Author: Michael Ng

The word duty to rescue means  “a concept of tort law and refers to the duty of a person to rescue another who is in a dangerous situation”. This word means that a person should step up and help others if they are able to help. The word duty to rescue was used in our presentation for “Sweats” by Zora Neale Hurston to prove Delia guilty from not helping Sykes when he was yelling for help. The word duty to rescue is a law according to USLEGAL. With the definition of the word, we were able to present the class how morality played a role in the scene, proving that she was guilty and she had the power to help but she did not

According to the Merriam Webster the meaning of the word threaded is “a filament, a group of filaments twisted together, or a filamentous length formed by spinning and twisting short textile fibers into a continuous strand” and it is a verb. It can be found on A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell. “she threaded a needle and started to replace bad sewing with good. For a little while she sewed in silence.” The word threaded is used to replace the bad sewing with good. This means that she was trying to hide the bad sewing spot that was left in order to get rid of the evidence of her murder. This word helped me understand her intentions to help Ms. Wrights out.

According to the Merriam Webster the word retorted is to pay or hurl back .Retorted is a verb.On the short story “Sweats” by Zora Neale Hurtston it starts with “A god, an’ be dough. You all gimme twenty cents and a slice way, Clarke retorted. Ah needs a col’ slice m’self. Heah, everybody chip in. Ah’ll lend y’ll mah meat knife.” In this sentence Joe ask everybody to chip in to pay for the cold slice he bought. I thought retorted meaning to be shocked. The word retorted is used pay back for what he got. The meaning of the word retorted helped me understand what the sentence was trying to mean.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word Quilt is a noun and it is “a bed coverlet of two layers of cloth filled with padding (such as down or batting) held in place by ties or stitched designs.” In the story, “A Jury Of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell it says on page157 (paragraph 11) “They were so engaged with the quilt that they did not hear the footsteps on the stairs. The word quilt is used as a two layer of cloth to show how thick the bed coverlet is. They did not hear the footstep because of the double layer cloth. This word helped me understand what the author was trying to tell us.

According to the Merriam-Webster, the word stammered means “to make involuntary stops and repetitions in speaking(verb)”. “Allowing Teenage Boys to Love Their Friends”, ” His voice quavering, the young man stammered something unexpected from a frat brother, about how women can be as insensitive and hurtful as guys.” The word stammered is used to show how the male keeps stuttering when he tries to show his situation. Later on the male says how he got this which means that he is not trying to show his emotions. He is trying to put on a mask to show how tough he is.

According to the Merriam-Webster the word mutate is a verb and it means a significant change. It can be found on paragraph 2 on “Teaching Men to Be Emotionally Honest” by Andrew Reiner. “The home video was right on point, illustrating the takeaway for the course: how boys are taught, sometimes with the best intention, to mutate their emotional suffering into anger”. In the video shown during the vaccination the dad tries to drastically change the boy’s emotion by cheering him by saying he is a man. The word is used to show how the boy changed his emotion quickly.

According to the Merriam-Webster Chauvinism(noun) means attitude toward the opposite sex. It can be found on the last paragraph on “The Boys at the Back” by Christina Hoff Sommers. “I became a feminist in the 1970s because I did not appreciate male chauvinism”. The word chauvinism is used to show how there was an attitude toward the other sex rather than fairness playing a role in it. I understood what the author tried to imply after knowing the meaning of the word.

The definition of the word Mold means in the Merriam Webster “distinctive nature or character. The word is a noun. The word Mold can be found in “What Our Son Are Learning From Donald Trump” by Claire Cain Miller on paragraph 1 when Miller states, “That constrain boys, and particularly harms those who don’t fit the mold-as much as it does girls who want to be active and competitive too.” The author uses the word mold to show how boys are not able to fit a group easily like others. Knowing the word helped me understand what the author was saying because I thought he meant mold as in fungus.

According to the Merriam Webster the meaning of disparity is to “markedly distinct in quality or character” . It is an adjective. It can be found on paragraph 13 on the first page. In “A Mater’s Degree in… Masculinity”, by Jessica Bennett she says “he pointed to the Good Man list on the left side of the board, then to the Real Man list he’d added to the right. Look at the disparity. I think American men are confused about what it means to be a real man”. The word disparity is used to show the different elements that is used to show how man are unsure of what it means to be a man. Knowing the word helped me understand more in depth about the reading.