Category: Entry 10

Bear: take, handle or accept(verb)

I saw this word being used in the story “A Jury of her peers” by Susan Glaspell in the sentence “The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbor to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for a lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear.” She couldn’t handle or accept the fact that she didn’t help Minnie Foster even though she was her neighbor and could have helped. She felt guilty about this and the realization of that made it too much for her to handle. This is how I have come to understand the meaning of the word bear.

The word commence is defined as to have or make a beginning or to enter upon according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. In the story by Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat”, I encountered this word while reading. On Thursday November 8th, I found this word on page 272. It stated that, “She saw that Sykes had kicked all of the clothes together again, and now stood in her way truculently, his whole manner hoping, praying, for an argument. But she walked calmly around him and commenced to re-sort the things”. In this context the word was used as a past tense version to the original word “commence”. When I encountered this word I was unsure of its meaning, I thought the word relating to cleaning and tidying up because in this part of the text it talks about her argument with Sykes and how she went back to resorting things. Since she was a washwoman I assumed the word had to deal with cleaning, organizing, and more. I see the word clearer after looking up the definition because she is beginning to re-sort the things. She is entering upon the house after the argument and going to organize after meaning she did not start as yet. The word commence in this context of the story is understandable now after looking up the definition and replacing the definition words into the sentence.

The word queer is an adjective and according to Meriam-Webster’s thesaurus it means affected with nausea. I first encountered this word in “ A Jury Of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell and the text says, “He didn’t begin at once, and she noticed that he looked queer–as if standing in that kitchen and having to tell what he had seen there yesterday morning made him almost sick.” This shows that Mr. Hale was still feeling queasy and nauseous after discovering the body of Mr. Wright and being in the room again didn’t help that feeling go away. I think this word will be hard for me to use in my writing since there’s so many definitions but with the write sentence structure and concept I should use it well.

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, aggravating is defined as arousing displeasure, impatience, or anger. In the reading “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, the word appears on page 272 in the sixth paragraph as stated “You sho is one aggravatin’ nigger woman!” he declared and stepped into the room. She resumed her work and did not answer him at once. “Ah done tole you time and again to keep them white folks’ clothes outa dis house.” Now knowing what this word means, Delia been getting on his nerves by refusing to listen to his orders and as a result, is often mistreated by her husband physically and mentally, by using the whip.

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.

In·​quire

Inquire. An intransitive verb defined as to put a question : seek for information by questioning by Merriam Webster Dictionary. The short story ” A Jury of Her Peers” tells a story of Mrs.Hale murdering her husband and a group of girlfriends protecting her by hiding the crime. Susan Gaspell included the line “”How did she–look?” the county attorney was inquiring.” At first glance I did not understand what the word meant. I tried to re read it a couple of times to get a better understanding. After using context clues, I figured out what the author was trying to convey. The author was trying to express a sense of questioning during the interrogation.

Based on the Merriam-Webster the word “Gibberish” (noun) means foolish, confused, or meaningless words. On page #278 in “sweat”, it state that, “great dull blows upon the wood floor punctuating the gibberish of sound long after the rattle of the snake had abruptly subside.” Based on the class discussion and this quote we can said that what goes around comes back around or we can said that karma does really exist because he was trying to kill her and he end up killing himself. Sometimes us humans do not realize that when we harm other human beings we are returned the same or worse way.