Notes from class

1.hydro- 
before vowels hydr-, word-forming element in compounds of Greek origin, meaning "water," from Greek hydro-, comb. form of hydor "water".
EX:fire hydrant
       hydrometer<------>thermometer
2.thermo-
before vowels therm-, word-forming element meaning "hot, heat, temperature," used in scientific and technical words, from comb. form of Greek thermos "hot, warm," therme "heat".
EX:thermometer
       thermography
-------------------------------------Sharing ---------------------------------------------------------------------
😃the sun never sets on English language
                                         by Gerry Dionne

What's the biggest English-speaking country in the world? The United States? Australia? You may be surprised. It's China. The Chinese are learning English in droves, in huge classes that look and sound more like a Duke pep rally (minus the blue body paint). English is seen there as a vehicle with which to negotiate a wider, growing world. The only language closer to universality is mathematics.

We're lucky. Because it's equal parts of huge and farraginous, English is uniquely expressive. There are more than a million English words now, giving us a rich trove of synonyms from which to choose as descriptors -- all those subtle shadings of meaning. The reason we have this plethora of words is a matter of serendipity. For example, we're the inheritors of bits and pieces of most of the languages of Europe. Divided into two basic groups, they're the Germanic languages that incorporated Frisian, Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, and the Romance languages that funneled Latin and Greek through French, Italian and Spanish. When William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, he guaranteed that we would all refer to law professionals as both “attorneys” (French) and “lawyers” (Anglo-Saxon), to a juvenile bovine as “veal” (French) and as a “calf” (Anglo-Saxon). Similar derivatives include “vend”/“sell,” “commence”/“start” and “liberty”/“freedom.”

Secondly, our language is downright promiscuous. Even politicians are allowed to coin new words: “lockbox” (Al Gore), “shovel-ready” (Barack Obama) or “misunderestimated” (George W. Bush). Here are some that are new to me: “noob” (a computer game novice), “sexting” (sending naughty text messages) and “octomom” (a woman with eight children.) The language is growing from organic sources, from the people, up. The Chinese and Scandinavians who are learning English do so, not to sound like Queen Elizabeth or President Obama, but to talk to each other. A businessman from Shanghai has an easier time communicating with his counterpart from one of China's western provinces with English as a default medium rather than with one of the many Chinese dialects.


Is this profligacy a good thing? It depends on whom you ask. The French have only a tenth of the words English speakers have at the ready. Yet, they guard their paltry 100,000 words with xenophobic zeal -- the gatekeeper being L'Academie Francaise, the custodian of the French language that reacts with paroxysms of outrage to linguistic interlopers such as Le Big Mac. The Germans are similarly disposed. Yet, note that the official millionth English word, according to the Global Language Monitor, is “Web 2.0” (pronounced web two point oh). That's not even a word, you say? It's a word, a punctuation mark and two numbers? Well, surprise: Noob is actually an “n” with two zeros and a “b.” Thus we have a new phenomenon. The geeks are augmenting our ancient 26 letters with numerals, punctuation marks, diacritical marks and even emoticons in the never-ending expansion of the language. We increasingly adopt any kind of symbol and assign meaning, without translation. Just as “pajamas,” a Hindi word, came to us as a result of the sun never setting on the British Empire, so “Web 2.0” has descended from cyberspace, the new meta-empire.

If I move to a desert island tomorrow, my first official act will be to ban the word “awesome.” “Awesome” is a word that actually had some heft 20 or so years ago. Now it means absolutely nothing through overuse. My current favorite word? “Schadenfreude,” meaning “pleasure from others' misfortune.” It's a German word (of course), We just expropriated it one day. My desert island book: The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) -- endlessly fascinating, the source of everything in two gigantic tomes. And as long as we're talking about words, most of my favorite things aren't "things" one can hold in one's hand. No, they're words, or ideas or personalities that can only be expressed verbally. My favorite nostalgic word: “Oxydol.” Favorite suicide note: Virginia Woolf''s, naturally. Favorite Picasso wife: Francoise Gilot. Favorite bird: Charlie Parker. Favorite plural: one goof, several geef. Favorite color: a seven flat five chord.


But I digress. Currently, there are at least 2 billion people in the world who are trying to learn English -- in India, in Latin America and especially in China, where students take up the language in the third grade, by law. And so China has become the world's largest English-speaking country. What's the attraction? Opportunity, prospects for a job, food on the table. With English we're part of a worldwide conversation about human well-being, wealth distribution, world health, security and diplomacy. But we should be mindful that there are almost 6,000 other languages out there. On average, one of these dies every 14 days. The most recent language to die was Klallam, traditionally spoken on Vancouver Island. The last speaker, Hazel Sampson, died in February. Dying languages represent a culture likewise in peril. So, we must preserve as we allow for growth. But, English represents hope, because it's become the language of problem-solving, a language more ubiquitous, more shared than any other on the planet.