Entry 1

prearranged – verb

According to dictionary.com the word prearranged mean to arranged in advance. The Character David Sedaris use the word prearranged in paragraph 7, which tell us that the agent and the teacher have make a decision to help David with his problems.

Pleaded

Base on the Merriam-Webster dictionary the word Pleaded (Verb) means to ask for in a serious and emotional way: BEG. While discussing in class about “The Turbid Ebb and flow of misery” on September 6, this word called my attention. We can find this word on page #108, which it states, “I folded her still hands across her breast, remembering how they had pleaded with me, begging so humbly for the knowledge which was her right.” This sentence shows how guilty she felt for not being able to help her and how desperate these women were in those days of not knowing what to do to help themselves.  

Lounging

According to Merriam-webster.com the word “lounging” means to act lazily. The word lounging is a verb and can be found in paragraph paragraph 7 of “The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misertly” by Margaret Sanger. It states, ” The men were sullen and unskilled, picking up odd jobs now and then, but more often unemployed, lounging in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night”. This proof how poor and unstable the community was,they were desperate to find any jobs that were available. Those who were often unemployed were idle most of the time.

Vehement – adjective

  1. According to Merriam-Webster the word vehement means intensely emotional. This word is from the first paragraph of “the turbid ebb and flow of misery” by Margaret Sanger. In the text it stated that “Sentiment was especially vehement in the matter of having babies.” it clearly stated that in that era having a baby can bring extreme feeling to the family because of the lack of knowledge on preventing pregnancy.

Decoupage

According to Dictionary.com, the word decoupage means “the art or technique of decorating something with cut-outs of paper, linoleum, plastic, or other flatmaterial over which varnish or lacquer is applied.” I came across this word in the story “Go Carolina” when David was explaining where his projects were stored in his therapy room. For example, “… and our decoupage projects were concealed beneath the sporting equipment we never asked for but always recieved”. I knew decoupage was describing the project in some way but I wasnt sure what it exactly meant until I looked it up.

Stir

/stər/ verb

Malcolm X, “Coming to an Awareness of Language”

According to dictionary.com, the word stir means to move one’s hand or an implement continuously or repeatedly through (a liquid or other substance) in order to cool, mix, agitate, dissolve, etc., any or all of the component parts.  But in the story, when I read the sentence with the word “stir” it did not match the definition.  Then I notice that the text has a vocabulary section and its definition says that stir is a slang for prison.  In addition, it does not mean to stir a coffee, its just a slang prisoner use among themselves. As I read the sentence again I understood better.

Hustling (verb)

The word hustling was the first word that I found in the reading “Coming to an Awareness of Language Malcolm X” on the first paragraph that I realized that I don’t know the meaning of it. But later I found the definition of hustling on the same page before that paragraph. There were a lot of vocabulary words and it states that “If any of the following words from the selection are unfamiliar to you, study their meaning before reading “. The definition of hustling is “slang for making money by doing something illegal “. After knowing the definition of hustling I started understating the reading “Coming to an Awareness of Language Malcolm X” that Malcolm X went to jail for doing something illegal.

Inevitable

in·ev·i·ta·ble (adjective)

In the text, “Coming to an Awareness of Language Malcom X”, I came across the word inevitable. What this word means is something that is certain to happen or something that is unavoidable, as stated in oxford dictionaries. I encountered this word on paragraph 17 of the text on the day of August 30. It states, “I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying.” Now knowing the definition of this word, i can now understand that was Malcom was saying is that he couldn’t avoid knowing that now he could understand everything he was reading in prison. As well as all this new vocabulary and words he has learned was meant to happen the whole time he was locked up in there.

Karen Cruz

Frustrated

Frustrated (Adjective)

According to the Dictionary “Merriam-Webster”, the word Frustrated defines as “feeling discouragement, anger”.

On August,30,2018, We study the text”Coming to an awareness of language” by Malcon X, base on the quote”I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what I wanted to convey in letters that I wrote, especially those to Mr.Elijah Muhammad”.

In this quote, the word frustrated help me to understand that he feels disappointed in something that he missing to wrote in the letter special to Elijah Muhammad.

peddler

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the word peddler is identified as a noun. It’s defined as a  “person who offers merchandise for sale along the streets or from door to door”. In the first paragraph of Malcolm X,”Coming to an awareness of language” it states, “I guess that’s why, unable to do anything else, I soon began writing to people I had known the hustling world, such as Sammy the Pimp, John Hughes, the gambling house owner, the thief Jumpsteady, and several dope peddlers.” Malcolm was trying to explain the people he knew in the hustling world which were mostly street thugs.