Category: Entry 1

Based on the “Merriam-Webster” dictionary the world Broadened that is a verb means to make or become wider or general. On August 30 while I was reading “Coming To An Awareness Of Language Malcolm X” in class it was the first time I heard and saw this word. This word can be found on paragraph 17, which it states  “I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the fist time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying.” After understanding the meaning of the word broadened I can say that the meaning of this sentence is that now he has more knowledge to understand what he was reading, and now his able to read things that he was not capable of reading.

Incendiary (adjective): tending to stir up conflict.

Source: Oxford Dictionaries (online)

During our class discussion last Thursday, August 30, Professor Garcia commented, ” He was talking about some pretty incendiary stuff…” She was referring to when Malcolm X was writing letters to others and they wouldn’t reply to something “saying something as wild as “the white man is the devil””. In this case, what he wrote in his letters imply how it was a bit outrageous to be receiving something that contains this information, let alone writing these things to people with a lot of power. Overall, this word can be understood as a cause of or causing trouble.

 

Diana Galvez

Emulate (Verb): To equal or approach equality with.

According to merriam-webster dictionary, emulate means to equal or to approach equality with. During class when we were reading “Coming To An Awareness of Language Malcolm X” the word appears in the tenth paragraph as stated, “It had really began back in the Charleston Prison, When Bimbi first made me feel envy of his knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversation he was in, and I had tried to emulate him”. At first glance, I thought the word meant to copy. In this case, he was trying to copy Bimbi’s actions. Now knowing what this word means, I’m able to understand the context of the text in more detail. What he was saying is that he tried to be more like Bimbi in the sense of being a leader and advocating for himself.

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of “articulate” means to express oneself readily, clearly and effectively, also to be expressed in such a manner. The word “articulate” is categorized as a part of speech being an adjective. On August 30th, 2018, the word articulate was present in the reading we discussed in class entitled, “Coming To An Awareness Of Language Malcolm X”. Originally, when the reading was being read in class and I stumbled upon the word, I was not well adversed with the meaning. In paragraph 8 it stated the word used into a sentence, “In the street, I had been the most articulate hustler out there I had commanded attention when I said something”. When I stumbled upon this word, at first I thought it meant that Malcolm X appeared to act demanding and affirmative showings signs of no fear and respect to those he dealt with. I thought the same applied to the word articulate within the sentence. Since he was a hustler, it involved being harsh despite circumstances. My context clues made me assume this was the definition for the word. After actually searching up the word, I realized the word articulate was not necessarily a harsh tone, it is meant to be conveyed clearly and effectively in the manner that deems fit. I understood the necessity for this word to comprehend the passage because this word explains a brief backstory of who Malcolm X was. Synonyms such as “fluent” or “eloquent” helped me to better understand the context of the word read. It made me understand Malcolm’s X frustration from his letter writing versus his street slang terms, one was more harder to articulate than the other. The letters were not as easy to express for him rather than his street terms to hustlers.

 

Painstaking- showing diligent care and effort (adjective)

The day we were reading “Coming to an awareness of language Malcolm X”, I read the word painstaking and was not sure what the meaning of it was. I have never heard the word painstaking, I thought painstaking meant to endure the pain. After a few research on the Merriam-Webster engine, I was able to learn the meaning of it and be able to understand what Malcolm X was trying to say. I was able to find synonyms such as “careful”  or “meticulous” that were more used in sentences than painstaking, it gave me a better understanding of the word. Painstaking can be found on paragraph 13, it states ” In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my table everything printed on that first page..” After reading this paragraph, knowing the meaning I was to tell the hardworking efforts Malcolm X did to improve his ability to read and write.

During class on August 30th, right away when the class and I started reading “Coming to an Awareness of Language Malcolm X” together, the first word that I was not familiar with was the word ‘Inaction’. It was used in the very first sentence of the piece and quote “I’ve never been one for inaction.”. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word ‘Inaction’ means lack of action or activity. At first, when I encountered the word I thought it meant the opposite of what it was supposed to mean, which was being active. Now that I understand the word, the context that followed up with the first sentence now makes a lot of sense. For example, the next sentence that comes up is “Everything I’ve felt strongly about, I’ve done something about.” Which does not contradict what Malcolm stated in the first sentence, because if he was actually an inaction person then he wouldn’t have done anything about whatever he felt strongly about. Also when I was looking up the word, the word “Idleness” came up as a synonym in which it gave me a better understanding of what the word ‘Inaction’ means.

 

Link of a picture that represents the word inaction – https://gyazo.com/4d09c8da89124a17f723659a17661f79

Emulate: to strive to equal or excel (verb)

The definition of emulate was cited in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The first time I heard this word was in my English class on Thursday, August 30th, 2018 when we were reading “Coming to an awareness of language Malcolm X”. The word can be found in paragraph 10, which says, “It had really begun back in Charlestown Prison when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversation he was in, and I had tried to emulate him.” When first encountering the word I thought it meant imitate because when reading the sentence before it sounds like Malcolm X is trying to copy Bimbi. Although now I understand this section of this passage even clearer because I see how the word emulate can also mean imitate but after rereading the whole passage again I can see that Malcolm X just wanted to excel in conversations like Bimbi.

Aardvark: A nocturnal mammal that lives in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has a long snout,claws, and large ears. (noun)

This definition of an Aardvark was found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the first time I encountered this word was August 30th during class, when reading Coming to An Awareness of Language Malcolm X, coming across paragraph 15, I realized that I’ve never seen the word aardvark a day in my life. Before continuing to read the sentence, the word aardvark made me think that it was a persons name due to it unique spelling.However the definition was right in front of me, Malcolm X described words that he came upon while reading the dictionary. Malcolm X described aardvark as a ” long-tailed, long-eared burrowing African mammal”. After reading that line, I now understood what Aardvark meant, I was able to visualize how this mammal actually looked like. I then compared the image I thought of to what I searched up on google, and I was close. If ever coming across this word again, I am glad to know what it means.

Inevitable: unable to be avoided, bound to happen (noun, adjective)

This is the meaning of the word “Ineviteble” according to merriam webster’s dictionary. I heard of this word on Thursday, August 30th, 2018 in my English class in the Malcom X story they were reading there. It was used in the 17th paragraph as “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.” I understand what this word means based on the context of how it was used in the story. In the paragraph prior to this sentence with inevitable, the sentences before said “It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick up handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million words” After reading those sentences, it was bound to happen that his vocabulary would expand. Inevitable being used like that made me understand the meaning of the word.  https://www.azquotes.com/quote/755859

For this week I choose a particular world that is unusual  to be used to describe someone, the world “penmanship” form the reading Coming to an awareness of language by Malcolm X grab my attention and help me understand the text. In the reading Malcolm X mention that “[he] saw that the best thing [he] could do was get hold of a dictionary to study, to learn some words [and he] was lucky enough to reason also that [he] should try to improve [his] penmanship” (paragraph 11). Now the world “penmanship” means “the art of writing with the pen” according to Merriam Webster dictionary, with this source of information I fully understand the text, as simple as it sounds “penmanship” is just means handwriting which did confuse me at first since I never heard of it before. I now understand that Malcolm X wanted to improve he’s handwriting and I could say my penmanship needs some improvement as well.