Monday, October 25, 2010
Week 10: October is about to end
Let's get back to vocabulary! I was reading a piece in Newsweek and a fabulous word popped out of an article: shoal. Shoal is a shallow patch of water or a large number of people/fish, and a favorite word of mine that Macbeth uses in one of this great soliloquies. It's an older word, one used less often these days, but it's presence in the article made me keep reading. So, look for some awesome vocabulary, a word or two or three that really zing from the page.
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The words bulwark and vexing were both words that I had to look in the dictionary because I did not understand their meanings. Once I found out the meaning and then re-read the article. The word Bulwark,a wall of material built for defense,in the article describe the reason for U.S intervention in Afghanistan is to protect the women, which is not true. In another paragraph it mentions to the word vexing,to irritate or annoy, as a thought provoking question that irritates everyone: the most vexing question is: What about Afghan women? In the article, it talks about even if the United States lower their presence what will happen to the abused women in Afghanistan. They will still be treated with inequality in Afghanistan.
"After Therriault left, several others jumped into the fracas and began kicking and beating Krystiniak. Two weeks later, Krystiniak died of cerebral hemorrhage and acute alcohol poisoning. His blood-alcohol level the night of the fight was 0.27, Zambon says. Therriault, according to the attorney, had not been drinking."
The word "fracas" comes up in this paragraph; a word i've never heard before. The word means a noisy disturbance. When Therriault and Krystiniak got in the bar fight, they caused a "fracas". I LOL'd at this word actually! This was the only word that stood out to me; but because it's a sports article i wasn't shocked that there weren't any interesting vocabulary words.
"His jaw-droppingly odd lapse has prompted an unwelcome and sordid review of the past and a deluge of theories to explain Ginni Thomas's action."
--Kathleen Parker
This sentence first caught my eye because of Parker's use of "jaw-droppingly." Even though it comes from an idiom that is used quite frequently, I had never seen it used before as an adverb. Two new words for me in this sentence were deluge and sordid: A deluge is the overflow of water onto land (I guess a synonym for flood), or in this case, an overwhelming amount and sordid means dirty, filthy, or vile.
"That this was utter fiction — the takeover took place two years ago, before Obama was president, with McConnell voting for it — went unchallenged by his questioner, Christiane Amanpour, and probably by many viewers inured to this big lie." -- Frank Rich, "What Happened To Change We Can Believe In?"
I'm a pretty big fan of "inured". It has a very specific meaning: to accustom someone to something that is usually unpleasant or negative. When used correctly, I think it can be a very strong word. The phrase "inured to this big lie" definitely holds a lot of weight. It is a sophisticated and concise way to explain something that would otherwise take many more words.
"Putting aside the fact that most young people probably couldn’t afford to take a monthlong vacation in a foreign country, and the fact that her spiritual awakening was admittedly spiked with copious amounts of Costa Rican rum, her story struck me as increasingly normative rather than anomalous." --Charles M. Blow, "Spirit Quest"
Copious! Normative! Anomalous! All those words are so much fun! Their inclusion in such a long, drawn-out sentence makes the sentence way more interesting to read. Any one of these words would spice up your average sentence, so the THREE words put together just makes the sentence pop off the page!
"The Rangers, who spent most of the season bludgeoning the opposition, didn't seem to recognize themselves."-- SF Giants' Matt Cain is rock steady amid anarchy"-Bruce Jenkins
When reading this sentence the word "bludgeoning" stood out to me. Bludgeoning means: to overcome by or as if by using a heavy club. I guess I could see how Bruce Jenkins used this word in his article because a baseball bat can resemble a club. Thus overcoming would be the numerous hits and homers that the bat would grant the hitters of the Rangers.
Brown's writing doesn't always include very difficult or complex words, which makes it easier to read but also harder to do this assignment. The words intravenous, intraosseous, and ubiquitous. Intravenous- taking place within veins
intraosseous- a large-bore needle
ubiquitous- present, appearing, or found everywhere.
This weeks article was about a soldier on the front line and Brown describes a scene with a military medic, making it necessary to use some complex vocabulary.
"Hey, dude, you’re a politician. Act like one."
-"Can the Dude Abide?"
By MAUREEN DOWD
I like the simplicity and bluntness of this vocabulary in this sentence (which is its own individual paragraph) because it really gets her point across. She starts out the article using her usual wide vocabulary with sophisticated words, and then this sentence pops up. It reminds me situations in an elementary school classroom where the teacher is speaking in a very articulate way, and then suddenly snaps at a kid who is misbehaving, using the same kind of forceful and simple language that really gets the point across. In this case, usually scaring the kid into behaving.
Another part of this essay that I liked was when she started another of her paragraphs with the phrase "Reductio ad absurdum"
I at first didn't know what this meant, but according to Wikipedia it is latin for "eduction to the absurd"
in other words, proof by contradiction. This means that she was saying that she was about to prove her point by presenting evidence that was both ridiculous and indisputable. I like how she used this phrase before offering (what seemed to be) her strongest piece of evidence.
The words limn and bucolic both caught my eye because they were both words that I had heard of but had never really known the meaning of.
The word bucolic in the article that I read means "country life of arcadian contentment" and in the context of the article it was talking about the benefits of raising kids in a metropolitan society or in a bucolic one. "Seeing such a display in the quaint, bucolic town of Concord might have alleviated some of my New York City parent guilt."
The word limn means to trace or make a portrait of something. In the article it was used in the context of a teenager in a suburb using this particular word and the difference between kids in small towns vs. the ones in big rural towns in the context of what they talk about their various interests.
"In this favorable environment, economic management was mainly a matter of putting the brakes on the boom, so as to keep the economy from overheating and head off potential inflation."
I like how Krugman uses simple analogies to make his point rather than complex postulations. His use of simple vocabulary makes the writing down to earth and understandable. At the same time his vocabulary definitely provokes a visceral response by playing on words such as "brakes" "Boom" and "overheating"
The authors article wasn't the best one, but when talking about voting he stated that people feel like their vote doesnt count anymore and that "once upon a time, election day (which calendars reverently and traditionally capitalize), carried a more significant — some might even say sacred — meaning." The use of sacred is what people used to think about election day. That it was something that had to be done in order to see change and everyone would be included. However, now people dont see it as a necessity anymore since there is no visual change and most politicians are corrupt and selfish.
"This column is about science education, but teachers and curriculum designers should click away now rather than risk apoplexy."
This is the only super stellar word in the article, but it makes a big impact. By putting this word in the beginning, the author makes the sentence more interesting. Instead of just saying that the teacher and curriculum designers run the risk of getting a stroke or hemorrhage, the author uses a much more complex and exciting word. This is a great start to the article.
"...permitted to violate the law with IMPUNITY." - Bob Herbert, "The Shame of New York City"
This word "impunity" popped out at me, because it not only ended a powerful and emotionally charged sentence, but I have never really known what it means. "Impunity" means exemption from punishment, or freedom from consequences of an action.
"The police use such SPECIOUS justifications..." - Bob Herbert, "The Shame of New York City"
"Specious" was incorporated into yet another rich and obviously opinionated sentence, and it sounded loaded with disgust and frustration towards the situation in the NYPD, that I just had to look it up. "Specious" means superficially plausible, but actually wrong.
This week, the Lives author kept her writing pretty easy to understand without really using any unfamiliar vocab. However, the entire article was based upon this word "helicopter mom." I've never heard of a helicopter mom but after reading the article it seems to be an over-controlling mom thats too scared of losing her kids childhood after they go off to college so they resort in becoming as close as possible to children in their final years of high school. These moms hover over their kids school and personal life, wanting to know every detail and every moment in their lives.
Friedman explains that the United States has lost hope, and other countries are starting to rise up with their technology. Friedman describes, “The U.S. seems sadly unprepared to take advantage of the revolution it has spawned.” By using the word “spawned” Friedman depicts the U.S. as capable to be on the same level as other rising countries such as India and China because the U.S. has initiated this revolution in the first place. The rest of the article shows the U.S. to be pessimistic and hopeless, so the idea of the U.S. “spawning” a great revolution hints towards optimism for the country.
"Responding to the Unger paper, Robert Swezey, M.D.,... report[ed] that his own 1975 study - coauthored by his then 12-year-old son in an apparent attempt to get the kid's grandma to stop the kvetching over the cracking - also found no crack case for arthritis." - Steve Mirsky, from "Scientific American" in his essay "Crack Research"
Kvetching??? Huh? What the heck is that?!? Well, according to the handy Apple computer dictionary, a kvetch is "a person who complains a great deal." (So basically, to kvetch is to complain.) What I like so much about this word is that I feel like I could apply it to many people that I know (okay, fine, myself included), and they would probably have no idea what I had just said. They would most likely not even know that I had just insulted them, because really, who uses this word in everyday language? The answer is nobody. But I definitely think that more people should.
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