How and why language change

Read the following excerpt from life on the mississippi by mark twain. no girl could withstand his charms. he "cut out" every boy in the village. when his boat blew up at last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not known for months. but when he came home the next week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that the partiality of providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it was open to criticism. how does twain's use of understatement serve his purpose? be sure to use specific details from the text to support your answer.

London includes a quote about john thornton as he is observing hal attempt to motivate the exhausted dogs "it was idle, he knew, to get between a fool and his folly". if the word "idle" is defined as "of no real worth, importance, or significance", what does this statement mean with regard to hal? who is the fool? what is hal's folly? why would john thornton think it of no real worth or useless to intervene?

1. saved aronnax from drowning "an incident" 2. speed of the nautilus man-of-war 3. next to captain nemo conseil 4. electricity vigo bay 5. "a coral tomb" 20,000 leagues 6. the nautilus runs aground nemo's "thunderbolt" 7. episodes are connected by aronnax's quarters 8. captain nemo's "bank" cause 9. distance aronnax traveled on the nautilus "a fine death for a sailor" 10. captain nemo sinks for revenge 50 miles per hour