The Greek & Latin Roots of English (41 page)

3. A
scholar
needs __________ to do
research
, or else he will __________in confusion.

4. What are two different current usages of
rude
?
 
____________________
 
____________________

5. An
autodidact
is __________ __________.

6. His
disci
ples wanted to __________ what he had to say.

7. The first question a
pragma
tist asks is, “What can I __________?”

8. What is a
rhetorica/
question? ____________________ Can you give an example? ___________________________________________________________

9. He was employing so many deceptive and even false arguments that everyone accused him of ____________________.

10. The speaker delivered an
encomium
to the mayor because he wished to __________ her.

11. His eyes __________ over the newspaper as he gave the headlines a
curs
ory glance.

12. When the criminal con
fessed
, he __________ what he had done.

13. What are two different usages of
facu/ty?
 
____________________
 
____________________

14. If scholars got at the root of
symposium
, they would do more __________ than talking when they met.

15. Freud was a
seminal
figure in modern psychology because his work was the __________ for future work in the field.

16.
Illegible
writing __________ __________ __________.

17. When Roman law was
codified
, it was __________ into a __________.

18. What are the Spanish and French words for
library?
 
____________________
 
____________________

19. Non
canonical
works are those that lie outside the __________ of what is acceptable.

20. His sentences were so
convoluted
that they were all __________ __________.

21. A
fa
bulous party is worth __________ about.

22. We all wish we had a
tut
elary spirit who would __________ us from harm.

23. He had only a
rudi
mentary education, so he was _____________ in reading.

24. Her
encyclopedic
memory contained all kinds of __________.

25. His behavior was so
ludi
crous that we thought he was__________.

26. What are two different usages of
oratory?
 
____________________
 
____________________

27. The project was done under the
aegis
of the mayor's office. What does
aegis
mean in this context? __________

28. What is the current usage of the word
voluminous?
____________________ Can you figure out how it got this meaning? ______________________________

29. What are two different usages of
tuition?
 
____________________
 
____________________
 
How are these usages related? ________________________________________

30. It was difficult to __________ __________ of him, even after his death; but the minister delivered a moving
eulogy
.

31. A
plagiarist
is__________ __________ someone else's ideas or words.

32. What is the difference in meaning between
famous
and
infamous?
___________________________________

33. Even as I stood up to speak, I still couldn't make up my mind: should I flatter the mayor with a __________ or harshly attack him in a __________?

34. The words
punctuation
and
punctual
have the same Latin root but very different meanings. Do an etymological “search” to see how each word evolved into its present meaning.
 
punctuation ____________________________________________________________
 
punctual ____________________________________________________________

B. Playing Around

Construct sentences using the following words. Your sentences need to indicate that you know the meaning of the word.

C. Here are some more words, some of them quite elegant, that come into English unchanged from either Greek or Latin. Use your unabridged dictionary to find the original meanings and current usages of the following words:

THE CLASSICAL INFLUENCE

Parthenon of Athens, the temple dedicated to Athena, protecting goddess of the city of Athens

We Athenians cultivate a taste for the beautiful with moderation and we love knowledge without softness
.

PERICLES
Funeral Oration
(430 BCE)

EUROPE AND THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE

Western European culture has seen itself as the intellectual heir, in both form and content, of the artistic traditions of Greece and Rome. Although a great variety of non-European cultural forces have also influenced the development of European thought, many of the European traditions of creative expression, from the plastic and decorative arts to architecture and literature, can trace their ancestry back to the monumental legacy of the civilizations of the classical world.

THE FINE ARTS

The Greek exploration of spiritual and intellectual expression through the plastic arts established the forms and styles that were to become the reference points for all subsequent activity in these creative fields in classical antiquity. It was an influence that survived the end of the classical world. The European fascination with the human form, especially as expressed in sculpture, as well as the ideals of harmony and proportion that also provide the basis of classical architecture, perhaps have their origins in the Greek search for rationality, order, and measure in the visible world.