CHAPTER 15
WORDS are symbols of ideas—and we have been learning, discussing, and working with words as they revolve around certain basic concepts.
Starting with an idea (personality types, doctors, occupations, science, lying, actions, speech, insults, compliments, etc.), we have explored the meanings and uses of ten basic words; then, working from each word, we have wandered off toward any ideas and additional words that a basic word might suggest, or toward any other words built on the same Latin or Greek roots.
By this natural and logical method, you have been able to make meaningful and lasting contact with fifty to a hundred or more words in each chapter. And you have discovered, I think, that while five isolated words may be difficult to learn in one day, fifty to a hundred or more related words are easy to learn in a few sessions.
In this session we learn words that tell what’s going on, what’s happening, what people do to each other or to themselves, or what others do to them.
You have stayed up all night. And what were you doing? Playing poker, a very pleasant way of whiling away time? No. Engaging in some creative activity, like writing a short story, planning a political campaign, discussing fascinating questions with friends? No.
The examples I have offered are exciting or stimulating—as psychologists have discovered, it is not work or effort that causes fatigue, but boredom, frustration, or a similar feeling.
You have stayed up all night with a very sick husband, wife, child, or dear friend. And despite all your ministrations, the patient is sinking. You can see how this long vigil contains all the elements of frustration that contribute to mental, physical, and nervous fatigue.
And so you are bushed—but completely bushed. Your exhaustion is mental, it is physiological, it is emotional.
What verb expresses the effect of the night’s frustrations on you?
to enervate
You suddenly see the flashing red light as you glance in your rear-view mirror. It’s the middle of the night, yet the police flasher is clear as day—and then you hear the low growl of the siren. So you pull over, knowing you were speeding along at 70 on the 55-mile-an-hour-limit freeway—after all, there was not another car in sight on the deserted stretch of road you were traveling.
The cop is pleasant, courteous, smiling; merely asks for your driver’s license and registration; even says “Please.”
Feeling guilty and stupid, you become irritated. So what do you do?
You lash out at the officer with all the verbal vituperation welling up in you from your self-anger. You scold him harshly for not spending his time looking for violent criminals instead of harassing innocent motorists; you call into question his honesty, his ambition, his fairness, even his ancestry. To no avail, of course—you stare at the traffic ticket morosely as the police cruiser pulls away.
What verb describes how you reacted?
to castigate
Phyllis is selfless and self-sacrificing. Her husband’s needs and desires come first—even when they conflict with her own. Clothes for her two daughters are her main concern—even if she has to wear a seven-year-old coat and outmoded dresses so that Paula and Evelyn can look smart and trim. At the dinner table, she heaps everyone’s plate—while she herself often goes without. Phyllis will deny herself, will scrimp and save—all to the end that she may offer her husband and children the luxuries that her low self-esteem does not permit her to give herself.
What verb expresses what Phyllis does?
to self-abnegate
You have delivered a long, complicated lecture to your class, and now, to make sure that they will remember the important points, you restate the key ideas, the main thoughts. You offer, in short, a kind of brief summary, step by step, omitting all extraneous details.
What verb best describes what you do?
to recapitulate
Perhaps you wake up some gloomy Monday morning (why is it that Monday is always the worst day of the week?) and begin to think of the waste of the last five years. Intellectually, there has been no progress—you’ve read scarcely half a dozen books, haven’t made one new, exciting friend, haven’t had a startling or unusual thought. Economically, things are no better—same old debts to meet, same old hundred dollars in the bank, same old job, same old routine of the eight-to-five workdays, the tuna fish or chicken salad sandwich for lunch, the same dreary ride home. What a life! No change, nothing but routine, sameness, monotony—and for what?
(By now you’d better get up—this type of thinking never leads anywhere, as you’ve long since learned.)
What verb describes how you think you live?
to vegetate
Your neighbor, Mrs. Brown, pops in without invitation to tell you of her latest troubles with (a) her therapist, (b) her hairdresser, (c) her husband, (d) her children, and/or (e) her gynecologist.
Since Florence Brown is dull to the point of ennui, and anyway you have a desk piled high with work you were planning to light into, you find it difficult to concentrate on what she is saying. However, you do not wish to offend her by sending her packing, or even by appearing to be uninterested, so you pretend rapt attention, nodding wisely at what you hope are the right places.
What verb describes this feigning of interest?
to simulate
You are an author and are discussing with your editor the possible avenues of publicity and advertising for your new book. At one point in the conversation the editor makes several statements which might—or might not—be construed to mean that the company is going to promote the book heavily. For example, “If we put some real money behind this, we might sell a few copies,” or “I wonder if it would be a good idea to get you on a few talk shows …” No unequivocal commitments, no clear-cut promises, only the slight and oblique mention of possibilities.
What verb expresses what the editor is doing?
to intimate
Aspirin doesn’t cure any diseases. Yet this popular and inexpensive drug is universally used to lighten and relieve various unpleasant symptoms of disease: aches and pains, fever, inflammations, etc.
What verb expresses the action of aspirin?
to alleviate
John Donne’s lines (made famous by Ernest Hemingway):
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
are truer than you may think; any person who views another’s pain with complete detachment or indifference is shutting off important feelings.
When people have suffered a bereavement (as through death); when they have been wounded by life or by friends; then is the time they most need to feel that they are not alone, that you share their misery with them even if you cannot directly alleviate their sorrow. Your sympathy and compassion are, of course, alleviation enough.
What verb signifies this vicarious sharing of sorrow with someone who directly suffers?
to commiserate
Should you marry John or George? (You’re strongly and equally attracted to both.) John is handsome, virile, tender; George is stable, reliable, dependable, always there when you need him. George loves you deeply; John is more exciting. You decide on John, naturally.
But wait—marrying John would mean giving up George, and with George you always know where you stand; he’s like the Rock of Gibraltar (and sometimes almost as dull). So you change your mind—it’s George, on more mature reflection.
But how happy can you be with a husband who is not exciting? Maybe John would be best after all.…
The pendulum swings back and forth—you cannot make up your mind and stick to it. (You fail to realize that your indecision proves that you don’t want to marry either one, or perhaps don’t want to give either one up, or possibly don’t even want to get married.) First it’s John, then it’s George, then back to John, then George again. Which is it, which is it?
What verb describes your pendulum-like indecision?
to vacillate
Matched: 0 / 10
1. Should you feel enervated after a good night’s sleep?
2. Do motorists who have been caught speeding sometimes start castigating the traffic officer?
3. Do people who are completely self-abnegating say “No!” to their needs and desires?
4. When you recapitulate, do you cover new material?
5. Do people possessed of joie de vivre usually feel that they are vegetating?
6. When you simulate alertness, do you purposely act somnolent?
7. When you intimate, do you make a direct statement?
8. Does aspirin often have an alleviating effect on pain?
9. Do we naturally commiserate with people who have suffered a bereavement?
10. Do decisive people often vacillate?
1. enervated—exhilarated
2. castigate—praise
3. self-abnegate—deny oneself
4. recapitulate—summarize
5. vegetate—stagnate
6. simulate—pretend
7. intimate—hint
8. alleviate—make worse
9. commiserate—sympathize
10. vacillate—decide
When you are enervated, you feel as if your nerves have been ripped out—or so the etymology of the word indicates.
Enervate is derived from e- (ex-), out, and Latin nervus, nerve.
Enervation (en′-ər-VAY′-shən) is not just fatigue, but complete devitalization—physical, emotional, mental—as if every ounce of the life force has been sapped out, as if the last particle of energy has been drained away.
Despite its similar appearance to the word energy, enervation is almost a direct antonym. Energy is derived from the Greek prefix en-, in, plus the root ergon, work; erg is the term used in physics for a unit of work or energy. Synergism (SIN′-ər-jiz-əm)—the prefix syn-, together or with, plus ergon—is the process by which two or more substances or drugs, by working together, produce a greater effect in combination than the sum total of their individual effects.
Alcohol, for example, is a depressant. So are barbiturates and other soporifics. Alcohol and barbiturates work synergistically (sin′-ər-JIS′-tik′-lee)—the effect of each is increased by the other if the two are taken together.
So if you’re drinking, don’t take a sleeping pill—or if you must take a pill for your insomnia, don’t drink—the combination, if not lethal, will do more to you than you may want done!
Synergy (SIN′-ər-jee), by the way, is an alternate form of synergism.
Castigate is derived from a Latin verb meaning to punish; in present-day usage, the verb generally refers to verbal punishment, usually harsh and severe. It is somewhat synonymous with scold, criticize, rebuke, censure, reprimand, or berate, but much stronger than any of these—rail at, rant at, slash at, lash out at, or tongue-lash is a much closer synonym. When candidates for office castigate their opponents, they do not mince words.
Can you construct the noun form of castigate?
Abnegate is derived from Latin ab-, away (as in absent), plus nego, to deny—self-abnegation (ab′-nə-GAY′-shən), then, is self-denial.
Nego itself is a contraction of Latin neg-, not, no, and aio, I say; to be self-abnegating is to say “No!” to what you want, as if some inner censor were at work whispering, “No, you can’t have that, you can’t do that, you don’t deserve that, you’re not good enough for that.…”
To negate (nə-GAYT′) is to deny the truth or existence of, as in “The atheist negates God”; or, by extension, to destroy by working against, as in, “His indulgence in expensive hobbies negates all his wife’s attempts to keep the family solvent.”
Can you write the noun form of the verb negate?
Negative and negativity obviously spring from the same source as negate.
Latin caput, capitis means head. The captain is the head of any group; the capital is the “head city” of a state or nation; and to decapitate (dee-KAP′-ə-tayt′) is to chop off someone’s head, a popular activity during the French Revolution after the guillotine was invented.
Write the noun form of decapitate:
Latin capitulum is a little head, or, by extension, the heading, or title, of a chapter. So when you recapitulate, you go through the chapter headings again (re-), etymologically speaking, or you summarize or review the main points.
Remembering how the noun and adjective forms are derived from adulate (Chapter 9), can you write the required forms of recapitulate?
NOUN of recapitulate:
ADJECTIVE of recapitulate:
When you capitulate (kə-PICH′-ə-layt′), etymologically you arrange in headings, or, as the meaning of the verb naturally evolved, you arrange conditions of surrender, as when an army capitulates to the enemy forces under prearranged conditions; or, by further natural extension, you stop resisting and give up, as in, “He realized there was no longer any point in resisting her advances, so he reluctantly capitulated.”
Can you write the noun form of capitulate?
Vegetable is from Latin vegeto, to live and grow, which is what vegetables do—but that’s all they do, so to vegetate, is, by implication, to do no more than stay alive, stuck in a rut, leading an inactive, unstimulating, emotionally and intellectually stagnant existence. Vegetation (vej′-ə-TAY′-shən) is any dull, passive, stagnant existence; also any plant life, as the thick vegetation of a jungle.
Write the English word that uses the given prefix, root, or suffix.
1. e- (ex-) — out
2. nervus — nerve
3. en- — in
4. ergon — work
5. syn- — with, together
6. -ic — adjective suffix
7. -ion — noun suffix
8. ab- — away
9. nego — to deny
10. caput, capitis — head
11. de- — negative prefix
12. capitulum — little head, chapter heading
13. re- — again
14. -ory — adjective suffix
15. vegeto — to live and grow
Matched: 0 / 8
1. enervating—refreshing
2. synergistic—neutralizing
3. castigation—scolding
4. self-abnegation—egoism
5. negate—accept
6. decapitate—behead
7. recapitulatory—summarizing
8. capitulate—resist
Simulate is from Latin simulo, to copy; and simulo itself derives from the Latin adjective similis, like or similar.
Simulation (sim′-yə-LAY′-shən), then, is copying the real thing, pretending to be the genuine article by taking on a similar appearance. The simulation of joy is quite a feat when you really feel depressed.
Genuine pearls grow inside oysters; simulated pearls are synthetic, but look like the ones from oysters. (Rub a pearl against your teeth to tell the difference—the natural pearl feels gritty.) So the frequent advertisement of an inexpensive necklace made of “genuine simulated pearls” can fool you if you don’t know the word—you’re being offered a genuine fake.
Dissimulation (də-sim′-yə-LAY′-shən) is something else! When you dissimulate (də-SIM′-yə-layt′), you hide your true feelings by making a pretense of opposite feelings. (Then again, maybe it’s not something completely else!)
Sycophants are great dissimulators—they may feel contempt, but show admiration; they may feel negative, but express absolutely positive agreement.
A close synonym of dissimulate is dissemble (də-SEM′-bəl), which also is to hide true feelings by pretending the opposite; or, additionally, to conceal facts, or one’s true intentions, by deception; or, still further additionally, to pretend ignorance of facts you’d rather not admit, when, indeed, you’re fully aware of them.
The noun is dissemblance (də-SEM′-bləns).
In dissimulate and dissemble, the negative prefix dis- acts largely to make both words pejorative.
The verb intimate is from Latin intimus, innermost, the same root from which the adjective intimate (IN′-tə-mət) and its noun intimacy (IN′-tə-mə-see) are derived; but the relationship is only in etymology, not in meaning. An intimation (in′-tə-MAY′-shən) contains a significance buried deep in the innermost core, only a hint showing. As you grow older, you begin to have intimations that you are mortal; when someone aims a .45 at you, or when a truck comes roaring down at you as you drive absent-mindedly against a red light through an intersection, you are suddenly very sure that you are mortal.
Alleviate is a combination of Latin levis, light (not heavy), the prefix ad-, to, and the verb suffix. (Ad- changes to al- before a root starting with l-.)
If something alleviates your pain, it makes your pain lighter for you; if I alleviate your sadness, I make it lighter to bear; and if you need some alleviation (ə-lee′-vee-AY′-shən) of your problems, you need them made lighter and less burdensome. To alleviate is to relieve only temporarily, not to cure or do away with. (Relieve is also from levis, plus re-, again—to make light or easy again.) The adjective form of alleviate is alleviative (ə-LEE′-vee-ay′-tiv)—aspirin is an alleviative drug.
Anything light will rise—so from the prefix e- (ex-), out, plus levis, we can construct the verb elevate, etymologically, to raise out, or, actually, raise up, as to elevate one’s spirits, raise them up, make them lighter; or elevate someone to a higher position, which is what an elevator does.
Have you ever seen a performance of magic in which a person or an object apparently rises in the air as if floating? That’s levitation (lev′-ə-TAY′-shən)—rising through no visible means. (I’ve watched it a dozen times and never could figure it out!) The verb, to so rise, is levitate (LEV′-ə-tayt′).
And how about levity (LEV′-ə-tee)? That’s lightness too, but of a different sort—lightness in the sense of frivolity, flippancy, joking, or lack of seriousness, especially when solemnity, dignity, or formality is required or more appropriate, as in “tones of levity,” or as in, “Levity is out of place at a funeral, in a house of worship, at the swearing-in ceremonies of a President or Supreme Court Justice,” or as in, “Okay, enough levity—now let’s get down to business!”
Latin miser, wretched, the prefix con- (which, as you know, becomes com- before a root beginning with m-), together or with, and the verb suffix -ate are the building blocks from which commiserate is constructed. “I commiserate with you,” then, means, “I am wretched together with you—I share your misery.”
The noun form?
Miser, miserly, miserable, misery all come from the same root.
Vacillate—note the single c, double l—derives from Latin vacillo, to swing back and forth.
The noun form?
People who swing back and forth in indecision, who are irresolute, who can, unfortunately, see both, or even three or four, sides of every question, and so have difficulty making up their minds, are vacillatory (VAS′-ə-lə-tawr′-ee). They are also, usually, ambivalent (am-BIV′-ə-lənt)—they have conflicting and simultaneous emotions about the same person or thing; or they want to go but they also want to stay; or they love something, but they hate it too.
The noun is ambivalence (am-BIV′-ə-ləns)—from ambi-, both. (Remember ambivert and ambidextrous from Chapter 3?)
Ambivalence has best been defined (perhaps by Henny Youngman—if he didn’t say it first, he should have) as watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac.
To vacillate is to swing mentally or emotionally. To sway back and forth physically is oscillate—again note the double l—(OS′-ə-layt′), from Latin oscillum, a swing. A pendulum oscillates, the arm of a metronome oscillates, and people who’ve had much too much to drink oscillate when they try to walk.
The noun?
Write the English word that uses the given prefix, root, or suffix.
1. simulo — to copy
2. similis — like, similar
3. dis- — pejorative prefix
4. ad- (al-) — to, toward
5. levis — light
6. -ate — verb suffix
7. -ion — noun suffix
8. e- (ex-) — out
9. intimus — innermost
10. miser — wretched
11. vacillo — to swing back and forth
12. ambi- — both
13. oscillum — a swing
Matched: 0 / 10
Matched: 0 / 7
1. simulated—genuine
2. dissimulate—pretend
3. dissemble—be truthful
4. intimation—hint
5. alleviation—reduction
6. levitate—sink
7. levity—flippancy
8. vacillation—decisiveness
9. ambivalent—confused
10. oscillate—sway
1. Complete exhaustion:
2. Co-operation in producing effects:
3. Lop off the head of:
4. deny; render ineffective:
5. stagnate:
6. concealment of true feelings:
7. sympathy:
8. indecisiveness:
9. aware of contrary feelings:
Write the meaning of each root. The example word is provided as a hint.
1. nervus — ___
Example: enervate
2. ergon — ___
Example: energy
3. nego — ___
Example: self-abnegation
4. caput, capitis — ___
Example: decapitate
5. capitulum — ___
Example: recapitulate
6. vegeto — ___
Example: vegetate
7. simulo — ___
Example: dissimulate
8. similis — ___
Example: similarity
9. levis — ___
Example: levity
10. intimus — ___
Example: intimation
11. miser — ___
Example: commiserate
12. vacillo — ___
Example: vacillate
13. ambi- — ___
Example: ambivalent
14. oscillum — ___
Example: oscillate
We have previously met the Greek prefix syn-, together or with, in synonym (“names together”) and sympathy (“feeling with”), and again in this chapter in synergism (“working together”).
Syn- is a most useful prefix to know. Like Latin con-, (together or with) and ad- (to, toward), the final letter changes depending on the first letter of the root to which it is attached. Syn- becomes sym- before b, m, and p.
Can you construct some words using syn-, or sym-?
1. Etymologically, Jews are “led together” in a house of worship (agogos, leading). Can you construct the word for this temple or place of worship?
2. There is a process by which dissimilar organisms live together (bios, life) in close association, each in some way helping, and getting help from, the other (like the shark and the pilot fish). What word, ending in -sis, designates such a process? And what would the adjective form be?
3. Using Greek phone, sound, write the word that etymologically refers to a musical composition in which the sounds of all instruments are in harmony together. Using the suffix -ic, write the adjective form.
4. Combine sym- with metron, measurement, to construct a word designating similarity of shape on both sides (i.e., “measurement together”). Write the adjective form of this word.
5. Syn- plus dromos, a running, are the building blocks of a medical word designating a group of symptoms that occur (i.e., run) together in certain diseases. Can you figure out the word?
6. The same dromos, a running, combines with Greek hippos, horse, to form a word referring to a place in ancient Greece in which horse and chariot races were run. The word?
7. Hippos, horse, plus Greek potamos, river, combine to form a word designating one of the three pachyderms we discussed in an earlier chapter. The word?
(Answers in Chapter 18.)
You can build your vocabulary, I have said, by increasing your familiarity with new ideas and by becoming alert to the new words you meet in your reading of magazines and books.
There is still another productive method, one that will be particularly applicable in view of all the new words you are learning from your study of these pages.
That method is picking your friends’ brains.
Intelligent people are interested in words because words are symbols of ideas, and the person with an alert mind is always interested in ideas.
You may be amazed, if you have never tried it, to find that you can stir up an animated discussion by asking, in a social group that you attend, “What does ___ mean?” (Use any word that particularly fascinates you.) Someone in the group is likely to know, and almost everyone will be willing to make a guess. From that point on, others in the group will ask questions about their own favorite words (most people do have favorites), or about words that they themselves have in some manner recently learned. As the discussion continues along these lines, you will be introduced to new words yourself, and if your friends have fairly good vocabularies you may strike a rich vein of pay dirt and come away with a large number of words to add to your vocabulary.
This method of picking your friends’ brains is particularly fruitful because you will be learning not from a page of print (as in this book or as in your other reading) but from real live persons—the same sources that children use to increase their vocabularies at such prodigious rates. No learning is quite as effective as the learning that comes from other people—no information in print can ever be as vivid as information that comes from another human being. And so the words you pick up from your friends will have an amazingly strong appeal, will make a lasting impression on your mind.
Needless to say, your own rich vocabulary, now that you have come this far in the book, will make it possible for you to contribute to your friends’ vocabulary as much as, if not more than, you take away—but since giving to others is one of the greatest sources of a feeling of self-worth, you can hardly complain about this extra dividend.
(End of Session 44)
All 20 vocabulary words from Chapter 15, with definitions, forms, and roots.
To exhaust; drain of energy
To scold severely; tongue-lash
To deny oneself; sacrifice one’s own desires
To summarize; repeat the main points
To stagnate; live a dull, inactive existence
To pretend; feign; copy the real thing
To hint; suggest indirectly
To lighten; ease pain or burden temporarily
To sympathize; share another’s grief
To waver indecisively; swing back and forth mentally
Combined effect greater than the sum of individual effects
To deny; render ineffective; nullify
To behead; cut off the head of
To surrender; give up; stop resisting
To conceal true feelings by pretending the opposite
To pretend; disguise true feelings; feign ignorance
To rise in the air, as by illusion or magic
Frivolity; flippancy; lack of seriousness
Feeling both ways; having conflicting emotions simultaneously
To swing back and forth physically