Month: September 2018

According to “Merriam-Webster”, the meaning of embellish is ” To heighten the attractiveness of by adding decorative or fanciful details”. In the reading, “Brave We Are” by Tahira Naqvi I found the word embellish that was used by the mother of Kasim. She used this word when she was talking about the food that she can cook before she got married. After her marriage she started embellishing the food for her husband and “innovate” them.

Disparate: markedly distinct in quality or character. (adjective)

The definition of disparate was found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I first stumbled onto this word on September 6, 2018, while reading “Brave We Are” by Tahira Naqvi. The word disparate can be found on page 362 and the sentence says, “Why does snow in February always remind me of February in Lahore? Incongruent, disparate, the seasons have so little in common.” When first encountering the word I thought it said desperate until I read the sentence over and then realized that made no sense. Now I know a more sophisticated word for different and that word is disparate. Learning this new word will now help me further improve my vocabulary in my writing.

While reading the story “The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misery” by Margaret Sanger I stumbled upon the word fetid. I stared at the word for a while and did not know what it meant. The excerpt read ” There were the approximately ten thousand apartments in New York into which no sun ray penetrated directly; such windows as they had opened only narrow court from which rose fetid odor.” According to Merriam- Webster dictionary the word fetid is an adjective which means “having a heavy offensive smell”. In the story the she used that word to describe the harsh living situations in early 1900s New York. Conditions such as large families being forced to live together in small one bed room apartments, which was a direct cause of a horrible smell that was so strong it will leave the apartments through the small opening in the windows.

The word pensive is defined as suggestive of sad thoughtfulness or musingly dreaming thoughtful according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. The word pensive is an adjective used in the story, “The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misery” by Margaret Sanger. On September 5th, 2018, I stumbled upon this word during a reading discussion we had. It was stated on page 107, “One by one worried, sad, pensive, and aging faces marshaled themselves before me in my dreams, sometimes appealingly, sometimes accusingly”. When I first came across the word, I was not sure what the word was saying. I used context clues and assumed it had something to do with dreaming, but, I had thought pensive meant in terms of speaking because the narrator was describing her thoughts being in her dreams as if they were speaking to her. After actually looking up the definition to the word I realized it did deal with dreams but, the dreams were sad and they were only thoughts, not actually people or things speaking. I understand the word more clearer now as it is a synonym of being sad as mentioned in the text. The narrator is basically describing her dreams in more ways than just sad by using the word pensive. She uses other words such as worried and aging to depict how she is feeling.

sul·try (adjective)

The definition of sultry according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary is hot and humid or burning hot. I came across this word in the story “The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misery” by Margaret Sanger on page 107, top right paragraph when it says, “The sultry days and nights were melted into a torpid inferno.” Now knowing the definition of the word it helps me better understand that she was saying the days and nights were as hot and humid as hell, or in this case inferno. As well as the days and night were so hot that they melted and turned into hell.

In the Merriam-Webster, the word stratum is a plural and it means the level of a persons’ status especially with regard to education or culture . I saw this on page 2 and it quotes ‘”Below this stratum of society was one in truly desperate circumstances.” then it goes on saying that the men there was uneducated and that lead them to unemployment or jobs that isn’t similar to society that the author was living in. Basically the society that the author currently is spectating is unusual to her because everybody there is doing things that aren’t what she is used to seeing as everyday society to her.

Puberty(noun)

According to the dictionary “Mercian Webster”, the word puberty defines as” the age at which puberty occurs often constructed legally as 14 in boys and 12 in girls “.

On September ,6 ,2018, we study the text” the turbid ebb and flow of misery “ by Margaret Sanger, based on the quote” little girl were accustomed to dressing and undressing front of the men, and were often violated , occasionally by their own father and brother, before they reached the age of puberty.”

In this quote the word puberty help me to understand that their men are forcing to the girl age less than 12 to take out their dressing or dressing On front of them, and this mostly done by their father and brother.

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the word fetid is identified as a adjective. It means “having a heavy offensive smell”. On page 106 of “The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misery”, it states,”There were then approximately ten thousand apartments in New York into which no sun ray penetrated directly; such windows as they had opened only on a narrow court from which rose fetid odors.” The word fetid was used to describe the living conditions they were in and how the garbage was never cleaned which led to bad odors.

Chronic: long lasting, occuring again and again for a long time (adjective)

This is the meaning of the word chronic according to Merriam Webster dictionary. I saw this word when I was reading “The Turbid Ebb and Flow” on September 5th, 2018. The sentence was on page 88 on the pdf I was reading. The sentence said “Pregnancy was a chronic condition among the women of this class” I understood what this word meant based on what was said in the prior paragraph “Little girls were accustomed to dressing and undressing in front of men, and were often violated before reaching the age of puberty” This is showing that they became pregnant and couldn’t control their circumstances and why pregnancy kept on happening. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjSwtjMs6_dAhXQ31QKHfMsCOgQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.combat-aging.com%2Fchronic-disease.html&psig=AOvVaw2ZGafpCWaPdF32zevHfx1z&ust=1536633334783875

As we went over The Turbid Edd and Flow of Misery by Margaret Sanger,  an interesting world come across me and that was the word “surreptitious”. The world is seen when Sanger describes one of the situations she was in, “the utmost depression came over [her] as [she] approached this surreptitious region” and if we look closely we find that she is describing a part that could be unfamiliar to her (Sanger 2). Truly the world “surreptitious” means acting or doing something clandestinely, according to Merriam Webster dictionary. what the word means to me or how i comprehend it as is “stealthy” or “secret” in other words. With that finally cleared up i could understand that Margaret is telling us how secret this side of of society is to the rest of the world which make sInce during that time period.