Category: Language

Language

Fill in each of the blanks in the following sentences (all from this “report”) with the correct word from the three choices found in parentheses. After you have made your choices, make certain you know the meanings of all the words in parentheses.

  1. “I find myself unable to comply with your request as ____________.” (formulated, derived, abated) (p.170)
  2. “the storm blowing after me out of my past__________________…”(abdicated, abated, propitiated) (p.170
  3. “may that first handshake be followed up by frank and ___________________ speech.” (unreputed, wanton, candid) (p.171)
  4. “my ape-nature is not yet wholly ___________________…”(sanctified, falsified, suppressed) (p.171)
  5. “the scar left by a ____________________shot.”(irresponsible, wanton, denatured) (p.171)
  6. “human words…_______________________the description.” (propitiate, sublimate, falsify) (p.171)
  7. “the kind of freedom…presented itself to me in their _______________________gaze.” (unabated, turbid, concerned) (p. 174)
  8. “then, in my desperate impatience to ___________________ him…” (emulate, describe, abate) (p. 175)
  9. “neither he nor I was ___________________…” (excused, propitiated, baffled) (p. 175)
  10. “I am interested only in ______________________knowledge…” (suppressing, disseminating, consuming) (p. 177)

Language

Work with two other students on this game.  You may use dictionaries.  Play “stink pink” with the following definitions.  Check with your teacher for correct answers.  How many of the words in the rhyming answers can be found in this story?  How many more stink pinks can be derived from words in this story?

Definitions:

  1. the coat of an animal that can be apprehended by touch (past tense)
  2. a large group who suffer from tedium
  3. a simian form
  4. one who is or thinks she/he is very good at something (slang)
  5. language used by water-dwelling, blood-sucking worms
  6. rather vulgar victuals
  7. a voyage by water in a boat
  8. a large swallow of some liquid
  9. a blind fury occasioned by being enclosed in a small, wire container

Language

Combine the following groups of sentences by using “ing” words, conjunctions, parallel structure, or any other devices you wish.

    • Caroline spoke aloud
    • She spoke with explosive relief.
    • She stopped abruptly.
    • The steps stopped too.
    • She looked down.
    • She looked in the shaft of the tower.
    • She looked down to the narrow staircase.
    • The stair case was unprotected.
    • It was spiralling round and round.
    • The skin of her right hand was torn.
    • The skin was hot with blood.
    • She would never lift her hand from the wall.
    • She would force her rigid legs to move.

Language

Reread the paragraph beginning, “Then the sea exploded…” (p. 70), and the two paragraphs that follow it. Make a list of all the action verbs you can find and all the adjectives that indicate a struggle. Using three of these verbs and three of these adjectives, write a paragraph about a very different kind of struggle–one in which no water is involved.

Language

  1. Gordimer’s story is characterized partially by the use of colons, semi-colons, and dashes.  Read over the first page and a half of the story carefully, noting where colons and semi-colons appear.  Substitute periods for each of these.  Note where dashes occur.  Substitute periods or parentheses for these.  Comparing the original and altered versions, answer the following questions:
    • What do semi-colons and colons seem to mean?  What connections do they establish between ideas before and after?
    • How does the meaning of words set off by dashes change when placed in parentheses?  when separated by a period?
  2. Revise a piece of your own writing by experimenting with colons, semi-colons and dashes.  How can you establish connections between ideas and subordinate ideas?

Language

Consider this description of Collins attempting to fall asleep:

He lay and the darkness came up to him, the darkness spread out to the edges of his being, the darkness washed away the edges of his being as the sea melts the edges of the sand.  But just as it was about to smooth out his head and wash down the pinnacles of his features like a sandcastle, a return of consciousness rose within him and swept it away.  (p. 159)

To what is falling asleep compared?  What does the comparison suggest to us about falling asleep?  do you find this extended metaphor appropriate?  If not, what comparison would you make?

Language

The profession of flight attendant is not, of course, the only one that has its own peculiar language; every job does.  Working with four other students, create a situation in which a number of people with different jobs/professions might be talking in a group:  a traffic accident, a community meeting, a home and school meeting, etc.  Be very specific about the nature of the situation.  Each of the group members should privately select a profession and take a day or two to think about and/or research the kind of language people in that profession use.  When the group next convenes, get into role and discuss the chosen situation with the others.  Remember, you have an opinion to express but you also have to respond to the others in-role.  Try not to stereotype.  After the exercise, see if the others in the group can guess your role.  Did you feel you were convincing in your role?  When did you find it most challenging?

Language

The phrase “good woman” is used over and over again throughout the story; indeed, in the first half of the story it almost functions as a refrain.  You’ve probably been advised—over and over again—not to use imprecise diction and not to repeat the same phrase too often.  How, then, can you account for Elliot’s frequent use of this expression?  What does it add to this story?  Before you answer these questions, try the following:

  • Select five possible synonyms for the word good  and clarify the distinctions among them.
  • Reread the first few pages, imagining that the word good  has been replaced with one or the other of your chosen synonyms.  What is lost when the word good  is replaced by a variety of other words?

Language

Fill in the blanks in the paragraph below with whatever words seem most appropriate.  Then compare your choices with those of two other students.  In each case, decide which of the three choices you find most effective.  Then compare the group’s results with Munro’s (p. 31).  Explain why you do or do not find her choice of words (her diction) more effective than your own.

My father would drink a beer on a hot day, but my mother did not join him, and—whether accidentally or _______________________—this drink was always consumed outside  the house.  Most of the people we knew were the same way, in the small town where we lived.  I ought not to say that it was this which got me into difficulties, because the difficulties I got into were a _______________________ expression of my own _______________________ accomplishment (my departure for my first formal dance, I mean, or my hellbent preparations for a _____________________  on college) with an expression of ___________________ and
_______________________ despair, as if she could not possibly expect, did not ask, that it should go with me as it did with other girls; the dreamed of spoils of daughters—orchids, nice boys, diamond rings—would be borne home in due course by the daughters of her friends, but not by me; all she could do was hope for a lesser rather than a greater ___________________—an elopement, say, with a boy who could never earn his living, rather than an ________________________ into the _____________________ _____________________ trade.