Answers to Fiat questions

I'm actually going to answer a few questions from the paper we did in class today. Mostly because there were a couple that were really easy for me and didn't require much research.

The first question was, "Who makes them?"
Fiat is a brand of car just like Ford, GM, or Chevy. So Fiat cars are made by Fiat. There are a few places where they have partnered with other manufactures so I guess you could say that some of them are made by Peugeot, Suzuki, Nissan, India's Pune, and China's Nanjing. That is not unheard of in the automobile industry so the same could be said of many makes of cars but, we still call a Ford a Ford, not a Mazda (www.fiat.co.uk).

The second question was, "Why do they say Fiat?", which I assume asks where the name came from.
The Fiat company is currently named Fiat SpA (not sure what the SpA stands for but I plan to find out) When the company was first formed it was F.I.A.T, which stood for "Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Turino" (acronyms.thefreedictionary.com). With the help of the online site "babelfish"I was able to translate this to, Italian automobile factory in Turin.

The last question was, "Where are they made?"
This took a little more research and was the most interesting for me to find out. I had thought that Fiat was a mostly defunct car manufacturer that had maybe one or two plants around the world. If they're no longer available in America they can't be big right? Wrong. As recently as 1997 Fiat was the 6th largest automobile manufacturer in the world ("The Wall Street Journal"). They have factories on all but three of the seven continents, including six in Italy alone(www.fiat.co.uk). They are currently in negotiations with Chrysler to manufacture and sell the Fiat 500 here in the United States as early as next year .

The current manufacturing plants are:
Tychy, Poland (Where they currently make the new Fiat 500)
Sevel Nord, France (Partnered with Peugeot)
Sete Kagas, Brazil
Minas Gerais, Brazil
Roslyn, South Africa (Partnered with Nissan)
Esztergon, Hungary (Partnered with Suzuki)
Istanbul, Turkey
Pune, India (Partnered with Tata motors)
Jiangsu, China (Partnered with Nanjing)
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (assembly)
Turin, Italy (Where Fiat was born)
Lasio, Italy
Basilicata, Italy
Atessa, Italy
Pratola, Italy (Engine manufacturing)
Termoli, Italy (Fully automated fire engine production)
(www.fiat.co.uk)

In researching these questions I found out much more about the Fiat company than I thought possible. Infact I've decided to review the current Fiat company instead of just the specific make of Fiat that I own. This was a Great exercise in getting ready to research and write my essay. If you can think of any more questions that are might be worth answering please post them here or ask me in class.


An interesting bit of Fiat trivia: Luigi, from the Disney movie Cars, was a 1959 Fiat 500 ragtop.

Grammar post #8

For my grammar post this week I will be highlighting frequently misused words and explain the proper way to use them.
There is a great list in the back of the SMGTW with information on proper use. This web site also has a great list.
I have used information from both for this post and also a few of my personal pet peeves.
My biggest pet peeve when people use the word seen where they should use the word saw. It drives me crazy when my husband comes home and says, "Guess what I seen on the way home from work?"! He didn't seen anything. He saw something. Seen should ALWAYS be preceded by the word have, had, or has. If he came home and said, "Guess what I have seen around town today." maybe I'd cringe a little less often.
The opposite is true for the word saw. Please don't say, "Have you saw the new Batman movie?" No I haven't, but I have seen it.
While researching this subject one thing I found that I didn't know is that when referring to a flag you only say "half-mast" when the flag is on a ship or at a naval station. A flag anywhere else is at "half-staff".
Another misused word that I found interesting is "unique". "This word literally means one of a kind, without equal. 'Unique' should never be modified by 'truly,' 'rather' or 'very.' Something is either unique or it is not." (Tricky words. www.cmu.edu)
The list of common misused words is quite extensive and as we all have problems with different words I recommend you check out the back of our book or the above mentioned web site for words you have trouble with.

Categories

Originally I was going to review my son's choir performance but I think I'm not going to be able to make it to the performance, which would make it difficult to review.
So I think I 'll be reviewing my car. Yes I know I'm obsessed.
So the categories that a 1971 Fiat, 850 Sport Spider fit into are:
Automobile
Import
European
Italian
Car
Compact
Convertible
Two seat
Sports car

Collector's item
Restoration project
Cosmetic restoration
Mechanical restoration
Electrical work

I'm pretty sure I will be focusing on the car as a compact, convertible two seat, sports car and how it compares to other cars of that category in terms of appearance, ease of mechanical work, availability of mechanics. Maybe it's a better idea to just buy a Mazda Miata. That's what I hope to determine.

Grammar post #7

For my grammar post this week I chose the the often misused term ones. This is an issue I know I have problems with and I constantly remind myself that ones referring to many of something is not correct. The word one by definition is singular. The term "those ones" (which I am guilty of using much too often) is only appropriate when referring to many ones. Such as dollar bills, "snake eyes" on dice, or the more than one of the actual number one. Using the term "those ones" when referring to anything else is not correct.

And the razzie goes to...

"Everyone knows the glorious story of a child born in a far away manger. Well this isn't that story. This is Monty Python's, The Life of Brian."

Voted the greatest comedy film of all time by British, Total Film Magazine in 2000 and again by UK's channel 14 in 2006, The Life of Brian is a religious satire that pokes fun not at religion but the mindless masses that often follow it. The troop has a go at Roman history, Latin language lessons, Christ as an alien prophet, and even address gender identity issues.

Brian is a boy born a few doors down from Jesus and spends his life being mistaken for the Messiah. As a baby Brian is visited by three wise men who come bearing gifts for the "child king", one of which is mistaken for a bomb ("Who'd want to give a baby a bomb?!). The gifts are immediately taken away and the wise men leave in a huff when they discover that he is not the baby they were searching for.

Later in his life, while trying to escape from Roman soldiers, he pretends to be a religious prophet and, even though he does a pretty terrible job of it, finds himself chased by a group of religious fanatics who insist that he perform miracles and healings.

Eventually Brian is even cruicified. Of course you can always count on the Monty Python troop to remind us, even while being crucified, to "always look on the bright side of life!"

Response to Grading Professors (Wendy Kim)

As I read the essay I couldn't stop thinking how dry and boring it seemed. It was filled with facts but no fun. The first half of the essay is filled with description of how the web site was set up and what it looked like, down to the last little detail. Considering that the introduction to the essay told us that the site had been redesigned since this essay was written I couldn't help thinking how pointless her description was. Especially since I knew that I could easily go online and see the site for myself much quicker than I could read her essay. I kept finding myself wanting to just skip over it and move on to the next essay so that I could finish my homework faster.
The writing did become more interesting when she started to explain the rating process and just what kind of information could be found about my potential college professors. Even then it was still peppered with boring technical information that I really just didn't care about.
It was a good subject and lead to some useful information, but I think it would have been just as informative and a lot less boring if she had just said, "RateMyProfessors.com is a great website where you can find students ratings and opinions of thousands of college professors across the country. If you are interested in information on professors at your college it's a good place to start."
The essay did get me interested enough to check out the website, which I guess was the whole purpose. (No, Chelsi isn't on it, maybe we'll have to add her.)

Grammar post #6

So my post this week is about when you should combine words and when you shouldn't
like, when can not should be cannot or when no one should be noone (which I think is never), and should throughout ever be through out?

I've often come across these words when reading always thought that the combined versions were just a lazy persons way of writing.
This was a fairly hard subject to research and most of the sites I found seemed to add more confusions instead of clear up my confusion.

Can not is sometimes used to indicate that that you can NOT do something. "I can not eat the cake if I wish." indicates that someone has a choice in eating cake. However, "I cannot eat the cake if I wish." indicates that there is no choice, you simply may not eat the cake.
It seems that can not can always be used in place of cannot but sometimes you cannot use cannot in place of can not.

No-one is generally used when referring to people but can also be written as no one, which can also refer to objects. Though this is more commonly written as not one. Under no circumstances should it be written as noone.
No-one should ever use noone but, can sometimes use no one which can sometimes also be not one.

This site indicates that through out is never correct and should be thrown out for throughout.

That should make everything as clear as a stained glass window.

My essay concern.

The biggest concern I have with my essay right now is that I can't manage to properly connect the thesis statement with the rest of my essay. I think I have a good thesis statement and a good closing statement that go together nicely but I can't seem to make the information in between say the right things to tie it all together.

My Three Elements

For my essay I've decided to profile the Fiat "purist". The Fiat owner or restorer who believes you should use only original parts to restore a Fiat, (except for safety reasons). These purest are constantly on the look out for the coveted Abarth engine. Carlo Abarth was a designer who contracted for Fiat and designed their most powerful small engine. If you can obtain one of these engines you can have all the power your little car needs and still have a "pure" Fiat.
Oh and in case you don't know Fiat is an Italian car manufacturer. They haven't produced cars for sale in the U.S. for many years but are still going strong in other parts of the world. There has been talk of a partnership with an American car manufacturer to start production of the Fiat 500 here in the U.S.

Grammar post #5

So this week's grammar post will be on the same grammar issue that I will be giving my presentation on next week: Subject, Verb agreement.

How do you determine the proper verb form to use with singular or plural nouns?
Obviously the most basic rule is that singular verbs go with singular nouns and plural verbs go with plural nouns. The thing that is a little odd is that singular verbs tend to end in s and plural verbs do not. This is the opposite of singular and plural nouns.
The girls talk. The boy talks.
There are many variations of this rule that can be found here but this is the first and most important rule.

Ethenographic essay

For my essay I will be profiling a group of Fiat850 enthusiasts. I am still deciding what particular aspect I will focus my essay on. Possibly whether a Fiat was their first car purchase and how it has effected any subsequent car purchases. Maybe determining what has made them so devoted to this particular make and model of car, or even if the 850 is their model of choice. I've also considered focusing on the few in the group who repair or race these cars as a career instead of just a hobby or focus specifically on those who build them just for racing or for car shows.