A City Tech OpenLab Course Site

Unit 1 Portrait of a Word Outline

22 Comments

  1. Vincent Huang

    My word is Jiaozi 饺子, otherwise known as dumplings in english. Dumplings played a key role in my life growing up eating it during special occasions such as Chinese New Years. This word word is important to my community because it has different meanings but primarily meaning prosperity.

    • Shake

      I never knew the true meaning behind the word, it honestly was just a food to me and something id have here and there. Having it meaning prosperity in the Chinese culture is actually interesting.

  2. chandlerwu

    My word is devil fruit and how it very usage of it power was to save the world. devil fruit play a huge role in the world of one piece like how various characters use the devil fruit ability in various ways. the the people of today are talking about what is the strongest devil fruit. Is it the rubber or the dragon or quake or darkness or lava ability. in the one piece community we talk about how haki improve the devil fruit in various ways.

    • Naomi Quizhpi

      I never watched the anime “One piece” but I have herd about the word devil fruit being thrown around here and there so I think it would be exciting discussing the deeper meaning of that one word and how it can truly impact the whole world of the anime.

  3. Hussain Alsaeedi

    My word from my culture is Shrugi شروكي which is highly used in the country my both parents came from, Iraq. People from the southeastern provinces in Iraq used to go to Baghdad during the 1960’s so upper class people from Baghdad used to look down at them. East, Sharq شرق in Arabic is used to describe east and this is were did these people used to come from. They were relatively dark skinned with special accent which made many people make fun of them. This word has its roots in the Iraqi society.

    • Naomi Quizhpi

      As someone who doesn’t know the language or the meaning behind this particular word, I think it would be a great idea to go into depth of how this worded was created and the story behind it as well

  4. Naomi Quizhpi

    One word in the art community that I think is important is AI artwork. For the around a year now AI art has been used in the art community, with AI art being described as a format to create art with descriptions used in order to make these artwork, but the catch with this technology is that they are using stolen artwork from real artists with them not given any kind of permission to take these artworks to be used for these AI drawings. Now and days there are debates in the art community about the use of AI art and if it’s harmful or useful and if there can be some sort of gray area for the use of AI art.

  5. Amina Umaralieva

    My word is “чурка”, which technically means block of wood in russian, but also has offensive and racist meaning towards the immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia. It’s been used as a disrespectful slang to describe the representatives of those communities as uneducated people, and those who use this word openly promote discrimination against certain ethnic groups. 

  6. D'Andre Samuel

    My word/phrase from the fighting game community is “popping off”, which doesn’t directly have a meaning but it’s the celebration after doing something difficult. Whether it’s winning a tournament or just executing a really hard combo, “Popping off” represents all the intense emotions bursting from someone, like a cork popping off a champagne bottle and I want to be able to capture that emotion in my work

    • Shake

      I would hear this saying all the time and just not in the game community but also in real life situations. I remember a time being at a high school basketball game, and one of the students saying how one of the players were popping off. I understood that similarly to the game community, it meant how crazy someone or something was.

  7. Melissa Creese

    My word is police.This word is used a lot in the Bed-Stuy community. Back then, Bed-Stuy was an area with a lot of crime, but the police were barely there.Now, they’re here and innocent black people are being arrested by police. It seems that because you see a black person you feel threatened even if they walked past you which is ridiculous. Now, when you walk down the block, you see police cars driving around the corner two or three times. Then, every block on Fulton street are plenty of police around the corner.

  8. Brakoum

     The word I want to talk about is “to”. To is one of one our cultural food from Africa precisely in Mali. This is a food that many people don’t like in my country but that is very affordable for the poor community. It’s like fufu but a little different because of the sauces. It has two different sauces that you must mix with it in order to eat it.  Some people mix it with milk which  is good too (You can eat it salty or sweet. I personally love it, but we don’t do it a lot in my family because most of them don’t like it. Many people don’t know how to make it because it’s a little complicated. I discovered this recipe from my mom and grandma.  

  9. EmanuelH

    In my friend group, the word cooked is more than just talk it’s like our inside joke that keeps us all connected and laughing it all started from watching funny videos by a tik tok person named tbvnks we picked up the word from there and now we say it all the time it’s our special way of showing we’re part of the group especially when we cheer each other up after a tough day or share laughs during our get togethers cooked isn’t just a word it’s like our secret code that reminds us of the good times and brings us all closer together it’s become a part of the tik tok community reflecting how online platforms influence our language and create shared experiences within specific groups

    • Anthony Eid

      Really nice job here. The only thing I would possibly suggest is can others who hear you use the term outside of your friend group understand the exact meaning of the word as you all do. This could add another layer, but is not needed. Just wanted to add a suggestion in case you run out of ideas to write about.

  10. SHAHRIYOR

    The word that I want to talk about is deception and how things are kind of based on deception. The word deception means something like lying or tricking others on purpose.  I kind of like this word because, when I read the book Art of War. In the book, the writer says that all warfare is based on deception. The book is really interesting because it teaches about how the war works and gives strategies in order to win the war. The reason why I would like to talk about this word is that in our present day countries don’t use their power to win the war instead, they trick or lie to get what they want. For example, one type of deception that countries use is propaganda. Now, what is propaganda? Propaganda is a trick to make people believe one side of the story. So countries use propaganda to control their people and that kind of affects people. The reason is that people don’t know what the other side of the story is about.

    • Anthony Eid

      This currently is focused around the word, but you are missing one aspect of the assignment. Remember, half of the battle is defining and expressing to your audience the word, but the other half is relating it to a community you are a part of and how the community is defined by that word and community brings meaning to the word as well. You speak very generally about countries here, so possibly focus upon a country you are linked to.

  11. Christopher Dominguez

    My word is gringo”(a term in Spanish for a foreigner, usually an English speaker) most South American use this word to refer to foreigners. The word could be used as a racial slur or to tease.

  12. JaidenL56

    My word is “Active”. This word tends to be used a lot in my community (Queens) because during the summertime, there’s always a lot of events going on such as block parties, backyard parties and everyone just hanging out and having fun.

  13. Noelia

    My word is police . Police protect the 5 boroughs providing them with security,change and help that any person maybe enduring .My area (bay ridge ) has so much protection there’s cops down my block every couple of days .Police are also known as “rats” and usually you’ll hear someone say “nypd K “

    “f**** 12 ” .

    • SHAHRIYOR

      I agree with what she is saying. The reason is that NY is pretty safe place with police. Especially in bay ridge they have a really good and peaceful neighborhoods

  14. Sheikh

    My word is platform. Which I’m relating to the music industry. Growing up, a lot of popular artist in the music career promote/share their music with a platform. As time goes we on we witness how advanced technology is becoming, giving these artist more and more room to become bigger. In todays current time, platforms such as Tik Tok, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube and many more are displaying and allowing us to get in tune with our favorites rappers, musicians, singers, etc…

  15. Isaaclou

    My word is editing. It is a word that can mean many things but to me and my friends, its something that defines what we try to get better at. Editing is something most of us do and thoroughly enjoy. It allows us to express ourselves in more ways than one and also allows us to be creative. For a lot of people like myself I find it hard to be creative when I don’t know how to draw and create art. So editing with video creation is the closest step for me.

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