Etymology & Morphology Standards (survey results)

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) provide learning goals for grades K-12. These new objectives have been adopted by 45 states (see map). In this post, I discuss the CCSS that pertain to etymology and morphology and argue that the Standards do not adequately address etymology. I begin with the survey results and conclude with websites and books for teaching etymology.

The survey reveals a somewhat keen  interest in word origins for more than half the respondents (72 of 127 voters). Given the readership of Vocabulogic, this is perhaps not surprising, but it is promising. If teachers are interested in something, students are more likely to become interested, too (especially if they like the teacher). In his classic work, Principles of Teaching, Thorndike (1906) suggested that the second cause of interest is the force of imitation; he argued that students will be interested in whatever interests the community—including their teachers and fellow students—and the interest will be acquired almost by infection.

DO THE STANDARDS INCLUDE MORPHOLOGY?
Yes, in the CCSS, the English Language Arts (ELA) Standards include morphological awareness (knowledge of word structure, especially via affixes and roots). While morphological awareness (MA) is never mentioned per se in the Standards, the related content is included as a sub-skill across every grade, K-12. However, to find the standards that apply to MA, one must search around a bit, hunting in the various domains under ELA: Reading, Language, Foundational Skills. Search for the terms inflectional endings, suffixes, prefixes, affixes, compound words, Greek and Latin roots. Below is one example standard, showing the morphology bits, from grade 3:

Grade 3: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use L.3.4

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases based on grade 3 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

• Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat). 
• Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., company, companion).

WHAT ABOUT ETYMOLOGY?
Etymology is the study of how words have changed in form, meaning, and usage over time, including the origins of words--whether a word was first used by the ancient Greeks, for example. See prior post and see post by Shane Templeton.

Etymology is almost forgotten in the Common Core ELA Standards. The search term etymology appears only twice (!!) across the entire document, K-12. The search term word origins is not found at all.  The standard first appears in grades 9-10 and repeats in grades 11-12:

Grades 9-10: Knowledge of Language L.9-10.4

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 9–10 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

• Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, its part of speech, or its etymology. 

Hmm. It seems to me that the etymology bit was almost an afterthought. The language is certainly not strong, and only applies to high school. Why is etymology given slight attention? I know not. But, in support of this decision, researchers have not sufficiently explored how etymological insight relates to either morphological insight, vocabulary knowledge, or even orthographic knowledge (how to spell).

On the other hand, learning about word histories might be viewed as one way to make the word stick. If we know why a word is so named, and have a sense of its history, we might better remember it. Vocabulary researcher Stephen Stahl explained it like this, in his book Vocabulary Development (1999, pp 22-23):

"Telling word stories can make words memorable. Knowing that bilious comes from the medieval humor, bile, which caused anger...makes the word more memorable"

Likewise, knowing that robot originally meant "forced laborer or slave' (from Czech robotnik "slave," from robota "forced labor, drudgery") makes the word far more interesting, more three dimensional, cognitively "sticky" or memorable, and infused with history. In my view, learning etymology reinforces the study of history, and the reverse is also true.

There is another reason to include word origins long before high school. English freely adopts foreign loan words (prior post). English contains words from dozens--if not hundreds--of other languages. It is important to be aware of this fact, especially from a spelling perspective.

IMPLICATIONS for INSTRUCTION
I would not suggest spending a lot of time on word histories, but I see no reason to wait until high school to integrate the history of the word into the vocabulary lesson--with the caveat that this need only happen occasionally, and only if the etymology is interesting. Likewise, why not infuse etymology lessons into history lessons, where applicable and interesting?

Students might start exploring brief word histories as soon as they have a sense of the world and can read a world map--certainly by fourth grade. This should help them remember meanings, spell words, and pronounce words. Perhaps learning about word histories will help students realize that English is only one of many languages of the world. Indeed, it might help them become interested in learning another language.

RESOURCES: BOOKS AND WEBSITES FOR TEACHING ETYMOLOGY

Abracadabera to Zombie: More Than 300 Wacky Word Origins by Don and Pam Wulffson (short and sweet little etymologies, aimed at about grade 4)

Frindle, a chapter book aimed at about 5th grade, by Andrew Clements (fast paced and fun, used by many teachers)

A History of English in its Own Words, by Craig Carver (word histories provided, organized by time period: Anglo Saxon/Old English, French-based Middle English, Renaissance, etc.)

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford Dictionary, aimed at older students or adults, by Simon Winchester (a riveting read)

Douglas Harper's site: Online Etymology Dictionary

Ben Zimmer's website: Word Routes

Dave Wilton's website: Wordorigins.org 

Michael Quinion's website: World Wide Words 

Barry Popik's website: Barry Popik.com

Charles Hodgson's podcasts: Podictionary

Oxford English Dictionary: Oxford Online

Anu Garg's website: A Word a Day at Wordsmith.org

Fun with Words website: Etymology Section

References: 

Stahl, S. A. (1999). Vocabulary Development. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

Thorndike, E. L. (1906). The Principles of Teaching: Based on Psychology. A. G. Seiler: New York.

Puzzling Plurals and the *Potatoe Incident

Thanks for participating in the Puzzling Plurals survey. In this post, after focusing on potato and other singular nouns that end with the open /o/ sound, I discuss the survey questions. To finish, I provide links to references, articles, and games.

It is evident from the survey results that "we" are perplexed. The English language is  puzzling, and plurals trouble all of us at times. As we know, they can certainly stress former US Vice Presidents--at least, that's the argument I make below.

"Now add one little bit on the end."

Some tricky singular-plural pairs are remnants of Old English, and flow from the Germanic layer of the language. Some are artifacts of Greek and Latin influence. Still others flow from Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, etc.

For example, take potato, a word that apparently traveled from native Haitian, was given a  Spanish spelling, and was adopted into English, from Sp. patata, from Carib (Haiti) batata "sweet potato." (etymology here). Basic English 101 says to make a plural, we add either the inflectional suffix -s or -es to the singular noun, right? But we typically add -es to words that end with hissing sibilant sounds like /s/, /z/, /sh/, /zh/ and /ch/ -- including wish-wishes, fox-foxes, and bus-buses. Now, potato does not end with a hissing sound, so why would the plural of potato be potato + es? We do not add an -es to pinto or pueblo, yet like potato, they came into English via Spanish. And if the plural is potatoes (and it is), then we should be able to figure out how to spell the singular simply by removing the final -s. Thus, we might deduce that the singular of potatoes is *potatoe. After all, someone (a teacher, or so the story goes) spelled it that way on the cue card for the ill-famed spelling bee. (See the *potatoe incident on YouTube.)

One can kinda-sorta see why Quayle's handler approved the cue card, and why the VP himself went along with it, telling the 12-year-old--who knew the correct spelling--to "add one little bit to the end" of his perfectly spelled potato. After all, there are just too many strange spellings to remember, and we never add -es to a noun that ends in a vowel.

Visual Thesaurus map for genie

But we do! Potato+es, echo+es, torpedo+es, tomato+es, and hero+es testify to it, while piano+s, inferno+s, video+s, rodeo+s and bistro+s refute it. Meanwhile, playing it safe, several sit the fence: ghettos or ghettoes, cargoes or cargos, flamingos or flamingoes, halos or haloes, tornadoes or tornados, etc. English is pickled with puzzles, and just when we find a pattern, the language genie attacks--sometimes we tangle with two genies at once--or genii?

I spell potato, you spell *potatoe? Pity the former Vice President, but pity even more the millions of English learners around the world. In fact, be gentle with all. From the survey results, even well-educated adults who use English with confidence all day fall prey to the unpredictable plural.

Below, I briefly discuss the survey questions. I note the percentage of 271 respondents who voted in favor of each phrase, deciding it was correct. Kudos (but not *kudoes) for resisting the dictionary while responding. Refer to the prior post to see the closed survey with graphed results and related comments.

• (82%) lots of data is correct. The singular is datum. 
• (55%) seven thesauri is correct. Thesauruses is listed in some dictionaries, but it only appears once every 1,356,110 pages, on average, according to Vocabulary.com. The singular is thesaurus. 
• (63%) a single bacterium is correct (like datum). The plural is bacteria. 
• (12%) six skinny mooses is not correct. The plural of moose is moose.
• (38%) one essential criteria is not correct. The singular is criterion; the plural is criteria.
• (26%) five octopuses is correct. Read about octopuses, not *octopi, below.
  
• (85%) four strong oxen is correct (like children, brethren, and extinct shoon, like shoe + -en; see shoe etymology). The singular is ox. 
• (63%) two loaded dice is correct. The singular is die (but dice is becoming more accepted as a singular form). Note the plural mice and lice are not expressed in singular as *mie and *lie.
• (89%) four flying fish is correct, but fishes would also be correct. 
• (71%) a strange phenomenon is correct (like criterion). The plural is phenomena. 
• (77%) some differing hypotheses is correct, ending with es. The singular is hypothesis (like crisis, analysis, thesis, parenthesis). 
• (13%) hundreds of hopping head lie is not correct. The plural is lice and the singular louse (like mouse, but not house and *hice)

English words reflect the spelling patterns of the parent language, but not with consistency. This is when we teach dictionary skills, an important aspect of vocabulary instruction. However, it is worthwhile to memorize the spellings of words we use frequently. Many of these words actually do conform to a plural-forming pattern. In Words and Rules, Stephen Pinker (1999, p. 26) theorized:

"The mind analyzes every stretch of language as some mixture of memorized chunks and rule-governed assemblies."

Rule-governed assemblies include spelling patterns. What are the spelling patterns for tricky plurals? Several experts have attempted to explain them, or list them. So, for your browsing pleasure, explore the following links -- there's even a game.

The Old English Plural by The Oxford Times

Tricky Plurals in English: Bacterias, Bacteriae, Bacteriums? Plurals of Loanwords in English, by Oxford Dictionaries-Oxford University Press (not sure if this will open without a membership). Here is an excerpt, explaining why *octopi is not the plural of octopus:

Tangled up in the coils of the language octopus
 X Sea lions are carnivores and eat fish, squid, octopi, crabs, clams, and lobsters. 
As the above example (taken from a US scientific publication) shows, a little knowledge of Latin and Greek can be a dangerous thing and sometimes leads people into error. The writer clearly knows that some Latin plurals are formed by changing the ‘–us’ ending of a singular noun into ‘-i’ for the plural, as in alumnus -> alumni. However, octopus is ultimately borrowed from a Greek word and not a Latin one, so it’s incorrect to form the plural according to the Latin rules. If you wanted to be ultra-correct and conform to ancient Greek, you’d talk about octopodes, but this is very rare: the Anglicized plural, octopuses, is absolutely fine. 

A Reference to Strange Plurals in English, at pipTALK Forums

Irregular Plurals and Nouns, at the University of Victoria Study Zone

One Fish-Two Fish, a game-like quiz at Sporcle (Try it!)

Minimum, Minima, and Other Irregular Plurals  by Bill Wilson, engineering

Strange Plurals at English Forums.com

Strange Plurals, an open list at Worknik

What is the Plural of Mouse? Quick and Dirty Tips by Grammar Girl


References:

Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Cheers,
Susan

New Survey Question: Puzzling Plurals

(The public is invited to participate in the survey, located within this post.)

Most English nouns are transformed from singular to plural by adding an -s or -es to the end, as with cat -- cats and wish -- wishes, but there are a number of singular--plural pairs that are tricky. How tricky? Let's find out! In the survey below, check all the phrases that are expressed correctly. Do not look anything up in a dictionary -- just go with your own insight. Here are two examples:

Example 1.   two savvy woman

(incorrect, because woman is a singular noun, but two indicates more than one. If the phrase were one savvy woman, or two savvy women, it would be correct.)

Example 2.   five new cars

(correct, because cars indicates more than one, a plural, and five also indicates more than one)

Now, complete the survey below. If the survey does not work, click here and vote / view at the source, Twiigs Polls.

Thanks for participating! Invite your friends, too.
Check back on April 29th for discussion.

Susan

poll by twiigs.com

The Popular Prefix in- (Survey Results)

Thank you for participating in the prefix survey (641 responses). In this post, I discuss the prefix in- first. Then, I respond to the survey results.

(Click images to enlarge and/or download them.)

The prefix in- is a chameleon: It changes its color to blend in, so to speak, having four different forms, in-, im-, ir-, or il-, depending on the base or root to which it is attached. When the base or root begins with the sound /b/, /m/, or /p/, we use im-, as in imbalance, immeasurable, impolite. When the base or root begins with the sound /l/, we use il-, as in illegal, illogical, illegitimate. When the base or root begins with the the sound /r/, we use ir-, as in irregular, irreverent, irreligious. The standard form is spelled in-. These varied forms enable easy flow of smoothly blended speech, through a process called assimilation--where the final sound of the prefix is assimilated into the beginning sound of the base or root. 

The prefix in- is popular. According to The American Heritage Word Frequency Book (Carroll, Davies, & Richman, 1971) the most common prefix in school texts spanning grades 3-9 is un-, as in unbroken, unhappy, uncertain. The second-most common prefix is re-, as in reheat, reverse, rewind. The third-most common is in- (including im-, il-, ir-) meaning 'not' or 'without' as in inescapable, inedible, impossible, improbable, illegible, irreversible. (Learn more at Affixes.org.) Click the chart above to see the top 20 prefixes in school texts in grades 3-8, as ranked 40 years ago by Carroll et al. and applied to 3rd-grade research by White, Sowell, and Yanagihara (1989).

Click the Wordle graphic, illustrating the top 20 prefixes, created by educator Bob Maulucci (thanks, Bob!). There are more prefixes, also worth knowing. For example, students need to know uni-, mono-, bi-, di-, tri-, deci-, multi-, poly-, etc. 

The prefix in- is polysemous. This prefix has more than one meaning, so it is polysemous. The primary meaning is 'not' but the secondary meaning is 'in, into' or something of that nature. This secondary meaning of in- (aka im-, il-, ir-) is 7th among the 20 most common prefixes identified by Carroll et al. (1971), as shown on the chart provided. Examples of words that contain the prefix in- meaning 'in, into' are income, inlet, insightful, etc.

In some words, the prefix in- 'in, into' is not strictly necessary and is added for emphasis or intensity, as in the word incandescent, 'to glow from within'. Wouldn't *candescent* serve just as well? To learn more about the prefix in- as 'in, into', see www.affixes.org. 

Such nuance aside, for the purpose of teaching school children, I think it best to show that the prefix in- has two meanings, 'not' or 'in' and four forms, in-, im-, il-, ir-, and that context helps us decide which meaning best fits the word.

The Prefix Poll (click survey to enlarge): Having considered these aspects of the prefix in-, would you change any of your responses?

The purpose of the survey was to prompt reflection through this question: "Where does the prefix denote 'not'? Click each word that applies." I sought to determine the extent to which the two meanings and four forms of the prefix in- were known. I was also curious about the relationship between semantic knowledge and morphemic knowledge. For each word, I provide a link to the word origins provided by the Online Etymology Dictionary.

inviolate: (54% of 641 voters responded correctly.) Yes, in this word the prefix in- denotes 'not'. If someone is inviolate, they have not been violated. Given that only about half the group responded positively to this item, I wonder if some did not know the word itself. If the word is not known, it is difficult to decipher which meaning of in- applies. Even though knowledge of morphology facilitates word learning, it does not replace contextualized word study.

(To learn more about inviolate or any other word, visit an excellent NEW online reference tool published by Serge Bohdjalian, called Memidex. Memidex combines information from multiple sources: dictionaries, thesauri, etymological sources, pronunciation guides in British and English, etc. It also includes about 1400 affixes.)

inestimable: (80% of 641 voters responded correctly.) Yes, in this word, the prefix denotes 'not' because if something is inestimable, it is of such great worth that its value cannot be estimated or counted. It is priceless.  The pronunciation might call to mind the word esteem (not estimate). If so, one might think the word means not *esteemable* or something of that nature. A careful look at the orthographic structure of the word, including an examination of the base and affix, would shed light on things. 

insert: (98% of voters responded correctly.) No, this word does not contain a prefix that means 'not' as virtually every participant knew. Rather, the prefix denotes 'in, within, inside'. Here, knowledge of the word itself seems to virtually deliver prefix knowledge. 

impossible: (94% of voters responded correctly.) Yes, the prefix in- denotes 'not' and the counterpart is possible. This word has an assimilated form of in- (in this case, im-) which might account for the 38 incorrect responses.  (I expected this item to be easier than the previous one, insert.)

implant:  (97% of voters responded correctly.) No, the prefix in- does not denote 'not' in this word; it denotes 'in, inside', as nearly everyone knew. Again, the assimilated prefix, spelled im- rather than in-, may explain the slight confusion.

inflammable: (30% of voters responded correctly.) No, the prefix in- does not denote 'not' in this word; it denotes 'within, inside, in.' The word flows from inflame--to burst into flames, from within, so to speak. This word is tricky; we assume in- denotes 'not' because that is the more common meaning of the prefix (Carroll et al., 1971). Because of the confusion created by this word, many combustible substances are labeled FLAMMABLE, doing away with the largely unnecessary prefix altogether.

incandescent: (70% of voters responded correctly.). No, the prefix in- does not mean 'not' in this word; it denotes intensity or emphasis, and also a slight sense of 'in, within', with the root cand meaning 'to glow'. Words derived from this root are candid, candent, candle, candelabra, the French chandelier and chandler, a candler maker.

irregardless: (A largely unanswerable question due to the lack of agreement between the morphemes and the word, or lexeme, but interesting to think about!).  This is illustrated by a comment posted under the survey:

•  J. Chantler: You know, of course, that irregardless is not properly a word, although it is commonly used. Regardless is the correct form. If you parse the word, it is easy to see why - it doesn't work. IR not- regard to pay attention to - less, not having any - what???    
• My response: That is why I have included the word irregardless in the survey, to prompt just this type of discussion. Thank you for doing so! I concur, except I am not sure I would say it is not "properly" a word, as anything becomes a word once used widely enough. Do you hold that if a word does not parse correctly it is not properly a word? Would that make the morpheme more weighty than the word?

(For rich discussion of irregardless, read Michael Quinion's World Wide Words.)

intact: (7% of voters responded correctly.) This is tricky if you do not know what the root means. Yes, the prefix in- does indeed denote 'not' in this word. The root tact is Latin for 'to touch' as in tactile, so intact might be paraphrased as "not touched, untouched," etc.

impound: (94% of voters responded correctly.) No, the prefix in- does not denote 'not' in this word; it denotes 'in, inside', as in locking the dog in the pound.  Here we have the assimilated form of in-, spelled im-, because the base (pound) begins with the sound /p/. If impound denotes to place an animal in the pound, how do we say "release from the pound?" Expound?? Nope. Depound???

So, there we have it. Interesting and promising results! Thanks for participating!

Application: Beginning in primary grades, with easy words and the most common prefixes, students need to engage in word study that coordinates sounds, spellings, morphemes, and semantics, with context (Berninger, Abbott, Nagy, & Carlisle, 2010). Teachers might begin with some explicit instruction followed by interactive word sorting, word summing, and word building, with a partner. For modeling, activities and ideas, see posts by Pete Bowers, Geri Marshall Mohler, or Marcia Henry. Also, scroll through See Spot for videos, morphemic flip books, etc.

Comments are welcome.

References:

Berninger, V. W., Abbott, R. D., Nagy, W., & Carlisle, J. (2010). Growth in phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness in grades 1 to 6. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39(2), 141-163.

Carroll, J.B., Davies, P., & Richman, B. (1971). The American Heritage word frequency book. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

White, T.G., Sowell, J., & Yanagihara, A. (1989). Teaching elementary students to use word part clues. The Reading Teacher, 42, 302-308.

The Slippery Suffix -er (Survey)

MA stands for morphological awareness, which involves understanding the internal structure of words, including knowledge of affixes and roots. It is a type of linguistic insight. Read more about MA.

In a longitudinal study of growth curves across grades 1-6, Berninger, Abbott, Nagy, and Carlisle (2010) found that MA grew rapidly across grades 1-3 and continued to grow--more slowly--through grade 6 (at least). In contrast, growth in phonological awareness tapered off by third grade for most students. Growth in orthographic awareness (awareness of wrong-looking spellings, for example; the ability to store, form and access orthographic knowledge, knowledge of "legal" and "illegal" letter order, etc.) continued beyond third grade, especially for expressive knowledge. More pertinent to vocabulary growth, they found that students who have an understanding of derivational morphology are more likely to develop a larger vocabulary, compared to peers who do not understand the morphosyntactic principles of English words. This finding confirms prior research on the relationship between derivational morphology and vocabulary growth (see, for example, Anglin, 1993).

This makes sense, because derivational suffixes have the potential to change the part of speech and meaning of the base to which they are added. They create a different word. For example, the word boy is a noun but the derivational suffix -ish creates the adjective boyish (no longer a noun, no longer a boy--could be a girl, man, etc.). Derivations are often nuanced, abstract, academic. Learn more at Derivations and Syntax. To develop breadth of word knowledge, children must gradually understand how derivational suffixes work.

Buffalo Public Schools

We teach the suffix -er in primary grades. We teach two types of the suffix. The derivational suffix -er creates an agent noun, 'one who.' With the delightful teacher-created word tree at left, children are shown the transformation from dance (the verb) to dancer (the noun/agent/person). This same derivational suffix can also form an object-as-agent, as in cooler ('that which cools').

A second function of the suffix -er is inflectional. Unlike derivational suffixes, inflectional suffixes do not create a different word; they just create another form of the same word. They do not change the part of speech of the base word to which they are affixed. When added to an adjective, the inflectional suffix -er creates another adjective with the same basic meaning, but of greater degree. So, adding the inflectional suffix -er to the adjective warm creates the comparative adjective warmer.

A third, and far less productive function of the suffix -er, is to create a sense of jocularity, as in soccer. There are very few words of this type, but here are a few more. (Read the story of the word soccer at this link.)

A fourth possible function of -er, one that theoretically flows from Old English, was to create a verb characterized by small repetitive motions: stammer, flicker, flutter, shiver. If so, this function no longer exists; it is not productive; we cannot express stammer as stam(m) + -er. Read more.

Students need to learn to think analytically about the two main functions of the suffix -er, to better understand word formation and meaning. Teachers might have students sort the derivational -er from the inflectional -er, as begun here:
 

-er (one who)      -er (that which)      -er (more)            -er (not a suffix)

noun                    noun                      adjective            

thinker                   bobber                    greener               summer

buyer                     blender                   rougher               her

Resources: To find lists of words ending with the letters er (suffix or not), scroll down on this page to the hyperlinks listed under Morphology. There are two websites that apply, More Words and Word Searcher. To determine whether any given word ends with the suffix -er, try etymonline.com. 

Now to the survey of the slippery suffix -er: Do the two words share the same suffix? Answers are shown below the survey. The survey has closed.
If the survey does not display properly, click the question (a hyperlink).

twiigs.com

1. colder -- speaker: No. The  inflectional suffix -er in colder creates the comparative form of cold, an adjective. The derivational suffix -er in speaker creates a noun (an agent, one who).

2. seer -- fortuneteller: Yes. Both words end with the derivational suffix -er, creating an agent noun. The American Heritage Dictionary defines seer as 'one who sees' and orthographic awareness would tell us that seeer just looks wrong. Rules of spelling support this type of awareness: When a base (in this case, see) ends in a vowel, and we want to add a suffix that begins with a vowel (in this case, -er), we must first drop the vowel at the end of the base word; then we add the suffix. (Read about seer at etymonline.com.)

3. thinker -- dreamer: Yes. Both words end with the derivational suffix -er, creating an agent, a noun.

4. faster -- sweeter:  Yes. Both words end with the inflectional suffix -er, creating a comparative adjective.

 5. computer -- singer: Yes (and no, in another sense). Both words end with the derivational suffix -er, creating a noun, but the -er in computer generally implies a nonperson and the -er in singer generally implies a person. This is where morphology and semantics intersect with context.

6. steamer -- burner:  Yes. Both words end with the derivational suffix -er and in each case, the -er creates an object as an agent, not a person.

7. deer -- slipper: No. Deer does not contain a suffix at all, but slipper contains the derivational suffix -er, creating an agent noun, an object that "slips on" easily.

8. stronger -- taller:  Yes. Both words end with the inflectional suffix -er, creating a comparative adjective.

9. hammer -- hamburger:  No. Hammer does not contain a suffix.  Hamburger does; it apparently got its name from Hamburg, Germany, home of the hamburger steak. Michael Quinion provides interesting details on the origins of hamburger. Less likely: The suffix -er in hamburger may indicate jocularity (read more).

10. butter -- toaster: No. Butter does not contain a suffix at all (it may have contained two morphemes, meaning 'cow' and 'cheese,' in Old English). Toaster ends with the derivational suffix -er, creating an agent nonperson (unless, of course, we are talking about the person who works the toaster. Need context!).

In the classroom, this type of survey lends itself to critical thinking and peer discussion, followed by explicit teacher feedback. There is great value in this type of instructional conversation.

PS. At a more advanced level of morphological awareness (which includes knowledge), we come to realize that the English/Germanic suffix -er in dreamer and thinker corresponds with the Latin suffix -or in governor and senator. 

References:

• Anglin, J. M. (1993). Vocabulary development: A morphological analysis. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 58(10)[238], v-165. 
• Berninger, V.W., Abbott, R.D., Nagy, W., & Carlisle, J. (2010).Growth in phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness in grades 1 to 6. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39, 141–163.

Connotations and Denotations (poll)

Definitions are denotations.What does the word snob denote? The emotions, images, and visceral responses associated with a word are called connotations. What does snob connote?

Connotations can be positive, neutral, or negative and they are subjective, unique to the individual, even though most people would probably respond positively to fireplace and negatively to arson. English language learners in particular may struggle to grasp connotations. Consider the similar denotations but differing connotations of the words relaxed, inactive, and lazy. I’d prefer to be viewed as relaxed rather than lazy, wouldn’t you?

Now to the poll results. Of 266 voters, 200 (75%) felt that snobbish was more insulting than smug. These two negatively charged words share similar but not identical denotations. I was curious to learn if the affective associations triggered by the words varied widely. The finding was surprising—in my perceptual lens, smug is more insulting, more negative. The word reeks of superiority. I was in the minority. One can only guess at the personal experiences that triggered the varied responses but a few comments provide clues:

One blogger said, “Smug is worse because people are not snobbish about everything, only some things. If people are smug, they are always smug, because it’s in them, a part of their personality.”

An email stated, “I down-rated smug because the mind is set and arrogant whereas snobbish is because of birth, but context makes a difference.”

A college student wrote, “I would have to say I would much rather be called smug than snobbish. I just don't like the word snob, I guess.”

Another blogger said, “I think snobbish is more universally insulting because many people aren’t sure what smug means, but nobody likes a snob.” 

Do fewer people know what smug means? To investigate, I consulted The Educator’s Word Frequency Guide, a corpus created by Zeno, Ivens, Millard, and Duvvuri (1995). In the listing, the frequency of smug was greater than that of snobbish, but neither word appears frequently in English texts (0.5436 versus 0.1431 appearances per million words). Even when all forms of smug (that is, smug, smugly, smugness) were tallied against snob, snobs, snobbish, snobbishly and snobbishness, the smug family had a higher total frequency (1.0429 versus 0.6497). Thus, based on the written word, smug should be known at least as well as snobbish, but we must also consider the frequency of spoken words, and there is no data base for that to my knowledge. It is possible that we hear snob more frequently than smug.

At any rate, the implications are clear—words can trigger surprising and differing emotional responses. Students need to be aware of this. Perceptions are key to language processing. Communication (including reading comprehension) depends not only on understanding a word’s denotation but also its connotation. 

Classroom application: After the denotations of a handful of near-synonyms are learned, why not vote on their connotations with sealed ballots? Discuss the rationale behind the vote. Such discussion should prompt thinking, learning and memory. This task should be accessible to everyone as long as the denotations are known. 

These types of engaging tasks will motivate most students and may kindle interest in words and phrases, especially needful for children of poverty. Word consciousness should develop along with explicit knowledge of a word's denotations and connotations. Furthermore, writing might well improve as students become discerning with respect to word selection (see poetry post). I have not found rigorous evidence to support these claims but the theory is sound and a few promising studies offer support for the idea, including the study described in the prior post, carried out by Baumann, Ware, and Edwards, 2007 (and see Graves, 2006; Scott, Skobel, & Wells, 2008).

      

References:

• Graves, M.F. (2006). The vocabulary book: Learning and instruction. New York: Teachers College Press. 
• Scott, J., Skobel, B., & Wells, J. (2008). The word-conscious classroom: Building the vocabulary readers and writers need.   New York: Scholastic - Theory into Practice Series.  
• Zeno, S. M., Ivens, S. H., Millard, R. T., & Duvvuri, R. (1995). The educator’s word frequency guide. New York: Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc.

Word Pairs (poll)

Responses varied among the 134 who took the word relations quiz. The task was to decide whether the two words share a root meaning. If two or more words share a core meaning and also a similar root spelling, it makes sense to consider a morphological relationship, even if the meaning only partially overlaps, as in thermos and thermostat, and the vowel sound shifts from one word to another, as from heal (long e) to health (short e).

poll by twiigs.com

Morphological awareness, including the ability to recognize root relationships and affixes (prefixes, suffixes) correlates with reading ability. By middle school, morphological awareness helps account for proficiency in decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension (Mann & Singson, 2003; Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006). At-risk readers need to better understand morphology, but this line of study is not typically required in credential coursework nor well articulated in K-12 English or reading/language arts curriculum.

Now to the poll. Do the two words share a root meaning? 

car, cart, chariot: Budding vocabulogicians might be interested to learn, through a semantic sorting activity, that these conceptually related words all appear to flow from the same root, meaning 'wheeled vehicle'. Linguists have reconstructed an ancient Mother Tongue, called PIE (Proto-Indo-European). PIE is thought to have given birth to several hundred languages, including Sanskrit, Persian (Farsi), Latin, Greek, French, German, Irish, English, etc. From the PIE root kers-  sprang many related words, like car, chariot, cargo, charge, carry, carriage and probably cart. Many of these words eventually entered English through Latin. After sorting this large but somewhat distal group of groups, try brainstorming all the words and phrases that more directly flow from carry, like carriage, carrier, carryall, carry-on, carryover, carry the ball, carriage house, baby carriage, etc. (See comments.)

choate, inchoate: No. Inchoate (in—ko'—it) means ‘incomplete or half-formed’ but it does not begin with the prefix in-, meaning ‘not.’ Thus, the mistaken backformation choate does not, etymologically speaking, mean complete, even though that is how it might be used. In fact, some contend that choate is not even a word. Justice Scalia has chastened attorneys for using it (see New York Times). 

feat, defeat: Yes. Both words share the same Latin root meaning ‘to make, to do.’ Thus, a feat is an accomplishment, something successfully done, as in ‘a feat of endurance’ but a defeat is the opposite. Another related term is the French phrase fait accompli. 

guise, disguise: Yes, probably. Both words appear to stem from Old French. The root, meaning ‘manner, appearance, style’ is still central to the modern meaning. A less obvious connection is geezer, first spelled guiser. See Podictionary. 

merit, demerit: Yes. Both words share a common Latin root indicating ‘reward’ (and also ‘fault’ in demeritum). We can trace these words from Latin to Old French to English. Another related word is meritocracy. 

please, pleasant: Yes. Both words stem from Old French plaisir ‘to please’ and further back to Old Latin. The morphological family also includes pleasure, displease, etc. Students are less likely to realize the connection between please and pleasant because the vowel sound shifts from long to short, but the similar spelling provides a clue, as does the overlapping meaning. 

ruth, ruthless: Yes. I have only recently seen the word ruth, in the book Jane Eyre. The word ruth indicates ‘compassion’ and ruthless indicates the opposite. Both words stem from the same Old English root, but ruth is obsolete, as is ruthful.

spin, spindle: Yes. Spin and spindle stem from the Old English root for ‘to spin’ as does spinster and spider, the original spinner. 

tile, reptile: No. These two words are not related through the root. Reptile is from a Latin root meaning ‘to creep, to crawl’ but tile is from Old English ‘roof, to cover.’ These words do not share a close conceptual relationship, either. 

traction, action: No. These two Latin derivatives do not share a root meaning. In traction, the root is -tract- meaning 'to pull,’ and in action, the root is -act-, as in active, actor, etc.  Other words in the traction family are tractor, attract, contract, detract, subtract, etc. 

yard, yarn: No. Even though both words stem from Old English, they do not share a common root or a common concept. 

Limitations: Some of these word pairs are too advanced for K-8. Having said that, forming networks of related words is a sound strategy for teaching and learning vocabulary. However, associations should not be limited to morphological links. When studying word meanings, it is effective to create conceptual networks of words as well as morphological networks (Ebbers & Denton, 2008). Further, an association can be artificially created to link any word pair, boosting memory. As a literacy coach stated, “Tile and reptile could be related, because a turtle is a reptile, and its shell appears to be made of little tiles." Word-sorting works well as a collaborative effort. A portion of the effect realized may stem from the debate and discussion that ensues as partners sort out word relationships.

"The greatest benefit from instructional time spent on word study can be gained from exploring roots, prefixes, suffixes, and networks of related words" (Marcia Henry, researcher, 1997).

Context: Good News and Bad

By a slight margin, most of the 87 voters thought context explains word meaning about 25% of the time, for 1 in 4 words. That's about right, if we count less explicit clues, leading to a more general understanding of the word (Swanborn & deGlopper, 2002).Context varies, but in general, it does not provide an 'in-house' explicit definition. Case in point: When Tiger Woods apologized for his 'transgressions' all of Googledom scrambled to comprehend the word. The top search term for 12-2-09 included 'transgression meaning' and 'transgression definition.' Gobsmacking, isn't it? Even knowing the context folks had to look up transgression (and they did look it up, because they were sufficiently interested--proving the power of motivation). 

As an aside, one might approach transgressions through morphology: The Latin root -gress- means 'to step.' Thus, transgress is to step across (to cross the line). Regress is to step backwards, while the opposite is progress, literally to step forward. Then there is Congress, a body that might yet learn how to step together (but I digress). Another approach is through classroom conversation, using transgress as a substitute for 'break the rules' when explaining the class norms or discussing an offense. This would situate an archaic but important word in classroom context.

"Context works well if you have a lot of it" (Kevin Feldman, email). The more we know about any subject, the more apt we are to utilize context to leverage our understanding. But in general, how reliably does context explicate word meaning?  Sometimes, context is direct and explicit but more often it is too general or even misleading (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002). According to a landmark study by Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (1985), average and above-average readers in eighth grade could infer unknown word meaning from context clues only 11% of the time, on average (but as mentioned earlier, Swanborn and deGlopper's estimate, allowing for partial knowledge, arrived at about 25% of the time).

Here is more promising news: Fukkink and de Glopper (1998) examined 21 research studies and determined that instruction in context clues yields a medium-sized effect on ability to derive word meanings. Thus, we can be taught to infer word meanings from context, but only when the context itself is sufficiently explicit and our knowledge base sufficiently robust. Want to increase the probability? Teach students to infer meaning from context clues and morpheme clues, integrating the two types of information (more on this later). Build background knowledge and schema, too (Nagy, Anderson, & Herman, 1987).

Provide multiple exposures to the novel word in varied context. As David Pearson said, "Read it! Write it! Talk it! Do it!" Persist. There are several effective and enlightening ways to teach vocabulary, and only one truly feckless approach--assigning a list of decontextualized words to be learned via the dictionary. That's been proven ineffective in several studies (e.g., Bos & Anders, 1990; Bos et al., 1989; McKeown et al., 1985). 

With that, I make my egress.   

Seasonal Word Reasoning (poll)

Readers beware! Here be invented words on several topics, created for budding vocabulogicians. Verbiventing is a great way to develop word logic in children and adolescents. Invent words. Interpret other's inventions. Grow in word sense.

1) Naming the season: Whether we call it harvest, autumn, or fall, it's the most brightific season of all! Could the term fall simply refer to falling leaves? Yes. Fall was originally “fall of the leaf.” For example, in 1545 Ascham wrote “Spring tyme, Somer, faule of the leafe, and winter” (OED online). A century later, the truncated form 'fall' was used. Today, the term ‘fall’ for autumn is commonly used in America but rarely in Great Britain. 

 

2) Food! Wishing you pantries plenished and replenished with abundant nourishments! Sadly, PBS reports that 1 in 7 American households have insufficient eatings. At present, words like starvation and famished are not frequently used to describe Americans, but poverty exists. Related books: The Glass Castle (Walls), Angela’s Ashes (McCourt).

Speaking of food, this traditional Thanksgiving picture is a cornucopia, literally meaning ‘horn of plenty’ because corn means ‘horn’ as seen in unicorn (one horn), cornet (the instrument, a horn), and in the Zodiak sign Capricorn (look it up at Etymology Online). Less obviously, we see corn=horn in tricorn and corner. Is a corner like a horn?  Does the other part of cornucopia (-copia) bring any abundance-related words to mind? 

3) Native Americans: November is National American Heritage Month (resources). Related to that, note the brilliant design of the secret code, created and used with tremendous success by the Navajo Code Talkers during WWII. Browse the extensive, student-friendly museum of the Navajo Code Talkers. Help students crack a few codewords; it's logical and answers are provided. Check out the marvelous illustrations in the children's book, The Unbreakable Code.

4) Opining on homework: It's nearly Thanksgiving! Time to vacate the schools! Time for family and/or friends, feasting, festing, football, and refeasting (possibly followed by fasting). Let’s hope all students can enjoy vacation sans schoolwork. My opinion? Hyperhomeworking is counterproductive. Entire families, including parent(s), have become homeworkaphobic and/or ultracompetitive. A new film documents the problem; see trailer.   

poll by twiigs.com

Thanks, visitors! I count you as fellow philologists. Here's hoping few readers unfriend me! The New Oxford American Dictionary has named unfriend the word of the year for 2009 (ABCnews) but it’s not totally new. Fuller wrote in 1659, “I hope, Sir, that we are not mutually Unfriended by this Difference which hath happened betwixt us” (OED online). 

PS. I planned to write about context, but seasonal spirits fell upon me!

Cross-Linguistic Transfer (poll)

In his post two weeks ago, P. David Pearson spoke of working actively with words in multiple contexts, with the habitat slide from Seeds and Roots.  David suggested adding a morphological setting. A morphological connection to habitat would include inhabit and inhabitants, the Spanish word hábitat, and perhaps habitual and habit. This relates to my earlier blog on making connections within and across words.

   (click image to enlarge)
We can also make connections across languages, using pantry as an example. The votes are in and most people (64%) selected bread as the original core meaning, not cooking pans. Yes, true, but a pan-try could contain a cooking pan, so that's also a cool way to remember it. This thought process is much like the mnemonic keyword method for learning new words (Pressley, Levin, & Delaney, 1982). Note, a pantry is not typically found in small homes, so familiarity may be somewhat dependent on SES.

Let's look across languages. About 60% of English is based in Latin, even though English is a Germanic language. The word bread is Germanic in origin, spelled brot in Germany today. Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian are Romance languages, based in Latin, the lingo used by the Romans (hence Romance). It's a small world, rich with word relationships. In Spanish, pan means 'bread'. French is pain. Likewise, the Italian word is pane and a sandwich is a panini. You won't be surprised to learn that pantry flows from Latin panis, meaning 'bread.' Check it out for yourself at Etymonline, given in the useful links for morphology and etymology, in the page footer. The Sp. word for bread box is panera, but the Sp. word for pantry is quite different---despensa. That opens the door to a discussion of the academic word dispense, yes?

When words share a common root, having a similar meaning and spelling across languages, they are called cognates. When we infer word meaning by thinking of a similar word we know in a different language, cross-linguistic transfer is at work. Cognates and near-cognates must be made explicit until students adopt this type of thinking. These lookalikes are easier to see in print than to hear in passing speech. 

Resources on this topic are available at the Center for Applied Linguistics. Additional applicable hyperlinks are listed at the bottom of this website.