The Sunday News
Highway to success: Charles Dube
Words to know and use: accolade, breach, chaste, cleft, contempt, interminable, intimate, laminate, marauding, pungent, radius, smug, taut, vanity, vanquished. In your notebook answer the following questions: Would a strong odour be pungent or chaste? Would a boring movie seem taut or interminable? Would you prefer a strong friend to be intimate or smug? Would a marauding group more likely be surrounded by vanquished or happy neighbours?
If people say you are conceited, are they accusing you of vanity or contempt? If you were given an accolade, would you be proud or ashamed? If you breach a wall, do you go over, around, or through it? Would you feel comfortable standing within the radius of a lion’s leap? Why or why not? Does a cleft in a wall jut out or sink in? Are layers of plastic used to laminate or breach paper?
Commonly confused verbs. Do not confuse and lay, rise and raise, sit and set. There are three pairs of verbs that often cause problems: lie and lay, rise and raise, and sit and set. Study the following list of words to learn the correct use of these words. Lie and lay. I will show these words the present, past and past participle tenses. Lie, lay, (have) lain, lay, laid and have laid.
Rise and Raise rise –rose – (have) risen. Raise, raised have (have) raised. Sit and set- sit – sat (have) sat. Set, set, (have) set.
An analogy shows a relationship between words. To complete an analogy, determine the relationship between the first pair of words. Then decide which word from the list best completes the second analogy. Glow is to radiance as – is to atmosphere. Beauty is ugliness as – is to inexperience. Drifting is to snow as – is to water. Disease is to medicine as – is to education. Democrat is to democracy as – is to aristocracy.
Words to know and use: aristocrat, aura, cascading, essence, familiarity, illiteracy, incessantly, infuse, sacrilegious and sophistication. Gait – style of walking. Aristocrat is a person from the upper class. Incessantly continuously, non-stop. Sacrilegious – disrespectful toward a sacred person, place or thing. Infuse – to inject; to add to, illiteracy – a lack of knowledge of how to read and write. Cascading – falling or flowing like a waterfall, sophistication – the state of being worldly wise or experienced, essence, the basic or most important quality. Aura – the atmosphere or feeling that surrounds a person, object or event.
Intrigue – to arouse the interest of or curiosity of, fascinate. Eccentric – out of the ordinary, odd. Proposition – a plan, proposal, deal or scheme. Match the following endings to their right endings: to enter, to sink, to decrease, to sell, to hinder. To increase is the opposite of -. To help is the opposite of -. The opposite of to buy is -. The opposite of to float is – to sell. To go out is the opposite of -.
Match these verbs with their correct meanings which are in random order: to crawl, to annoy with joking remarks. To decrease, to make the noise of a duck. To hate, to get ready. To increase, to do or say again. To prepare, to move on hands and knees. To quack, to dislike very much. To repeat, to make or get smaller. To tease – to make or get bigger.
Give each sentence its right ending. Begin: Envelopes hold letters. 1. Envelopes hold flowers. Kettles hold clothes. A vase holds anything valuable. A jar sometimes holds letters. Sacks sometimes hold tea or coffee. Cups often hold water. A safe holds coal or potatoes. Wardrobes hold jam. A city is a very large town. How about the following?
A person who rides a bicycle is a -. A wall to hold back water is a -. A person who treats teeth. A person who cuts or looks after hair. A man or boy admired for great deeds. A woman or girl admired for great deeds. A precious stone. A person who drives a car. An animal that is half horse and half donkey. A puzzling question. A small river. Select answers to the previous questions from the following list of words: heroine, motorist, hairdresser, hero, dam, mule, cyclist, jewel, and riddle.
You may also want to know these words: Mast is a pole on which to hang the sail of a ship. Misprint is a mistake in a word printed in a book, newspaper or magazine. Jockey is a person who rides racehorses. A guide is someone who shows you the way. Burrow is a hole in the ground where rabbits live. An author is person who writes books. What is the difference between a writer and author?
This is just a short vocabulary exercise which is just a tip of an iceberg. You cannot boast of having acquired enough vocabulary after going through this. Vocabulary is acquired through wide reading. Revisit all new words you come across when reading and get their meanings. For views link with [email protected] or sms to 0772113207.Highway
