Vocabulary Summer 2006: Word Hunt
For
Monday, please click on the link that says
Etymology to the right hand side of this page.
Hunt for a word with a Latin root and a word with an Anglo-Saxon or Old or Middle English root and
fetch them back here and include them in your comment to this post.
What's Your Dog Like?
Ben's dog has been doing some great work in the fetching department. To see his wonderful "pestering philosophy" on the Internet as a place, click the link I just provided to
"Ben's dog" and go to his second comment, and then you can also see my lengthy response, and so on, and so forth. You will see, also, that we have begun to play catch with the mysterious you-know-who. (I think I do know who, but it took me a while to guess).
Going on the assumption that our minds are like young dogs, with the qualities of dogs--loyal, affectionate if treated well, mean and snappy if treated poorly, easily distracted sometimes and sometimes impossible to call back from a particular meaty bone or smelly patch of grass--well, it's an amusing thought, and also a useful one.
Thinking about the kind of dog your mind might be marks the beginning of becoming the right kind of owner for that dog. Uh, mind. Isn't it?
To be frank, my animal feels more like a bird most times:
a magpie, to be exact. But when I can focus long enough to think in dog terms, the dog that comes to mind for me is
a spaniel. I adore
Cocker Spaniels, but I think my mind's dog is more like a
Springer or
Brittany Spaniel. She likes (in no particular order): a hard task, a lot of space to roam, a good strong trail to follow on the hunt, a great deal of love and encouragement, and treats and a warm fire at the end of the day.
What does your dog need to work its best? Comment please!
Vocabulary Summer 2006: The Story of English
We begin...at the
beginning.
or, if you prefer, the
commencement.
The
inception.
or ...inauguration, initiation, launch, leadoff, opening, origination, start.
(Guess which of those is a good old-fashioned
Old English word?)
With the first poem in a book I like to keep handy,
The New Breadloaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry,
Agha Shahid Ali's haunting poem,
"Ghazal."Ali was Kashmiri Muslim, and grew up in India. In this poem he examines many
Farsi and
Arabic connections to the
English language, and alludes to the work of Spanish poet
Federico Garcia Lorca and Israeli poet
Yehudah Amichai.
Also mentioned in the poem are medieval Jewish scholar
Maimonides, the Persian love story of
Laila and Majnoon, the
Qur'an, Argentinian author
Jorge Luis Borges, and an infamous 1948 attack by a Jewish militia on Palestinian civilians at
Deir Yassein to claim land for the new state of Israel.
All that from one small poem.
Assignment for Tuesday, June 27: Compile a list of the list of words from Agha Shahid Ali's poem, which I gave out on Wednesday in class. Your list should contain eight words, four of them new and unfamiliar, and four of them familiar words.
Now, define all eight words using a good dictionary, rewrite the definitions in your own words, and also include the
word origins. We will go over these in class on Monday.
Please type your list and definitions and give them to me on Tuesday.
In addition to your print dictionaries, you may also want to consult a resource like
Bartleby or The
Online Etymology Dictionary.
