Week 12

the origin of the word diatribe is connected to both serious study and the spending or wasting of time. In English, the original meaning of diatribe was a long and formal debate or discussion. Mnemo:- diatribe = di-tribe = two tribes fighting...criticize

An inhibition is a force that prevents something from happening—and often comes from you yourself. Shy people are often said to suffer from inhibitions. Some inhibitions are good, such as the one that prevents us from choking the life out of people we dislike. Other inhibitions, like the ones that prevent someone from ever enjoying himself, are not so great

Something fortuitous is random like an accident, but there’s no downside. A rock falling on your head is an accident, dollar bills falling on your head is fortuitous. The meaning of fortuitous is changing from "happening by chance" to "lucky chance" because people get it mixed up with fortunate. But watch out: If you say fortuitous to mean just plain lucky without the element of chance –– that's a usage error.

A lot of people use incoherent to mean unintelligible, which is a perfectly fine usage. But it specifically means unintelligible due to a lack of cohesion, or sticking together. An incoherent argument may sound something like this. "I deserve to go to the dance because it is the second Tuesday of the month and my feet are a size ten." The reasons do not follow each other logically and to not even relate. It's an incoherent mess.

When you say "you and your ilk," you mean "you and everyone just like you." And that's not usually meant in a nice way. You probably wouldn't talk about Nelson Mandela and his ilk — ilk sounds negative. Usually, you're talking about a criminal and his ilk, or a crooked politician and his ilk. If someone is talking about your ilk, it might be time to get new friends or change your ways.

A concert poster, a storefront notice, a protest sign carried in a rally — each of these is a type of placard. A placard can be as impermanent as a square of cardboard with a scrawled message, and as official as a permanent plaque marking a historic building.

An integral part is necessary to complete the whole. In this sense, the word essential is a near synonym. In mathematics, there are integrals of functions and equations.

If it makes you uncomfortable to talk about your wages, you can use the word remuneration instead — the word has a remote sound to it that makes it seem like you aren’t talking about money even though you are. It’s a formal way to refer to payment for work or other services. You might see this word in contracts, policies, and other official documents that refer to payments.

Another meaning for the adjective nominal is "in name only" or only having a title. The CEO is the nominal head of the company, but you know his assistant is one who is really in charge of the day-to-day business of the company. He is the go-to person for signing invoices, purchase orders, and resolving personnel issues.

Expunge is often something you do to a document. When government censors block out text in documents before making them public, they are expunging the text. You can also use the word in a more metaphorical sense. The principal tried to expunge all traces of bullying from the school by implementing a kindness initiative and treating all complaints as serious.

Flamboyant means showy, and though we often roll our eyes at it, it's not a hateful thing. Think of passion and pageantry all rolled into one, and you'll have a good idea what flamboyant should mean at its best. If that doesn't do it for you, think of a man playing a shiny white grand piano at a rock concert, wearing a white satin jump suit and 8-foot wide, fully-feathered wings. See? Flamboyant.

Although the Spanish club could have a schism over taco night versus tamale fest, schism often refers to splits in the church. You might have heard of the Great Schism of 1074, when the eastern Christian church, headquartered in Byzantium (now Istanbul), broke away from the western one headquartered in Rome.

Utopia didn't evolve from Latin or another old foreign language. Author Thomas More actually created the noun in one of his books to describe an imaginary island where all systems—political, social, and legal—are perfect and operate harmoniously. The definition of utopia was later broadened to imply any perfect place. The opposite of utopia is dystopia, coined in 1868 by J.S. Mill to describe an “imaginary bad place.”

The adjective timorous is actually the Latin word for ”fearful.” But timorous is a specific kind of fearfulness — the kind that strikes people before giving a speech, or walking into a crowded place where people are socializing. Also called "shy" or "timid," timorous people often become more comfortable when they see a familiar face in the crowd.

When an object is truncated, its end or point is cut off, like a truncated arrow that is safe for kids to play with. Truncated can also refer to something that ends earlier than planned — everyone was angry at the truncated concert until they learned that the singer had broken his leg when he fell on stage.

A jaunty hat is one that's stylish and cheerful at the same time, a quality that can be accentuated if the person wears it in a jaunty fashion, perhaps off to the side or over one eye. Playing the part of a jaunty person is easy if you're feeling upbeat and chipper and want the world to know it. Elves are often jaunty in their own way. Sporting their spiffy outfits and featuring that trademark cheerful spring in their step. The fact they always seem so lively and eager to chat only increases the

Someone who is fractious is cranky, rebellious and inclined to cause problems. Tempers and children are commonly described as such. In To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses the word to describe the trouble-making Calpurnia: "She had always been too hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and too stubborn to say so."

No one wants to be described as ostentatious, a word whose cousins include pretentious, flamboyant, and gaudy. It originates from the Latin word ostentare, "to display," but in English it's often used for displays of the crass or vulgar sort. A rapper's diamond-encrusted teeth might be an ostentatious display of "bling," and someone wailing especially loudly at a funeral of a distant acquaintance might be making an ostentatious show of sorrow.