How does the author of "The Monkey's Paw" use foreshadowing in the first chapter to suggest that the spell placed on the paw might not bring...

The author of "The Monkey's Paw" uses the words and behavior of Sergeant-Major Morris as ominous foreshadowing of what is likely to happen to the person who possesses the mummified paw on which an Indian fakir supposedly placed a spell. Here are a few examples of how Sergeant-Major Morris foreshadows what is to come.

"The first man had his three wishes. Yes," was the reply; "I don't know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That's how I got the paw."

"If you don't want it, Morris," said the other, "give it to me."
"I won't," said his friend, doggedly. "I threw it on the fire. If you keep it, don't blame me for what happens. Pitch it on the fire again like a sensible man."

"Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud," said the sergeant-major, "but I warn you of the consequences."

The reader is certainly prepared to expect something very bad to happen if Mr. White makes his three wishes. In fact, something strange and uncanny seems to happen even as he is in the process of making his first wish, thereby augmenting Sergeant-Major Morris' foreshadowing of evil. White drops the monkey's paw with revulsion and explains to his wife and son:

"It moved," he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay on the floor. "As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake."

Mr. White's experience may have been nothing more than his imagination intensified by his being startled by the crashing chord Herbert played on the piano at the moment he made his first wish. Throughout the story the reader can never be quite sure that the monkey's paw has any magical power at all. As Mr. White explains in Part II of the story:

"Morris said the things happened so naturally," said' his father, "that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence."

All of the foreshadowing at the beginning of the story is apparently intended by the author to prepare the reader to believe that the results of Mr. White's three wishes are not coincidences but the granting of those wishes by some supernatural power. The reader, however, will never know for sure and is left wondering.

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.

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