The Word Within the Word • List #10

[Pages:9]The Word Within the Word ? List #10

ped mort carn psych ethno gen nat paleo curs crypt cad capit loqu sacro uni ness alt ics iso vert ate cor ess muta fug

(foot or child) orthopedist, pedagogue, centipede, expedition, pedestrian, pedestal

Latin

(death)

mortal, mortician, mortified, immortality, mortuary, moribund

Latin

(flesh)

carnivorous, incarnate, reincarnated, carnival, carnation, carnage

Latin

(soul)

psychology, psychic, psychopathic, parapsychology, psychosis

Greek

(race or culture) ethnocentrism, ethnic group, ethnography, ethnologist

Greek

(origin)

genetics, hydrogen, progeny, engender, gene, ingenuous, indigenous

Greek

(born)

prenatal, native, natural, nativity, nation, nascent, natal, perinatal

Latin

(old)

paleozoic, paleolithic, paleontologist, paleoanthropic, paleography

Greek

(run)

cursive, discursive, incursion, precursor, cursory, cursorial, cursor

Latin

(hidden)

cryptic, cryptologist, crypt, cryptogram, encrypt, cryptesthesia

Greek

(fall)

cascade, cadaver, cadence, cadenza, cadaverous, decadent

Latin

(head)

decapitate, capital, recapitulate, capitulation, capitulum

Latin

(talk)

loquacious, circumlocution, eloquent, soliloquy, somniloquy

Latin

(holy)

sacrosanct, sacred, sacrifice, sacrament, sacrilege, consecrate

Latin

(one)

unicycle, universe, united, union, uniform, unison, unique, unicorn

Latin

(quality)

softness, redness, politeness, kindness, darkness, vagueness

Old English

(high)

altitude, alto, altimeter, altar, altocumulus, altiplano

Latin

(art)

politics, economics, aesthetics, graphics, ethics, calisthenics

Greek

(equal)

isothermal, isometric, isosceles, isomer, isocracy, isotope

Greek

(turn)

convert, revert, inverted, divert, vertex, controvert, extrovert, introvert

Latin

(cause)

domesticate, implicate, create, procreate, insinuate, placate, dominate

Latin

(heart)

core, concord, discord, misericord, cordial, courageous

Latin

(female)

lioness, empress, princess, baroness, seamstress, governess

Greek

(change)

mutant, mutation, mutagenic, mutable, transmutation, immutable

Latin

(flee)

centrifuge, fugitive, tempus fugit, subterfuge, refugee, fugue

Latin

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The Word Within the Word ? Stem Close-Up #10

sub

under ? beneath ? below

The Latin stem sub, which we define as meaning under, actually can have a wide variety of meanings and is sometimes written as suc, suf, sug, sum, sup, sur, and even sus in order to blend with the stem that follows it. Though sub often means under, it can mean beneath, below, lower, somewhat, or even inferior. Here are some of the interesting words that contain sub in its various shades of meaning:

subcutaneous: subduct:

sublunary: sublimate: submontane:

subtle: subvert: substratum: subsistence: subaqueous: subservient: subtrahend: surreptitious: suffuse: suffrage: succinct: suggest: suffocate: suspend: sustain: summon:

beneath the skin. He was troubled by a subcutaneous infection. to draw downward. She swam against the subduction in the offshore current. under the moon. The lovers enjoyed a beautiful sublunary dance. to express acceptably. The urge of the id can find creative sublimations. at the foot of the mountains. The submontane vegetation was more lush. not obvious. Subtle clues told her to avoid asking about the problem. to overthrow. They worked to subvert the established regime. foundation. His peaceful humility was founded on a substratum of religion. bare survival. They survived at a subsistence level by gathering food. underwater. The subaqueous habitation gradually developed into a city. obsequious. The toady's subservient fawning irritated her. number subtracted. The deduction was a fearful subtrahend from the check. done in secret. The plans were made at a surreptitious meeting in the Alps. to fill with color. Becky Thatcher's face was suffused with embarrassment. voting. Women's suffrage began very late in American history. brief and clear. Her succinct description impressed them all. to mention. He suggested a solution, but no one listened. to smother. Small businesses were being suffocated by federal regulations. to hang. The bridge was suspended from massive cables. maintain. They were unable to sustain their initial enthusiasm. order to appear. The peremptory summons was ignored.

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The Word Within the Word ? Sentences #10

1. The orthopedist went on an African expedition. 2. The mortician was mortified at the sight of the mortal wound. 3. The carnivorous beasts of Venus are reincarnated after death. 4. The psychologist viewed the parapsychologist with suspicion. 5. Ethnocentrism is disturbing to all ethnic groups. 6. The geneticist's hobby was studying pathogenic substances. 7. Prenatal care is important to natives in natural environments. 8. The paleontologist was an expert on the Paleozoic era. 9. The discursive speech gave only cursory attention to the problem. 10. The cryptologist worked all night to break the enemy secret code. 11. The cadaver was discovered near the rushing cascade. 12. Decapitation was once a common form of capital punishment. 13. The loquacious bore answered every question with a circumlocution. 14. The hero's sacrifice was a sacrosanct memory. 15. The United Planets of the Universe soon celebrate their union. 16. The sky's redness and the clouds' softness were beautiful. 17. The broken altimeter no longer measured the altitude. 18. Computer graphics enhance books on politics and economics. 19. The isothermal piedmont region escaped the extremes of temperature. 20. The new convert soon reverted to his previous views about advertisement. 21. To calibrate one's response is to obviate one's apology. 22. The extreme discordance of viewpoints prevented concord. 23. The lioness ate the empress but not the princess. 24. The post-war mutants lived in a mutagenic atmosphere. 25. "Tempus fugit," said the escaped fugitive caught in the whirling centrifuge.

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Pictured on the left are wooden auloi, which were two pipes that were played together at one time by one player. Reeds were inserted in the end of the pipes. They are often pictured on Greek vases such as the one here from Sparta (note the long hair on the pipe player). The auloi apparently produced a sound like

an oboe. The Spartans marched into battle to the tune of these instruments. They would advance on the enemy slowly in a disciplined line that often struck fear into their adversaries, who on many occasions fled before battle was joined. Apparently the slow and measured pace of their advance was particularly frightening. The hoplites of other armies often ran into battle, charging their enemy at a trot or full run, as the Athenians had at Marathon. One reason to run into battle was to limit exposure to arrows, javelins, and sling shot; it was not desirable to shoot arrows or fling javelins if your hoplites were within inches of the enemy, but until the lines came together, advancing troops were easy targets. Another reason to charge into battle might be to engage before fear or prudence could overtake the warrior. However, the Spartans came slowly, unafraid of arrows and javelins and sling shot and certain of their courage in the impending engagement. If their enemies lost their nerve and fled, the Spartans did not pursue. In ancient battles the huge casualties occurred once the line was broken and one side fled; the fleeing soldiers were cut down from behind by their pursuers. By not giving chase, the Spartans allowed their opponents to think better of the fight and to escape with their lives, an outcome they would not be assured once battle was joined. The Spartans won many battles without a fight on the strength of their discipline and the sound of their auloi.

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SPARTAN CHARACTER

Dr. Thomas Milton Kemnitz

Spartan men did not work, either in trades or in agriculture. The existence of Helot serfs allowed the Spartans to devote themselves to affairs of state, to physical fitness, to preparing for battle, and to discussions of topics of interest to them. Apparently a great deal of the education of the youth and the conversation of the adults was about what was and was not proper conduct. An enormous premium was put on character in Sparta; only physical prowess and character distinguished one Spartan from another.

Sparta was often praised by the ancient Greeks for many of its qualities. Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle found much to admire. First and foremost was its emphasis on the character of the individual. Sparta was held in high esteem for the calm order of its society, which often contrasted with the disorder of other polities, particularly with the unruly behavior of the Athenian Assembly and juries. The absence of ostentatious display and luxury appealed to many. Some ancient writers praised the quality of the unadorned furniture that came from Sparta. The Agoge was thought to develop good and virtuous citizens. The prohibitions on overindulgence appealed to many; the self-control the Spartans exercised was widely admired. Others were taken with the economy of language with which the Spartans expressed themselves. Never was the conciseness more evident than when Philip of Macedonia sent a message to Sparta inviting it to submit to his hegemon and saying that if he entered Laconia, he would raze Sparta. The Spartans responded with a succinct single word: "If."

Sparta avoided many problems and wars because it did not have a class of people who desired to enrich themselves by plunder. When the Spartans fought, their objectives were generally clear and relatively limited, and they were successful. The Spartan organization created a remarkably effective war machine because it had the only full-time soldiers. Generation after generation of Spartans went undefeated in battle. The army of the Greeks during the second Persian invasion was under Spartan leadership because the Spartans were the professionals and were most proficient at warfare. Indeed, their participation was so important that Themistocles ceded to Sparta the command of the navy, though Sparta had few ships, and when battle came on the seas, it was Themistocles and the Athenian ships that were the most important.

It is remarkable that most of what Sparta valued was transient and has vanished. There is nothing left of their music or dance, their physical fitness or athletic prowess, their courage or their capacity to endure pain or their abilities in war. Character is important, and we know a great deal about the character of many ancient Greeks; in this capacity the Spartans stand out and were acknowledged by their contemporaries to be outstanding. But their furniture has vanished along with their simple houses. Their city was without great monuments, so there is less to see than at other ancient sites. There is very little Spartan literature.

Sparta was clearly a preeminent city. The Spartans had the attention and respect of their fellow Hellenes. It was as men of war and statecraft and character that they were respected, and for that we have the testimony of others. The Spartans lived in Laconia, from which we get the adjective laconic to describe a person of few words. The Spartans were people of few words, and they left even fewer as their legacy.

600?490 BC Archaic Period

490?323 BC Classical Period

Sparta receives a prophecy at

Delphi

485 BC

Silver find at Athenian mines; decision to build

the navy

483 BC

Greek polities meet to form

defensive strategy

481 BC

The Word Within the Word ? Ideas #10

EMOTION: 1. How would you feel if you were forced to capitulate (Imagine the circumstances for yourself.)? How would you feel if someone were forced to capitulate to you? 2. Imagine your emotions if mutagenic substances were discovered in your drinking water--substances that could be traced to a nearby toxic waste dump. Who would you seek out for actions and explanations?

AESTHETICS: 1. What sounds do these words suggest: unison, carnival, darkness, centrifuge, refugee, sacrifice, Paleozoic, calisthenics, and universe? 2. Is your artistic appreciation ethnocentric? Can you think of another--especially a very different--culture whose art you deeply admire?

SYNTHESIS: 1. Pick an example word in List #10, and use at least three other words from the list to define the word you picked. 2. Make a cryptogram using words from List #10. To make it more difficult, use words from one field of thought only--use words from biology, or history, etc.

DIVERGENCE: 1. How many cracy or archy words can you think of that are names for different forms of government? Don't forget isocracy, a government in which each person has an equal amount of power to every other person. Once you have remembered as many as you can, see how many forms of government you can invent, such as the dormocracy: the government that seems to be asleep! Invent as many new governments as you can. 2. Have you ever been trapped by someone who wanted to talk about a subject you wished to avoid? Or who wanted to ask a question you didn't want to answer? How many clever subterfuges can you think of to escape such a situation? As an example: "I'd love to talk to you now, but I left a poodle in the petwash."

Apollo was the god of music and dance, and on this Athenianmade, red-figure cylix, we see him playing a kithara. The kithara was a stringed instrument more solemn in tone than the lyre. Apollo is seated on a square stool of a type frequently seen in vase illustrations; in front of him is an altar.

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The Word Within the Word ? Analogies #10

1. subterfuge : fugitive :: circumlocution : orthopedist politics : economics lioness : empress ingenuous : indigenous

2. unicycle : unique :: fugitive : refugee soliloquy : solitude extrovert : introvert concord : discord

3. dialogue : soliloquy :: altimeter : altitude mutagen : mutation colloquy : monologue aesthetics : graphics

4. domination : capitulation :: decapitate : recapitulate natal : perinatal pedagogue : pedestrian rule : surrender

5. aesthetics : ethics :: convert : revert sacrosanct : sacred art : morals economics : psychopathic

6. ethnologist : ethnic group :: entomologist : altimeter psychologist : ethnography paleontologist : tyrannosaurus cryptologist : cryptogram

7. consecration : sacrilege :: mutagenic : immutable precursor : forerunner nascent : moribund paleozoic : paleontologist

8. eloquent : soliloquy :: ingenuous : progeny psychic : psychology incarnate : carnival grandiloquent : panegyric

9. softness : kindness :: roughness : ingenuousness somniloquy : discursive decadence : cadence cryptologist : encryption

10. lioness : carnivorous :: extrovert : loquacious convert : introvert sacrifice : sanguinary alto : cadenza

The auloi were a favorite of both the Greeks and the Romans. The myth was that Athena was the originator

of the auloi, but when she saw herself playing them reflected in a pond with her face distorted by her puffed-out cheeks, she thought she looked ugly and threw the pipes away. Immediately the satyr Marsyas snatched the pipes up and began to play them. He produced such a beautiful sound that he dared Apollo, the god of music, to a contest. The Muses were appointed judges, and they decided for Apollo, who punished Marsyas for his hubris by having him

flayed alive. The Greeks had a wide-spread concern about hubris--excessive pride leading to defiance of the gods.

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The Word Within the Word ? Notes #10

1. A Micropoem: Has there been a recent expedition to the headwaters of the Amazon? A common characteristic of expeditions is suggested by the word itself: members of an expedition go out (ex) into the wild on foot (ped).

2. We all have had the displeasure of listening to circumlocution. That is when someone is talking (loqu) in circles (circum). But there are two main varieties of circumlocution. There is unintentional circumlocution, in which a person is talking in circles and doesn't realize it, and there is intentional circumlocution, in which someone talks in circles in order to evade answering a question.

3. A Micropoem: A subterfuge is a clever evasion in which a person tries to avoid revealing something; it is an evasive trick, a stratagem. A literal interpretation of subterfuge might be to duck, in the sense of ducking a question, since subterfuge means to flee (fug) under (sub).

4. We say that a speech is discursive if it is rambling and digressive, if the speaker doesn't stick to the point. The literal meaning of discursive, however, is somewhat more exciting. A speech is discursive if it is a runaway, if it is out of control. The speaker has let the speech run (curs) away (dis) from him.

5. You wouldn't think that hydrogen would be an interesting word. Hydrogen is the name of the simplest and most common element in the universe, but on our planet we possess a wonderful hydrogen-based treasure: water. The importance of water to human life can hardly be exaggerated--even our bodies are mostly water. So when it was time to give hydrogen a name, the obvious choice was to name it after its most important role: hydrogen is the main ingredient in the creation (gen) of water (hydro). Hydrogen is the water-originator. No H, no H2O.

6. One of the most biting terms of derision is the adjective pedestrian. We say that someone has pedestrian taste, or worse, a pedestrian mind. This means that the person simply never attains anything lofty or swift, graceful or elegant; he just slogs along on foot (ped), altitude zero, speed 1 mph.

7. The word cadaver is unusually poignant. All of our lives we live in the earth's gravitational field, and the vitality of our bodies allows us to resist that invisible force which constantly pulls down on us. We spend our lives exerting equal but opposite force to resist succumbing to gravity's mysterious forcefield. At the end of our lives, gravitation wins, and we fall (cad). A cadaver is a fallen person.

8. Unique is a perfectly self-explanatory word. It means precisely what its stem uni (one) implies. There is only one. Something cannot be rather unique; either it is one-of-a-kind and is unique, or there are other such cases, and it is not unique.

9. Spanish Cognates: One of the most important observations to gain from the study of the etymology of English vocabulary is that English and Spanish share thousands of words that are cognates--related words--that have common origins. Often, the English and the Spanish word share not only a stem, but even more than one stem, and often in the same order. As examples, here are some English words from this lesson and their Spanish cognates:

orthopedist : ortopeda reincarnated : reincarnado ingenious : ingenuo crypt : cripta cascade : cascada

decapitate : decapitar unique : ?nico ethics : ?tica indigenous : ind?geno

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