ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by visual language systems. [sign on a board - Here's Your Question]

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We're looking at you, emojis.

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All right, check out the following passage. [teacher writing on a white board with a marker]

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All right.

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"Devising" in this passage most nearly means what?

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All right, here are your potential answers. [man talking in the background]

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[ mumbles ]

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All right. [singing ] A, B, C, D.

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[ normal voice ] Or flot, crinkle, goat [ goat noise ]. [man saying A,B,C,D in a musical tone]

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See? Anyone can make up their own alphabet like we just did there,

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which is apparently what one Cherokee tribe member did.

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Although, hopefully, his was a bit more useful than ours. [man writing with a pen on a piece of paper]

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He borrowed a bunch of letters

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and then added some more of his own devising.

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So, uh, what can we infer "devising" means?

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Well, he already had adapted the Roman letters, [image of a question with four multiple choice answer]

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and the passage implies these new letters

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are different or not adapted.

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Well, we can't just reuse everything. [a boy shaking a box of Toasted Whole Wheat Flakes]

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The phrase "of his own devising" is similar to the more familiar word "devise,"

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which implies an act of creation.

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Plagiarism is not an act of creation,

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no matter how creative the excuse. [woman frowning and a man looking surprised]

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And there's no implication of dishonesty in the passage.

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It's just about a guy making up an alphabet.

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So what answer communicates an act of creation? [a Cherokee tribal man trying to hide behind a sheet of paper]

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That he was making new letters that were different

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from the Roman letters? Yeah, that's right. B.

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In the passage, "devising" most

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nearly means invention or design. [someone holding a light bulb]

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Now for our next visual system of communication, we'll discuss bathroom graffiti.

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Because John really is a [a man looking at himself in the bathroom mirror]

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dollar sign triangle squiggle.

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[ toilet flush ]

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