"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 30

Philip Geer's "Simon's Saga" includes 820 SAT-level words and gives students an entertaining glimpse into college life.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 12, Episode 13, Episode 14, Episode 15, Episode 16, Episode 17, Episode 18, Episode 19, Episode 20, Episode 21, Episode 22, Episode 23, Episode 24, Episode 25, Episode 26, Episode 27, Episode 28, Episode 29, Episode 30, Episode 31, Episode 32, Episode 33, Episode 34, Episode 35, Episode 36, Episode 37
25 words 342 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. iconoclastic
    characterized by attack on established beliefs
    And he could be delightfully iconoclastic and independent in his thinking.
  2. preeminent
    greatest in importance, degree, or significance
    Then, it was this materialistic worldview that became preeminent—and still is.
  3. utilitarian
    valuing or chosen for usefulness above all else
    If you can’t see it, it must not exist. Or if it does, it’s irrelevant. Only utilitarian thinking has any validity.
  4. metaphor
    a figure of speech that suggests a non-literal similarity
    And it seems that there’s a dominant sort of metaphor for describing the world in every era
  5. omnipotent
    having unlimited power
    The whole universe must be like a clock, people thought. Yeah, some omnipotent person made this clock—our universe—gave it a good winding, put it on a shelf where it’s been gathering dust, and it’s been there ever since, tick tock, tick tock, year after year, eon after eon.
  6. omniscient
    knowing, seeing, or understanding everything
    “So does this guy look at the watch? I mean if he’s so powerful and omniscient he must be able to tell the time without looking at his watch.”
  7. cartography
    the making of maps and charts
    Cartography wasn’t exactly a precise science back then either, so maps were wildly distorted and weren’t much help.
  8. mercenary
    profit oriented
    “And,” Jaz said, “if you can’t sail around the world without getting lost, the mercenary bit doesn’t work out too well.
  9. lucre
    informal terms for money
    You can’t make a lot of lucre for Church and King if you spend most of your time sailing in circles.
  10. enamored
    marked by foolish or unreasoning fondness
    It’s totally mechanistic, so it doesn’t involve any violation of the materialistic view we’re so enamored of.
  11. exorcise
    expel through adjuration or prayers
    If a machine can think like us, or even better than us, it must mean that mind is a natural, reasonable outcome of mechanistic processes, not some scary ‘ghost in the machine’—a soul in a body—that must be exorcised at all costs.
  12. acronym
    a word formed from the initial letters of several words
    And there’s this obsession with artificial intelligence—AI, to use the acronym—now too.
  13. futile
    producing no result or effect
    I mean, how can I look at it objectively, from the outside, and see what I fundamentally see things in terms of? It seems like a kind of futile exercise.
  14. herculean
    extremely difficult; requiring great strength
    Can’t you by a Herculean effort emancipate yourself from your world view?
  15. emancipate
    free from slavery or servitude
    Can’t you by a Herculean effort emancipate yourself from your world view?
  16. agenda
    an organized plan for matters to be attended to
    Its influence is ubiquitous. It sets our society’s agenda. It decides what is important in our culture, even what is real.
  17. maudlin
    very sentimental or emotional
    If it wasn’t on Oprah, it can’t be worth much, can it, although some of the books she used to recommend are really maudlin.
  18. legacy
    a gift of personal property by will
    “That’s a little depressing, Jaz,” Simon said. “You mean, you think that’ll be our biggest legacy? The box?”
  19. zenith
    the point above the observer directly opposite the nadir
    The twentieth-century Americans achieved the zenith of civilization and discovered the ultimate truth.
  20. vapid
    lacking significance or liveliness or spirit or zest
    They acted stupid, created a truly vapid mass culture that any casual, intelligent observer would see as the product of fourth-rate minds.
  21. occult
    hidden and difficult to see
    Well, my friends, I have discovered the occult mystery hidden in these programs.
  22. fictitious
    formed or conceived by the imagination
    All these shows were fantasies—completely fictitious.
  23. colossal
    so great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe
    Live in an artificial, alternative reality of caring moms and doting dads, where all the girls are blond cheerleaders and everyone is middle class with a colossal house in the suburbs and an SUV in the driveway the size of a tank.
  24. disparity
    inequality or difference in some respect
    No huge disparities in wealth between people.
  25. eradicate
    destroy completely, as if down to the roots
    Where violence has been eradicated and Americans have no enemies in the world because everyone just loves them.
Created on Tue Aug 19 06:52:13 EDT 2014 (updated Tue Aug 19 16:49:02 EDT 2014)

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