Author Topic: Learning new words (Read 7400 times)

Brinestone · « **on:** December 15, 2004, 07:34:01 AM »

One of the perks of editing the course I am working on is that I'm learning all sorts of new words. This author has about a million-dollar vocabulary. The problem is, I'm trying to "tone down" the big words so that students in grades 8–12 can understand the course. That means that instead of just glossing over words I don't recognize and guessing their meanings from context, I've had to look them up and replace them with synonyms. Words I've learned so far:

Effete
Vilify
Malign
Timbre (well, I learned how to pronounce it; I already knew its meaning)
Binary (in reference to music)
Abut
Pastiche

Porter · « **Reply #1 on:** December 15, 2004, 07:40:23 AM »

Thanks. Now I'll feel stooopid all day.

Jonathon · « **Reply #2 on:** December 15, 2004, 07:45:18 AM »

Ooh! I know a lot of those words. Or at least, I feel like I would understand them if I read them in context, even if I can't define them by themselves.

Edit: Whoa—timbre is pronounced TAMber? What the heck is up with that?

Brinestone · « **Reply #3 on:** December 15, 2004, 07:46:37 AM »

Yeah, but would you use them in your writing? That's the real kicker. This guy knows these words well enough to just litter his writing with them.

Jonathon · « **Reply #4 on:** December 15, 2004, 07:52:39 AM »

Okay, so I don't know them that well.

Porter · « **Reply #5 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:06:52 AM »

Actually, as I look at those words more closely, I realize that I know most of them.

Are you sure you didn't edit your post after I posted?

Noemon · « **Reply #6 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:18:56 AM »

All of those are words I'd feel comfortable using in writing or speaking, either one. Although apparently I've been mispronouncing "timber" all my life. TAMber huh? Weird.

Jonathon · « **Reply #7 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:21:55 AM »

Well, "TIMber" is an acceptable alternate, but "TAMber" is listed as the primary pronunciation. Weird.

Porter · « **Reply #8 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:22:44 AM »

That is weird.

Brinestone · « **Reply #9 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:39:32 AM »

I read it about twenty times in the course, and I'm still not used to it. TAM-ber.

Jonathon · « **Reply #10 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:40:14 AM »

It's easier if you think of it in French.

Porter · « **Reply #11 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:42:53 AM »

Some of us can't think in French.

Jonathon · « **Reply #12 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:57:58 AM »

Well, whose fault is that?

Porter · « **Reply #13 on:** December 15, 2004, 08:59:03 AM »

I'm going to have to blame the French.

John the Saxecutioner · « **Reply #14 on:** December 15, 2004, 11:31:02 AM »

I've heard the word timbre spoken many times by many people and I have never heard it pronounced 'tam-b&r.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #15 on:** December 15, 2004, 11:53:40 AM »

Sounds like an English approximation of the French nasal ˜i (I can't make those two type together.)

I also think it's weird how we transform the French -re into -er. I suppose it's because the British pronounce things like theatre and centre that way. It gets really tricky for Americans, apparently, when the letter combination is -vre. There's a town in Montana called Havre that is pronounced as in "You can have 'er!" That's not too hard, is it? But we have a dickens of a time with Brett Favre's name, which I'm pretty sure his ancestors didn't pronounce farve.

John the Saxecutioner · « **Reply #16 on:** December 15, 2004, 12:06:15 PM »

Quote

But we have a dickens of a time with Brett Favre's name, which I'm pretty sure his ancestors didn't pronounce farve.

Yes, but apparently he has a dickens of a time with it, too.

?

Uchiha Itachi · « **Reply #17 on:** December 15, 2004, 01:09:59 PM »

Of course, the ever popular nasal 'i'.

I'll admit to having used all of those words quite comfortably in my writing, but usually not with musical associations. I really have no idea what distinguishes a "pastiche" from a "collage", but I think I like musical collages better than pastiches and sculptural pastiches about the same. I've placed wooden beams and such so that they abut one another, I suppose that someone could do the same thing with musical themes or something. I don't even use "timbre" much in association with music, I think of it as what you test by knocking something with a mallet and listening to the noise it makes.

Lady Montagu · « **Reply #18 on:** December 15, 2004, 01:11:19 PM »

...I'd always thought of it as TAM-bre. However, I did not encounter the word until I heard it spoken in a music class.

Brinestone · « **Reply #19 on:** December 16, 2004, 12:34:01 PM »

Add to that list contiguous.

Porter · « **Reply #20 on:** December 16, 2004, 12:43:40 PM »

That's not a commonly known word?

Jonathon · « **Reply #21 on:** December 16, 2004, 12:44:31 PM »

How are you supposed to pronounce a nasal i in French, anyway? I've heard it as the vowels in both men and man, and possibly more.

Brinestone · « **Reply #22 on:** December 16, 2004, 12:51:18 PM »

It might be commonly known, but I hadn't heard it.

Jonathon · « **Reply #23 on:** December 16, 2004, 12:55:47 PM »

You've never heard the word contiguous, as in the contiguous forty-eight states?

Brinestone · « **Reply #24 on:** December 16, 2004, 01:01:33 PM »

Um, no. I've heard of them as the lower 48 or the continental 48.