our intelligence and whether we're trusted or feared, heard or ignored, admitted or excluded.

"It's not the past that makes us. It's the image of the past contained in language. " That pronouncement from Brian Friel's Translations focuses on the play's major theme: language, its power and limitations, uses and abuses. And if the last words were modified to read "a colorful image of the past contained in vividly expressed language," it would pretty much describe the play Temple Theaters is presenting. Translations' thoughtful ruminations are placed within the context of the Irish Troubles, but it was not the more familiar locales - say, Dublin in 1916 or the Ulster of the last three decades - that interested Friel in this 1980 play.

Although the new Westampton Township police contract is a month overdue, officials of both the township and the police association say there is neither a stalemate nor an impasse. Rather, with all the main issues decided, the hang-up to a new agreement is language, they say. "Right now, our lawyer's got it again, and he's got to change some of the language in it," police association president Steven Van Sciver said on Monday. "I'm hoping to have it at the end of this week.

Art and music classes in Pennsylvania's elementary schools may be headed down the same road as language instruction - desirable but dispensable, too costly in an era of ever-tightening public education budgets. In Delaware County's blue-collar Upper Darby school district, pressure to allocate more money and more classroom time to core academic subjects could trigger the elimination of elementary school music and art classes, physical-education teachers, and librarians this fall.

Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, an environmental advocacy group, on Monday released what it calls a "plain language" guide to Act 13, Pennsylvania new oil and gas law, the first comprehensive attempt to regulate the industry developing the Marcellus Shale. "Since this law was signed, there has been a great deal of confusion about the various provisions," said George Jugovic Jr., the president of PennFuture. The law includes provisions allowing government to impose an "impact fee" on shale-gas wells.

Words matter. Take red tide, the popular term for blooms of harmful marine algae. It's a misnomer because the blooms are not always red, and their movement is largely unrelated to tides. Also, many species of algae that cause red discoloration are not harmful. I worry that we are using inaccurate terminology to describe serious environmental issues throughout the sciences. Though catchy names do grab public attention, they are likely to feed troublesome misconceptions among those unfamiliar with the complexity of the issues.

DANNY MWANGA is trying his utmost to become a chameleon. Adapt, adapt . . . adapt. He conveyed this while speaking with me on Wednesday. He also said - in confidence - he knows his play is not up to the level fans expect. But he's healthy, showing no ill effects from last season's debilitating shoulder and hip injuries. He's happy too, entrusted with being the team's top striker alongside newcomer Lionard Pajoy. But here's the issue. Mwanga, with Pajoy as his third strike partner in as many seasons, has remained the only constant.

Casa de Mi Padre A goofball Spanish-language parody of the cheesily overdramatic telenovela form, with Will Ferrell as the dim-witted son of a Mexican rancher, caught up in romance, sibling rivalry, drug-dealing, and some mystical communion with a talking white lion. R Jiro Dreams of Sushi Wonderful doc about an octogenarian who serves octopus (and other raw fish) in an impeccable hole-in-the-wall on a Tokyo subway concourse. Accorded the top 3-star ranking from the Michelin guide, Jiro Ono's Sukiyabashi Jiro is no ordinary eatery, and its humble, bespectacled proprietor no ordinary man. A study of a life devoted to work, to simplicity, to purity, and to the quest for perfection.

Rick Santorum and I go way back. That's how it feels anyway. Over the past 15 years, I've written more than a dozen columns condemning something Santorum said. This column is different. I come to praise Rick Santorum, not to bury him. Put simply, Santorum is authentic. Like him or not, he says exactly what he thinks. And that surely helps explain why he poses a pesky challenge to Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, who says exactly what he thinks will get him elected. Santorum also speaks in simple, moralistic language: Some things are good, and other things are evil.

Back in 1981, when Connie Majka went on a Hawaiian vacation with her mother, she packed some predictable baggage. "I expected a Wildwood with palm trees. I'd seen the Elvis Presley movies," she recalls. "It looked fun. " Fun it was, and also life-changing. For it was on that trip that Majka saw her first native Hawaiian hula dancer, a large woman who performed with such grace, "she seemed to be floating on air. I knew instantly: I want to do that. " In the years since, Majka has studied hula and the Hawaiian culture both there and here.

Robert C. Melzi, 96, of Bala Cynwyd, professor emeritus of Romance languages at Widener University, died Thursday, March 1, at home. Dr. Melzi was on the Widener faculty for 30 years and chaired the Romance language department in the 1970s. He also taught courses at the University of Pennsylvania, St. Joseph's University, Villanova University, and Bryn Mawr College. In 1967, Dr. Melzi, an expert on Dante, wrote Castelvetro's Annotations to the 'Inferno': A New Perspective in Sixteenth Century Criticism . After 11 years of work, in 1973 he published the Bantam New College Italian-English Dictionary . "Up until now," he told the Philadelphia Daily News, "the bilingual dictionary for the most part reflected the tastes, culture, and language of Great Britain.

David Woods is a Philadelphia writer When the body of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is brought before the Romans, does the bard have them say, "Who dunnit?" No, he has Mark Antony deliver the eloquent "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech. And the Roman poet Horace showed his lyrical skill with: "Pick today's fruits, not relying on the future in the slightest. " Carpe Diem . He did not, you will note, say, "Have a nice day. " In both cases, the writers knew a simple truth: that language matters.

First, put your mind to rest about this play's awful title: Nobody is stabbing any chickens. But that's about the extent of the reassurance I can offer about Knives in Hens by David Harrower, an unnerving, mysterious play in an intriguing if patience-testing production at Theatre Exile's Studio X under Brenna Geffers' direction. Young Woman (Emilie Krause) has become the wife of William (Jered McLenigan, the only person in the cast who actually seems to inhabit his character)