Unit 6: Part 3 Vocabulary

That word is based on the Greek for “word making”—the poe is the same as in poetry, “something made”—and is synonymous with imitative and echoic, denoting words that are made by people making sounds like the action to be described.

He also gave flibergib to “a gossip,” from which we derive flibbertigibbet, and the long-lost clapperclaw and kickle-kackle.

He pointed out that one speculation about the origin of language was the bow-wow theory, holding that words originated in imitation of natural sounds of animals and thunder.

The coinage filled a need for an unheard sound and—pow!— slammed the vocabulary right in the kisser.

My client, Mr. Wile E. Coyote, a resident of Arizona and contiguous states, does hereby bring suit for damages against the Acme Company, manufacturer and retail distributor of assorted merchandise, incorporated in Delaware and doing business in every state, district, and territory.

My client, Mr. Wile E. Coyote, a resident of Arizona and contiguous states, does hereby bring suit for damages against the Acme Company, manufacturer and retail distributor of assorted merchandise, incorporated in Delaware and doing business in every state, district, and territory.

Mr. Coyote vigorously attempted to follow this maneuver but was unable to, due to poorly designed steering on the Rocket Sled and a faulty or nonexistent braking system.

The sequence of collisions resulted in systemic physical damage to Mr. Coyote, viz., flattening of the cranium, sideways displacement of the tongue, reduction of length of legs and upper body, and compression of vertebrae from base of tail to head.

Repetition of blows along a vertical axis produced a series of regular horizontal folds in Mr. Coyote’s body tissues—a rare and painful condition which caused Mr. Coyote to expand upward and contract downward alternately as he walked, and to emit an off-key accordion-like wheezing with every step.

Mr. Coyote respectfully requests that the Court regard these larger economic implications and assess punitive damages in the amount of seventeen million dollars.

Who are we now? A people who manage to get by with the help of the everyday, the ordinary, the mundane, the old familiar life muting the terror of the new reality.

A kind of self-hypnosis prevailed, and these were the words used to induce the happy trance: life goes on.

We are people living in a world of unimaginable cruelty and savagery.

We are people whose powers of imagination have been challenged by the revelations of the careful planning, the hidden leaders, the machinations from within a country of rubble and caves and desperate want, the willingness to slam headlong into one great technological achievement while piloting another as a way of despising modernity.

Had we become a people who confused prosperity with probity, whose culture had become personified by oversize sneakers and KFC?

This morning I had gotten there early, and there were a few people sitting on the benches, looking at the skyline, and I was surprised to see that the Promenade was covered with memorials.

And there were other signs that you saw that were obviously hung up several days later, and they were more like homages.

Apparently what had happened was the sanitation department had come out and collected all these objects and stored them safely from the rain and this morning was intently and carefully replacing every single one.

I soon realized that the evening had just begun for me: a man in fatigues who introduced himself as Sergeant Major asked me if I’d mind playing for his soldiers as they came back from digging through the rubble at Ground Zero.

Somehow it didn’t matter that by the end, my intonation was shot and I had no bow control.

It turns out that the division I played for is the Famous Fighting Sixty-Ninth, the most decorated regiment in the U.S. Army.

He pointed out a letter from Abraham Lincoln offering his condolences after the Battle of Antietam...the 69th suffered the most casualties of any regiment at that historic battle.

They didn’t care that when I forgot how the second movement of the Tchaikovsky went, I had to come up with my own insipid improvisation until I somehow (and I still don’t know how) got to a cadence.

So you’ll have some idea of what this family talk I heard sounds like, I’ll quote what my mother said during a recent conversation which I videotaped and then transcribed.

My mother had gone to the hospital for an appointment, to find out about a benign brain tumor a CAT scan had revealed a month ago.

Leather bindings sent me into ecstasy. I even loved to gaze at a closed book and daydream about the possibilities inside—it was like contemplating a genie’s lamp.

Then there was Shakespeare—daunting for many years because it was his entire oeuvre, in matching wine-red volumes that were so thick they looked more like over-sized bouillon cubes than books, and yet it was that ponderous title—The Complete Works of William Shakespeare—that enticed me, because here was a lifetime’s work—a lifetime!—in two compact, dense packages.

Although I loved books, for a long time I had no aspirations to be a writer.

She went back to clear up her mess, talking inaudibly to her daughter all the while.

Moon Orchid, who never understood the gravity of things, started smiling and laughing, pointing at Brave Orchid.

Finally Moon Orchid gathered up her stuff, strings hanging and papers loose, and met her sister at the door, where they shook hands, oblivious to blocking the way.

This my horse and I came to be, in the course of our life together, in good understanding, of one mind, a true story and history of that large landscape in which we made the one entity of whole motion, one and the same center of an intricate, pastoral composition, evanescent, ever changing.

And through the hard hooves, the slender limbs, the supple shoulders, the fluent back of my horse I felt the earth under me.

This report documents both the overall frequency of surnames (last names), as well as some of the basic demographic characteristics that are associated with surnames.

The presentation of data in this report focuses on summarized aggregates of counts and characteristics associated with surnames, and, as such, do not in any way identify any specific individuals....

Cumulative Number, Cumulative Proportion (percent)

The Center will follow the arc of the American experience: from immigration, to assimilation, to citizenship, played out in every generation, past, present and future.

The prompt asks you to discuss issues of responsibility, which can mean many different things.

Perspective is both a way of looking at things and a personal definition.