As I’ve read the two readings I can definitely say that the authors are good writers since specification is greatly used than vague abstractions. Here are some insights and outputs on how specification and concreteness are used in the two articles.
Calories in Filipino Foods
Concreteness is used in our daily speaking and writing. In fact, all matters in the universe are concrete nouns because they are tangible and can be perceived by our five senses. But what catches my attention in this reading is the fact that specification and concreteness are combined to make this article easy to read. Some concrete and general nouns used are fruits, vegetables, physical activities, sweets, meat, menu dishes, carbs and alcoholic drinks. All of these are concrete but in a general term, the author specified the stated words above for the readers to know what kind of fruit can give you the most calories, and what kind of physical activities can make you lose more calories in the body. For example is the fruit which is specified to be dalanghita, durian, duhat, etc., vegetables: Baguio beans, patola, okra and others, there are also some specified activities like sleeping, house works and many more. Sweets are specified as sugar, yema, etc., meats as tender lion, pork chops and some more, menu dishes such as adobo and dinuguan, carbs like cakes and breads and alcoholic drinks like beer and gin. The readers already know the kinds of foods that can give them calories, but the question now is “by how much?” Does adobo give more calories than dinuguan or is sleeping a better way to lose calories than doing house works? This question may have gotten in the mind of the author, so to answer this, he specified how many calories are in a certain food. For the reader to have an idea on just one reading on how many calories are in a certain food and to do no more further research since people now are more health conscious than ever, the author gave the exact amount of how much calories are in a certain food. Some examples are in fruits, like eating half of an apple can give you 40 calories or eating 7 mangosteens can give you same amount. Or in main course where ½ cup of adobo can give you 320 calories and same amount is given by 1 cup of dinuguan. Same thing is done with the other general terms stated above. This is a good thing done by the reader because no critical thinking is required and no curiosity will arouse, because all general terms are concrete and specified.
Indian food
We can see and say that the title alone is in its general term, right? There are many parts of India, and we know that these parts have certain norms and culture they follow that is different to other parts. To make the reading an “easy to comprehend” reading, the author enumerated all the parts of India which are North, West, East and South India. These specified parts of India have different kinds of cookings. Now that specification is used, where is the concreteness? I can say that concrete nouns are used throughout the article. But its main purpose really is to describe the food in each part of India better. Like Indian foods are known because of its “SPICINESS” (and spiciness is a concrete noun) but questions that would arise in our minds is that “are the food in India the same?” or “if they are all spicy, what aredifferences of a food from South India from other Indian parts or are there any differences at all?” For readers to know the answer to their questions, the writer specified the food in various parts of India and differentiated those using concrete nouns. Like North Indian foods are those foods affected by Central Asian influences and foods partnered with rice like the country of Kashmir. And some countries in North India like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have bread or foods made in flour as their staple food instead rice. While Western Indian foods are known because of its unique taste and varieties of foods esp. in deserts. Some states like Gujarat use dals and achars (pickles/preserves) as a substitute to fresh vegetables. And some states combined north and south cooking like Maharashtra while Portuguese influences can be seen in the country of Goa. Second to the last is the East Indian Cooking, where Bengali and Assamese styles of cooking are noticeable. Eastern Indians even have a special way to wrap the delicacy known as ‘hilsa’ by using pumpkin leaf as the wrapper. Last is the South Indian cuisine which uses more of a coastal style by using ingredients such as fish, coconuts and some spices. You can also eat great Keralan dishes at South India. To sum it all up, it is an easy reading again because classification first is done then the description follows. But if no classification is done and all are in a single paragraph, it will be a difficult reading even if concrete nouns are used. That is the importance of specification.
Specified nouns described by concrete nouns are used by readers to make their story the "best-seller" because readers like us can comprehend much and would definitely enjoy your work. A question to all of us "Can you enjoy reading something if it involves critical thinking?"
