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