13:2 amalgamate

Where & When: Just now I was looking up synonyms for the word 'focused' on http://thesaurus.com and I stumbled upon the word 'amalgamate' as one of its synonyms. It was actually a synonym for the word 'centralize,' which itself was a synonym for the word 'focused.'

In other words I found amalgamate:

Focused -> Centralized -> Amalgamate
 
Definition: According to the same website, amalgamate  is defined as "blend."
http://thesaurus.com/browse/amalgamate

Level of Familiarity: Until I stumbled upon this word on accident, I had never heard of it before. Looking at the word, I do not see any roots that would give clue to its meaning. At least not that I know of. However, I'm sure Dr. Hopkins sees some. In the process of trying to see if there was a root word or suffix, I looked up 'amal' and it is a Canadian film. Perhaps they are trying to tell us we should blend with Canada more?

Reflective Commentary: This word is one that I do not come across very often in every day life. But perhaps I see/hear it, and do not realize it.Even though the word 'amalgamate' did not help me on my quest to find a synonym for the 'focused,' it did give me a vocabulary blog entry and a new word.Looking at the word, I wonder how often I would use it. My thoughts instantly go to using it in a recipe.Last night I baked cookies and one of the steps said to blend in the dry ingredients. As an avid baker, the term blending is very common. I wonder what would happen if I wrote " amalgamate the dry ingredients?" How many people would be able to understand what I was saying? So perhaps I should not use this word when sharing recipes. I would make my friends smarter with a new word, but probably also frustrated as they have to stop and look it up. Their level of caring for VSS is probably slim to non. But I do think we can incorporate this word into everyday conversation, as long as we give some context to its meaning in the sentence, just so people know what we are saying.



amalgamating Canada and America

13.1 guff

Where & When: I found the word 'guff' while watching the movie, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), last night. It was said by one of the main characters, Royal Tenenbaum, about 30 minutes into the movie, when he was speaking to one of his sons, Chas. Royal said something to Chas, who made a sort of grunting noise. Then Royal said in response, "Don't give me that guff."

Anderson, W. 2001. The Royal Tenenbaums [Motion picture]. United States: American Empirical Pictures.

Definition: Guff is defined as "verbal abuse"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guff

Level of Familiarity: I have watched this movie several times before and never realized that Royal said the word 'guff' before. Even before the movie, I do not recall hearing the word before.

Reflective Commentary: After listening to the dialogue between Chas and Royal, this word stuck out to me. I was curious to what 'guff' meant. I knew it was in reference to what Chas said, or at least the noise he made. After looking up I can see the Royal mean that Chas shouldn't have made his grunt/sign noise in response to Royal talking about dying of cancer. Royal expected Chas to be more sympathetic and did not want the verbal abuse of a grunt. Overall I like the word gruff and think it would be a useful word to know. When someone says a mean or sarcastic comment, you could response to them and say exactly what Royal said. Guff appears to a word that could be common so I wonder if I have heard it before, but never realized it. After all I have watched the movie quite a few times and never really heard it until last night.


Royal, left. Chas, right.

12:2 Mien

Where & When: I found the word mien when I was reading my article for the reciprocal teaching article.

"While his dear Ulkna’s sad entreating mien,/ Did but increase the brute’s unchaste desire;/ He vaunting bears her off, her sobs are vain,/ They part the man and wife whom all admire" (p 598).
 
Hansen, J. (2009). Multiple literacies in the content classroom: High school students’ connections to u.s. history. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(7), 597-606. doi: 10.1598/JAAL.52.7.5

Definition: a person's manner, bearing, or appearance, expressing personality or mood

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mien

Level of Familiarity: I had never heard this word before until the poem from the article.

Reflective Commentary: While searching for a word this week, I had found another word in the article but could not recall where it was located. I instead found this one first and was still just as curious to its meaning. When I first typed it into Google, I typed 'mein' on accident. I had not realized I switched the 'i' and the 'e' at first so I was rather confused why it was defined as "Chinese wheat flour noodles." As that does not make sense in context. While his dear Ulkna’s sad entreating" Chinese wheat flour noodles. I suppose it could make sense if the noodles were old and appeared sad but Ulkna's sad manner sounds much better. I have not heard this word before so I wonder if this is out of date  (as in not popular). But it also could be that I have seen it before just not realized it.

12:1 Scrupulous

Where & When: Scrupulous was found by one of my students at work today.

           

“’You are over scrupulous, surely. I dare Say Mr. Bingley

Austen, J. (2003). Pride and prejudice. New York, NY: Barnes & Nobles, Inc.

Definition: having or showing a strict regard for what one considers right; principled.

Or 

punctiliously or minutely careful, precise, or exact: a scrupulous performance.

Based on the sentence, I believe Scrupulous means being punctual and precise

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scrupulous

Level of Familiarity: While I think I have seen the word before, I did not know the actual definition. 

Reflective Commentary: During my first period class, my student was reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This student in particular is a 9^th grade male. We watched the movie during my 3^rd period class and he would come in to watch it with us because he finished his work across the hall, in his Global class. I originally brought in the book for the girl in third period to read because she showed interest in reading it after I played the movie. Of course I was floored that she was willing to tried and read a Jane Austen novel as the language is difficult. I promised the 9^th grade student that I would bring in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in for him to read. Back to today’s class. We were mainly working on makeup assignments because so many students were absent. This student is bright and explains why he is in 9^th grade but taking 10^th/11^th grade English. He said he was bored because he finished The Hunger Games 1-3 already. So I offered to give him Pride and Prejudice to read for now. Since the vocabulary is difficult for the book, it wasn’t long before he asked me what scrupulous meant. Of course I didn’t know what it meant so I had to look it up. Then I realized this student actually helped me with my homework by giving me a vocabulary word.

Mrs. Bennet herself; the lady who is the topic of the sentence

11:2 librocubicularist

Where & When: I was looking through Pinterest and I stumbled upon a picture of the word librocubicularist.

Defintion: librocubicularist means a person who reads in bed.
It is defined through the Pinterest picture.

Level of Familiarity: Until I stumbled upon this word, I had never heard it before.

Reflective Commentary: I really like the word librocubicularist. I don't know how much I would actually use it. Librocubicularist is a word that would not come up in conversation a great deal, unless you were talking about a person who reads in bed. I might actually use this word frequently enough as I am an avid reader and so are most of my friends. I might actually refer to myself as a librocubicularist. It would be a great word to through around as no one would know what it meant. Looking at the word I see the word 'libro,' which is book in Spanish. This would be a useful trick to help understand the meaning.

11:1 Clowder

Where & When: I'm watching The Big Bang Theory. It's the episode where Sheldon and Amy break up and Sheldon deals with it by getting like 25 cats. Sheldon told Leonard to refer to his cats as a clowder of cats.

Lorre, C. (Producer), & Prady, B. (Producer) (2010). The zazzy substitution [Television series episode]. In The big bang theory. Burbank, California: CBS.

You can view the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWhAeI7sGzI

Definition: Clowder was defined in the show by Sheldon as "a group of cats"

Also found at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/clowder

Level of Familiarity: Although I have seen this particular episode before, I have never heard the word clowder used to describe a group of cats.

Reflective Commentary: This is probably one of my most favorite episodes of Big Bang. Sheldon is such... I don't know how to describe him. Anyone who watches the show knows what I am talking about. To see him go crazy over Amy and buy a bunch of cats is hilarious. My friends and I joke that I may become a cat lady one day, even though I hate cats. Now after watching Big Bang, I know to call my future group of cats a clowder.

10:2 Tight End

Where & When: This year I have been playing in a fantasy league through my part time job. Since I have no idea what anything actually means, I decided to pick one of the many terms I do not understand. Tight end is an important part of any football league.

Definition: an offensive football end who lines up close to the tackle and can act as a lineman or receiver 

Since this definition does nothing for me, I clicked the ELL definition and was provided with this:
American football : a player on the offensive team who plays in a position on the line of scrimmage and who blocks and sometimes catches passes

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tight%20end

Level of Familiarity: I have heard this word hundreds of times before as the tight ends are an important aspect of football. I just never knew what it actually meant.

Reflective Commentary: The ELL definition actually makes more sense to me than the other definition. Except I had to look up the line of scrimmage to see what it meant. Back in September when I signed up for fantasy, I had a delusional idea of what it meant. Turns out, you actually have to do work every week. I originally assumed you need to pick your team and not touch it for football season. Big Mistake. So every week I struggle trying to understand what terms means and what is important when I go to change my line up. I can see how it would be much easier have background knowledge of football. But I am in fourth place so I am doing alright for lacking all sorts of background knowledge. I can see through this hos important background knowledge really is. It makes things a lot easier and I probably would have an easier time picking my lineup because I would actually understand what people were talking about.

My tight end, Jermaine Gresham, who is playing this week

10:1 Adverse

Where & When: While watching Pride & Prejudice for probably the hundredth time, it is easy to pick words from there that I am unaware of. One of them that recently struck me was "adverse"

Charlotte Lucas: Just put on whatever you bought that's best.
Mr. Collins : Lady Catherine has never been averse to the truly humble.

Bevon, T., & Wright, J. (2005). Pride & prejudice. United Kingdom: Universal Pictures.'

Definition: acting against or in a contrary direction : hostile
 
taken from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adverse

In this sentence, Mr. Collins is informing Elizabeth that Lady Catherine does not judge people poorer than herself.

Level of Familiarity: While this word seems unfamiliar to me, I am sure I have heard it before. I know I have seen this movie at least 10 times and read the book so I have had multiple exposures to the word. But it never stuck out to me as a word I was truly curious about before, until I watched the movie today.

Reflective Commentary: From the movie and the book, Lady Catherine seems like a witch. Expect replace the 'w' with a 'b.' I did thoroughly enjoy her in Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. Still a witch but one that killed zombies like a champ. From the dialogue exchanged between Charlotte, Mr. Collins, and Elizabeth about going to dinner at Lady Catherine's house, you get the sense that Lady Catherine will not judge Elizabeth on what clothes she is wearing because in Mr. Collin's opinion, Elizabeth is not well off and Lady Catherine is nonjudgmental about poor people. But we readers know this is inaccurate. In my opinion, Mr. Collin's slightly insulted Elizabeth by saying that the clothes you brought/own are not good enough for Lady Catherine but she's too great of a person to pass judgment. I do like this word, but I do not know exactly how often I would this in my everyday language.