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 its 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.
And for some fun reading ... Andrew, I know you'll enjoy this.
17 comments:
"An entire lexicon of cliches has evolved around the idea of failure and recovery."
I rarely hear the word lexicon, so I didn't know what it meant. It's a vocabulary particular to a certain profession or activity. I just like the sound of it, I think it sounds fancy and professional and the hard vowels work nicely together.
"...when he hit three dingers in a 16-7 St. Louis stompfest."
The author is talking about the strange, strange baseball that has been going on in this World Series, and these two words seem to express that weirdness well. Neither would be the first word to come to mind to describe a home run and blowout, respectively, so their use sort of reflects how much of what has happened in this Series was unexpected. I also love how they sound so much like secret-coded baseball jargon when they're really pretty innocuous.
"That will seem naïve and bizarre to many who chafe at inequities and who think the first step is to throw a few bankers into prison." - Nicholas Kristof
I have heard of the word chafe, but have never heard it in this context. I didn't know someone could "chafe" at something. I thought chafing was rubbing against something, and I looked it up in the dictionary and there were no examples of how Kristof used it. "Chafe" sounds exactly like its meaning to me and it flowed nicely in the sentence.
“Tracy tends to take a somewhat hang-loose approach to airline travel, whereas mine is much more of a hang-tight approach.”
The word that really pops out for me is “hang-tight.” It’s interesting how Carroll made up a new word by playing on an already existing one. I love the word “hang-loose” to begin with: I always imagine it spoken by a 1990’s surfer dude. Carroll effectively contrasts his wife’s and his travel style by just changing the second part of the word. “Hang-tight” is both funny and gives a nice picture of his personality.
"On this crowded, hot, trampled planet, one of the most vexing trends is something countless of us see when we look in the mirror: We’re going gray." -Joel Achenbach
The word that really stood out to me in this sentence was vexing. The beginning of this sentence includes a lot of good adjectives, but because vexing is not as common as the others, it stood out to me the most. Also, vexing has a more interesting sound than for example frustrating or worrying so really grabs the readers' attention.
"If you need to import anything, it has to be smuggled, which means you have to be in cahoots with the regime."
I usually hear the expression "in cahoots with" in casual, often sarcastic speech. Coming from a serious author like Zakaria, this piece of vocabulary was amusing, to say the least. Zakaria rarely uses colloquial devices in his writing, but in this case it worked well to emphasize the overly sentiment of the particular point in the article: frustration at the childlike actions of the government. I liked how he changed up his style with this expression to reflect the subject of his piece.
"Like the Cold War, the war on terror appealed to both American idealism and American realism."
The two -isms work well together in this sentence, especially because they are antonyms in the world of international relations. This sentence captured my attention because of my recent studies on the concepts of realism and idealism in my International Relations class. The repetition of the descriptor word "American" also helps to drive the point home. This sentence reminds me of a well-written, succinct thesis statement.
“Chronological rejuvenation” is psychological jargon for the Fountain of Youth, that elusive tonic that, when we find it, will reverse the aging process." - Wray Herbert
I like the comparisons Herbert made by using the words "jargon" and "tonic." I think the context in which Herbert used "jargon" worked -- to show the typical words of psychologists in a way that is not too overwhelming or distant to readers. This sentence also stood out to me because I usually don't hear "tonic" used in this context (in a medical sense).
"His PR staffs were routinely the most hamstrung in the league."
In sports, people pull their hamstrings or hammys all the time, so I hear about them regularly. However, I had no idea that the part of the body could also be used as something that "Severely restricts the efficiency or effectiveness of". I always think it is cool when a phrase or word from popular culture becomes a real word in the dictionary, and I think to some extent hamstrung is a product of that.
"Dear Hotmail,
You poor, gentle specimen of archaic technology." - Soren Bowie
What stood out to me in this sentence was Bowie's description of a relatively new technology - email - as archaic. This word-play made this sentence very catchy and memorable. I also think that, in general, the vocabulary Bowie used laid a good foundation for the rest of his article.
"As I learned watching High School Musical—under duress—boys who bake strudels are regarded as gender outlaws in high schools." - Dan Savage
Savage is referring to the fact that so-called "gender bending" is typically frowned upon by students in high schools. Savage uses the word 'duress' to poke fun at high school musical - specifically stating that he would need to be restrained to watch it.
"After the shellacking in the 2010 midterms, President Obama tried to cut deals and win back independent voters."
Although I had heard of the term "shellacking" in the past, never had I seen it in a formal piece of writing. I think that this term is perfect in describing the landslide victories for the republican party. It is not only a somewhat silly word that gets your attention, but it just sounds like a really bad defeat, "a shellacking", which works well in David Brooks' favor.
Republicans—from nasty ones like Eric Cantor to zany ones like Herman Cain to “nice” ones like Mike Bloomberg—have been portraying the Wall Street occupiers as a mob of willfully unemployed ultra-left hippie layabouts.
The two words that really captured my attention when reading this sentence was "Layabouts" and "zany". I really liked his use of these two words because it was a cool way of poking fun at these individuals with nicer sounding descriptions. For example when I first read zany i had know idea that it meant foolish or clownish., and layabouts has more of a positive connotation than a lazy or idle person.
"elderly father" - Henry K. Lee
The usage of elderly provides a less objective viewpoint of one of the victims of theft, making him appear helpless to his own situation. Elderly makes the reader sympathize with the victim, rather than simply gloss over the article.
"This isn’t a topic that advocates for gay rights or their many black supporters relish discussing, because it focuses on a wedge where they wish there was a tighter bond."
I really liked the words "relish" and "wedge" in this sentence. I thought they brought to mind a picture that reflected the sentiment that the author is trying to get across. I also just really like the sound of those two words, especially in such close proximity to each other. They both have a lot of consonance, but really different sounds, but so close to each other, they work together.
"The smell of vranyo was so strong I had to put down the paper." -Elena Gorokhova
Vranyo, as Gorokhova explains, is a Russian word for a special kind of lying. She grounds the essay in this word, using to connect her experiences as a teen lying to her mother about a boy and reading about Putin's supposed amphorae discovery. It's not English so a given definition is necessary, but it is a beautiful word and concept and I liked how she kept reincorporating it.
"... there is an intolerable level of coyness and prevarication."
coyness means to be shy or reserved and prevarication means to evade the truth. these words compliment each other in this sentence and really describe exactly what Carrol is trying to get across.
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