ShmoopTube

00:07

Figuring Out What a Word Means, a la Shmoop. Ever stumble upon a word that looks like somebody’s

00:14

cat walked across the keyboard?

00:15

“That can’t possibly be a real word,” you say to yourself.

00:19

You’ve been reading since you were three, and this nasty little conglomeration of letters

00:24

has never reared its ugly head before now. Or maybe you’ve seen it before but always

00:33

ignored it…

00:35

…hoping it would just go away, like a scab that you resist picking for a week.

00:43

Well, we’ve got news for you. Every word… no matter how obscure or funny-looking…

00:50

is there for a reason.

00:54

The writer took pains to find exactly the right way to express her thoughts…

00:59

…and by skipping it, you may be missing out on an entire layer of meaning.

01:05

Trust us, if it’s cold outside, you don’t want to be depriving yourself of any layers.

01:11

So… here are five quick tips for figuring out what a word means.

01:16

We swear it won’t be painful, so no need to be a quakebuttock.

01:22

Tip Number One – Context Counts When you encounter a word that makes you feel

01:27

like you’re reading something in Arabic…

01:28

…there’s a good chance you can make an educated guess about the word’s meaning

01:33

based on its context.

01:36

The context is basically everything that surrounds the word... the sentence and paragraph that

01:41

contain it.

01:43

You may not know what a “fabulist” is, but if the person being described that way

01:47

is known for telling tall tales, you might be able to get the general sense of the word.

01:58

Tip Number Two – Part of Your Word Here’s another new word for you… morphology.

02:04

No, not the study of Transformers.

02:08

Morphology involves using the parts of a word to decipher its meaning.

02:12

For starters, the ending morpheme of a word can help you identify its part of speech.

02:18

Like… “saporous” might be a stranger to you, but because it ends in O-U-S, you

02:24

can bet your bottom dollar that it’s an adjective.

02:27

Let’s say you know the word “glamorous.” It probably doesn’t mean the same thing

02:32

as “saporous,” but it almost certainly plays the same role in a sentence.

02:37

Tip Number Three - The Power of Position. If someone is standing, she’s probably not

02:44

sleeping.

02:45

If she’s standing on her head, she’s probably doing yoga.

02:49

Or taking extreme measures to get rid of her hiccups.

02:54

As you can see, positions are pretty helpful when trying to figure out what’s happening

02:58

in a given situation. We can generally tell what part of speech

03:02

a word is based on its position in the sentence.

03:05

For example, in English, subjects… and therefore nouns… usually come at the beginning of

03:11

a sentence. Tip Number Four – Articulating Articles

03:17

When we say “article,” we’re not referring to the latest exposé on corruption in Chicago

03:21

politics.

03:22

Nope… we’re talking about little words like “a” and “the”… those little

03:26

suckers that only appear before nouns or nouns being modified by adjectives.

03:31

You can’t say “a sing” or “a write.” Well, you can, but not without getting funny

03:36

looks.

03:37

By spotting an article before an unknown word, you can be sure that the word in question

03:42

is a noun. Tip Number 5 – Brain to the Rescue

03:47

You don’t give your brain enough credit.

03:50

Which isn’t wise, because if your brain is feeling unappreciated, it might make you

03:53

do something stupid or crazy, and embarrass you in front of a whole lot of people.

03:58

It has that power. Your brain has seen a lot of words in its

04:04

lifetime.

04:05

Sometimes, just be seeing a word, your brain might have some inkling as to what it means.

04:10

It’s been around the block. So if your brain is telling you something, don’t disregard

04:15

it.

04:15

If you do, don’t blame us the next time it makes you walk smack into a glass door.

04:24

Quick Tip Review, and then we’ll send you on your merry way…

04:32

That’s it! You made some good tips today. And you didn’t have to wait on a single

05:12

table.

Full Transcript