frath.net - Vocab of the Week Archive

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Vocab of the Week

As an exercise for people with languishing lexicons, Aidan Grey started posting five or ten words, later with example sentences, on Fridays to CONLANG.

These are them, edited slightly for content, formatting, and the occasional tpyo.

Yes, I could power up this page, and make it a bulletin board or livejournal or whatever but it's probably better for folks to post translations to CONLANG where they belong, unless there's a lot of demand for something more autonomous.

#1.1: 29 Mar 2002 (birch, werewolf...)
#1.2: 5 Apr 2002 (forest, mushroom...; indirect relatives)
#1.3: 12 Apr 2002 (doctor, medicine...; possessive pronouns)
#1.4: 19 Apr 2002 (bunny, ferret...; exclamations)
#1.5: 26 Apr 2002 (coffee, tea...; perfective and habitual; intensives)
#1.6: 3 May 2002 (bead, thread...; adpositions)
#1.7: 10 May 2002 (book, desk...; comparatives)
#1.8: 17 May 2002 (bread, flour...; number agreement)
#1.9: 24 May 2002 (bless, curse...; adjectives -> adverbs)
#1.10: 31 May 2002 (house, wall...; subordinate clauses)
#2.1: 18 Oct 2002 (crowd, lead...; topicalization)
#2.2: 26 Oct 2002 (whoever, which...; correlatives)
#2.3: 8 Nov 2002 (president, office...; genitive relatives)
#2.4: 8 Nov 2002 (life, journey...; 3rd person disambiguation)
#2.5: 17 Nov 2002 (answer, silence...; predicate adjectives)
#2.6: 24 Nov 2002 (me, quick...; finite complement clauses)
#2.7: 29 Nov 2002 (machinery, into...; non-finite clauses)
#10a: 26 Jan 2003 (bathe, narrow...; negation)
#10b: 26 Jan 2003 (her, poor...)

#1.1: 29 Mar 2002

1. birch (the tree)
2. werewolf / lycanthrope of some variety
3. to save (money)
4. to conquer
5. motif

#1.2: 5 Apr 2002

This week's exercises brought to you by the indirect relative and the letters F (for forest) and M (for mushroom).

1. forest: The forest is in that direction. (or "over there", said while pointing to it)
2. mushroom (edible): I like mushrooms very much!
3. to look for something: I often go searching for mushrooms in the forest.
4. to find something after searching for it: She kept the mushroom that I tripped over.
5. base, bottom: At the base of which tree did you find that mushroom?
6. moss: There is no moss on the base of that tree.
7. basket, bag: Put the mushroom in the basket.
8. pine needles, leaves of a conifer: These baskets, the handles of which are made of pine needles, are useful.
9. each: That is the woman to whom I give each of the mushrooms.
10. always: I always go looking for mushrooms is the forest through which we walked today.

#1.3: 12 Apr 2002

Brought to you by D (for doctor) and possessive pronouns.

1. doctor / healer: She is my doctor.
2. medicine: That is my medicine, and this is yours.
3. ear: She looked in their ears.
4. eye: She looked in (or tested, or...) her (someone else's) eye.
5. friend: Our friends are ill.
6. itch and/or scratch: His scratch (the one on him) is worse than his scratch (the one he caused on someone else unspecified).
7. hurt / pain (the verb ... or not): Do y'all's heads hurt? / Do you guys have headaches?
8. diagnosis: His diagnosis (that he gave) is that she will get better.
9. cure / heal: His diagnosis (for the disease he has) has a cure.; She will cure my friends.
10. ill: I am not ill anymore.

#1.4: 19 Apr 2002

Brought to you by S (for Sluggy) and F (for Freelance) and exclamations.

(see http://www.sluggy.com/ it's a very great web-comic, and even has special gold foil episodes! I recommend it to all the twisted out there - this weeks vocab and context sentences will make a lot of sense after reading some of it...)

1. bunny / rabbit: That bunny has a knife!
2. ferret: This is my ferret. She likes to dance!
3. knife: The bunny with the knife is coming for me!
4. alien / foreigner: Does that alien eat people or not?
5. ouch! / ow!: Ouch! The rabbit with the knife cut off my arm!
6. help!: Help! I'm bleeding to death!
7. aaaa! (a scream of terror): Aaaaa! The rabbit is coming back!
8. aaaargh! (a scream of pain / failure / death): Aaaargh! It cut off my other arm!
9. grrrr! (an intimidating growl): Grrrr! I will step on (crush / squish by foot) that rabbit!
10. blood: The rabbit cut off my legs. Look at the pretty pools of blood.

#1.5: 26 Apr 2002

Brought to you by C (for coffee), the distinction between perfective and habitual past tenses, and intensive adjectives.

1. coffee / bitter drink / culturally distinctive drink: I used to drink coffee.
2. tea / herbal tea: I drank the tea in one gulp.
3. steep / brew: She used to steep the tea for 10 minutes, but she steeped this cup for only 7 minutes.
4. pastry / biscuits / cookies: She had pastry with her coffee once.; She had pastry with her coffee every day.
5. milk: She doesn't take milk in her tea.
6. bitter: The coffee was very bitter today.; The coffee was bitter every day.
7. sweet: He likes his tea too strong and too sweet for us.
8. wired / the feeling obtained after drinking 43 cups of coffee: That guy is wired! He drinks too much coffee.
9. mellow / calm / soothing (of music): The music they play is too mellow for my taste.
10. street vendor / coffee house / tea bar / the culturally appropriate place to buy a cup of tea or coffee: That street vendor always had the best tea, but then his wife left him.

(note: in #10, it's a habitual past followed by a perfective)

[p.s. In honor of my becoming the manager of the grad student coffee house on campus. Yay!]

#1.6: 3 May 2002

Brought to you by C (for crafts) and B (for beads) and prep/post-positions.

1. bead (n.): There are beads all over the place!
2. thread (n.): I have thread stuck in my teeth.
3. needle: Ow! I sat on a needle!
4. sew (v.): My sister sewed me to the chair.
5. bead (v.), put beads on something, make something with beads: He beaded a bunny with a knife. He's sick in the head.
6. spill: Dang! I spilled my beads into my coffee!
7. cut: Cut the thread between this spot and that spot, please.
8. shiny: Those beads are shiny. I like shiny things.
9. stitch (n.): For this stitch, bring the thread through the bead, over the previous bead, under the thread, and back through the bead again.
10. obsessive / obsessed with / obsessing about: Lately, I find my self obsessed with beads.

#1.7: 10 May 2002

Brought to you by F (for finals) and S (for studying) and comparative constructions.

1. book: That book over there (yonder) is thicker than the one I'm using now.
2. desk: I sat at my desk longer than the day has hours. (i.e. for more than 24 hours)
3. study: I've been studying with better students than I (am).
4. finals / final examinations (also as sg.): I will do better on the final than him.
5. midterm(s) / midterm examination(s): I did worse on my midterm for this class than I've ever done before.
6. grade / score / marks: I hope to get higher scores on the final exams than I did on the midterm exams.
7. stress(ed): n. or adj.: I am more stressed than I thought I would be.
8. busy: I have been busier than ever lately.
9. write, compose (a paper, article, etc.): I have to write 678 papers by Tuesday.
10. research: I have never researched a topic longer than I have researched this one.
(this sentence includes an opportunity for a resumptive verb or proverb, if you have one!)

#1.8: 17 May 2002

Brought to you by B for bakery and number agreement (or not).

1. bread: I would like 4 loaves of bread, please.
2. flour: This bread is made with 7 cups of flour.
(obviously, convert this to your native measuring system.)
3. glaze (n. or v.): This delicious-looking loaf is glazed with honey/has a honey glaze.
4. muffin: They have 42 kinds of sweet muffins.
5. bakery: My favorite bakery is 4 streets over.
6. oven: The bakery is very busy - we have to use all 8 ovens constantly.
7. bake: That bread is baked, but those 3 over there are fried.
8. cost / price: How much do those 6 loaves cost?
9. unusual: This is an unusual recipe for bread - it has very little flour!
10. holiday: I want to order 9 holiday loaves. What will the cost be?

#1.9: 24 May 2002

It's magically delicious!! (adjectives > adverbs and spiritual/magical ideas)

More so than other topics I've presented, this exercise might require significant tweaking on your part....

1. bless: She blessed me softly (i.e. in a soft voice).
2. curse: We cursed them quickly because they wounded us.
3. charm / amulet / talisman / lucky charm: I made a beautifully carved amulet from the bone that I found.
4. sorcerer / wizard / magician / shaman: That sorcerer usually blesses our charms for us.
5. magic (n. or adj.): This charm was made with magic.; This magically blessed charm is powerful.
6. rite / ritual / ceremony: She curses them every day.
7. chant (n. or v.): She is a sorceress, and she usually chants magical words.
8. bestow: This charm bestows happiness.
9. amazing: Zaphod says that it is amazingly amazing!
10. prayer: Prayer is powerful magic.

#1.10: 31 May 2002

Brought to you by A (architecture), D (directions), and subordinate clauses.

1. house
2. wall
3. door
4. threshhold
5. window
6. lock (v. or n.)
7. room
8. bathroom
9. corner
10. ceiling: My house has a door that faces north, but windows that face east and west.; That unusual house has 6 walls per room.; The threshhold is where the door is.; There aren't any locks on the doors, not even on the bathroom door.; In the southern corner, against the ceiling, there are many cobwebs.

#2.1: 18 Oct 2002

Theme: topicalization (make the vocab word the topic or focus of the utterance).

1. crowd: There was a huge crowd in front of the building.
2. lead: She led her dog into the field.; Her dog was on a lead.; The pipes are made of lead.
3. ready: He's ready to go now.
4. slow: Snails are slow.; He runs slowly, and I bet he won't win the race.
5. rent: I have to pay rent on the 5th of every month.
6. popularity: This was just a popularity contest.
7. -ion: two parts here: first, how are verbal nouns formed?
act > action, move > motion, see > vision.; second, the sentence:
His action was hasty.
8. addition: Even the addition of an extra student increased class sizes beyond tolerable limits.
9. hat: Today is a say-something hat day!
10. pack: I need to pack for my trip.; The pack she wore on the trip was way too heavy.

#2.2: 26 Oct 2002

Correlative pronouns

1. whoever: Whoever stole my wallet is going to die!
2. which: Which one do you like better?
3. scale: What kind of bathroom scale do you have?; How many scales are there on a trout?; Someone scaled the wall silently.
4. throat: My throat hurt, so I guessed I had some kind of infection.
5. set: Every one of the dish sets was chipped.; Everytime he sets the table, he forgets the spoons.
6. slight: Whenever her son has a slight cough, she takes him to the doctor.
7. upstairs: When we play hide-and-seek, sometimes I like to hide upstairs.
8. reduce: He needs to reduce the number of cigarettes he smokes.
9. care: No one cares about him.
10. imagination: I never had the imagination you have.

#2.3: 8 Nov 2002

Topic: genitive relatives (or whatever the "whose..." clauses are called)

1. president
2. office: The president whose office is oval has moved to the country.
(I swear this juxtaposition was random)
3. trap: The hunter whose trap was empty is angry.
4. operate: He operated on her.; He knows how to operate a well/pump.
5. idea: Whose idea was that?
6. blame: The girl whose dress is torn blames you.
7. descriptive: The guy whose writing is very descriptive will probably win awards.
8. upright: It stood upright against the wall.
9. everything: Everything is as messed up!
10. own: The old woman who owns that cat is really mean.; I can barely see my own hand in front of my face.

#2.4: 8 Nov 2002

Topic: how to disambiguate (if at all) 3rd person referents

1. life: She owed her her life.
2. journey: Their journey to visit their friends was long.
3. brick: He gave his brick to him.
4. merry: She was merry all day at the festival.
5. fail: He failed to save him.
6. approve: He approved his request.
7. jaw: Their jaws were bruised from fighting their enemies.
8. hardship: He thought his hardship too great to bear.
9. whatever: Whatever she did, she was not happy.
10. goods: Their goods were locked on their wagon.

#2.5: 17 Nov 2002

Topic: predicate adjectives

1. answer: Her answer was too short.; She answered at length.
2. silence: The silence was uncomfortable.
3. tune: The tune he played was beautiful.; He tuned his [tuneable instrument].
4. camp: Their camp was nearly invisible.; They camped on the butte.
5. blood: Blood is red.
6. lend: She lends her time to anyone who asks.
7. equal: We get equal pay for our work.
8. determination: Her determination was impressive.
9. anger: His anger was frightening.
10. name: Their names are far too long.

#2.6: 24 Nov 2002

Topic: finite complement clauses

1. me, I: It bothers me that she is late.
2. quick: I hope that Sam is quick.
3. preparation: I think she made a lot of preparations.
4. sum: The sum of these numbers is 42.; I know that she sums quickly.
5. pity: It is a pity that he did that.
6. pipe: Their pipes are dirty.
7. dip: There is a dip in the road here.; I hear she dips her jelly donuts in her tea.
8. outdoor: I saw him outdoors. (adv); I want to go on an outdoor adventure. (adj)
9. priest: The priest says that she is an honest woman.
10. pretty: I smelled the pretty flowers.

#2.7: 29 Nov 2002

Topic: non-finite clauses

1. machinery: To repair machinery is difficult.
2. into: Entering into machinery is a serious matter.
3. wicked: She wants to be a wicked woman.
4. mid-: Mid-century, being a wicked woman was dangerous.
5. turn: It's your turn.; He needs to turn around.
6. historical: They want to study historical documents.
7. upset: We are upset about his coming.
8. him: We need to tell him.
9. damage: They are trying to damage our reputation.; It took a lot of damage in the battle.
10. apparatus: This apparatus needs to be repaired.

#10a: 26 Jan 2003

Topic: negation

1. bathe: He didn't bathe yesterday.
2. narrow: This road isn't that narrow.
3. jealous: I am not jealous!
4. sting: Luckily, the hornet didn't sting me.
5. who: Who wouldn't?
6. grief: She couldn't come to grips with her grief.
7. decrease: The profits have not decreased for 2 years.
8. annoy: You couldn't annoy me if you tried.
9. camera: That is not a camera - it's a calculator.
10. boot: She doesn't like boots.; Don't boot him out!

#10b: 26 Jan 2003

topic: Up for grabs

1. her
2. poor
3. sexual
4. origin
5. wise
6. cut
7. active
8. among
9. service
10. his