Sunday, March 28, 2010

CORRECTIONS & EXPLANATIONS - March 28, 2010

Here are the corrections and explanations for last week's entries.

Monday

PRECEDE/PROCEED

Precede” (v.) means to occur earlier in time, to go ahead of, before or in advance of something.
“The cheerleaders will precede the team when going into the stadium.”

Proceed” (v.) means to go on, to continue, to carry on.
“We will move into the stadium and then proceed to the benches at the north end.”


Tuesday

DISSEMBLE/DISASSEMBLE

Dissemble” (v.) means to be dishonest, to conceal the real nature of, to give a false appearance of or to try to hide what is being done.
“The bullies did nothing but dissemble about the brawl and then police were completely frustrated.”

Disassemble” (v.) means to take apart, to break apart or to tear down.
“They will disassemble the old house and try to salvage as much as they can in order to save money.”

Wednesday

INTERMENT/INTERNMENT

Interment” (n.) refers to the burial or the ritual placing of a corpse into a grave.
“We will conduct the interment this morning at 11:00 and will have a rollicking good wake immediately after.”

Internment” (n.) refers to confinement or imprisonment.
“His internment was for a period of ten years in solitary confinement.”


Thursday

MANIFEST/MANIFESTO/MANIFESTATION

Manifest” (adj.) means readily seen or understood, apparent, evident or clear.
Manifest” can also be a verb or a noun.
“The manifest devastation to the town clearly showed the cruelty of the conquering army.”

Manifesto” (n.) is a public declaration as of a sovereign or a government. It also can refer to a list of cargo on a ship.
“The conquering forces posted their manifesto on the door of the government building so everyone could read it.”

Manifestation” (n.) refers to an indication or a public demonstration for political effect or an expression of emotion without words.
“Her tears were a powerful manifestation of the pain she had suffered when her husband was killed.”


Friday

GARRULOUS/QUERULOUS

Garrulous”, an adjective, means chatty, gabby, given to much talk, especially about trifles.

Querulous”, also an adjective, means fretful, whiney, grumbling or faultfinding, petty, complaining or tending to make moral judgments based on personal opinions.


CYNICAL BUT PROFOUND

Explain how the quote reflects the title.

“He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.”
William Shakespeare wrote this in “Much Ado About Nothing”.

The cynicism is that hats are often changed and more often taken off and put on just to suit the weather. Shakespeare’s profundity ridicules those who are so fickle as to have such shallow faith. I am sure there are other interpretations, but this one is very evident.


PET PEEVE OF THE WEEK

Find and correct the peeve in the following sentence. Posit why it qualifies as a "pet peeve".
 

“I was driving behind a woman that refused to drive up to the speed limit.”

People are not things. A person should not, and cannot, be a “that”! It ticks me off that people are so inconsiderate as to refer to others as things and that is why it qualifies as a pet peeve. I will not address the problem of the person who will not go the speed limit; that is another peeve that will get some attention in a different forum.

"I was driving behind a woman who refused to drive up to the speed limit."


LAST WEEK’S WORDS

Pyre” (n.) refers to wood piled or heaped for burning, particularly as a funeral rite.
Pyromaniac”, referring to one obsessed with fires, is a word derived from “pyre”.

Retributive” (adj.) means avenging, paying back, seeking revenge or vindicatory.
Retribution” (n.) and “retributory” (adj.) are other forms of the word.

Harangue” (n.) refers to a bombastic declamation, a rant or a lecture.
Harangue” (v.) means to address forcefully, to berate, to rebuke or lambast.

Extemporize” (v.) means to perform without preparation, to ad-lib or to improvise.
Extemporaneous” is the adjective form.
Extempore” is the adverb form.

Postulate” (v.) means to claim, to hold, to claim, to hold as a fundamental truth or to assume the existence of truth without reasoning.

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