english writing 2

the leading benchmark for international educational comparisons, and has prompted policymakers to learn lessons from the best-performing school systems.

A benchmark is a standard that other similar items can be compared to — that way everything is measured against a common standard. Benchmark originally referred to a mark made on a wall or building by a surveyor for use as a reference point. The word still retains that meaning, but nowadays you're more likely to hear it used in a figurative sense to describe a standard used to measure the worth of something. A particular item is selected as a benchmark, and other similar items are compared to the benchmark. A popular sitcom may be the benchmark other shows are judged against.

Blueprints benefit from parents' money, patience and good faith

A blueprint is a guide for making something — it's a design or pattern that can be followed. Want to build the best tree house ever? Draw up a blueprint and follow the design carefully. The literal meaning of a blueprint is a paper — which is blue — with plans for a building printed on it. You can also call other guides or plans blueprints. The way you do your homework every night could provide a blueprint for your little sister's study habits. A business plan is a blueprint for a profitable business. Religions and philosophies provide the blueprint for many people's lives. A blueprint helps you figure out what to do.

And the sheer number of examples of executive hubris that bristle from the headlines suggests that many leaders cross the line into counterproductive folly.

A bristle is a stiff hair — the kind men shave off their face or the kind badgers have all over. Bristle also means to get angry. Tell an animal rights activist you use a badger's bristle shaving brush and you'll get the idea. The emotional meaning of to bristle comes from the fact that most animal bristles used by man are so-called erectile hairs — the ones that stand up on the neck or along the back of animal when it's angry or surprised. A common word associated with bristle is hackle, another name for such erectile animal hairs. Thus the saying "to get one's hackles up," which is pretty much identical to bristling.

makes it possible for fledgling musicians to play along with tracks via his Stretch Music mobile phone app;

A fledgling is a fuzzy baby bird just learning to fly, or someone (like a baby bird) who's brand new at doing something. Awww. If you're not talking about a baby bird, fledgling is often used as an adjective describing a new participant in something, like a fledgling senator still learning the ropes of how to legislate, or a fledgling drama program trying to build audiences for its plays. It can also mean inexperienced and young, like the fledgling photographer for the school paper who accidentally erases all the pictures. If you're British, spell it fledgeling if you like, both spellings are correct.

David Bonderman, her colleague, quipped that this would just mean more talking.

A quip — a short, witty comment — can be pleasant, wise, or sarcastic, but usually carries an element of humor. A quip, often taken as a sign of cleverness, is a witty remark that sounds spur-of-the-moment. A successful quip must sound offhand, as though it were an afterthought, even if the speaker has been honing the statement for days. Dorothy Parker was a famous writer known for her quick quips, such as, "The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant — and let the air out of the tires."

To live nearly a century and sustain a serrated intellect, righteous integrity and good health?

A serrated edge is jagged. When a knife is described as having a serrated blade, its edge is lined with small teeth, similar to a saw's. It will cut tomatoes, bread, and meat more effectively than a smooth-edged blade. The adjective serrated comes from the Latin word serratus, meaning "notched like a saw." Most often, it is swords and knives that are described as serrated, but some leaves, like those of the Ash and Maple trees, as well as certain flower petals, like carnations and some tulips, also have serrated edges. Great White sharks have serrated teeth so they can more easily rip the flesh of their prey. Yum.

During these great pauses, the institutional machinery of feudal society shuddered to a halt, enabling the vast majority of men and women, their lives shackled to scarcity and submission, to revel in the taste of abundance and lack of inhibition.

A shudder is an involuntary vibration, usually in your body, or the shaking itself. A cold breeze or an unpleasant memory might make you shudder. A shudder isn't always a bad thing. It can mean a pleasurable sensation or tingle that goes through your body, like a shudder of excitement you feel when you see your favorite star on the street. As a verb, shudder means to shake and shiver. Being really cold or seeing something that scares you — a ghost! — can make you shudder. The phrase "shudder to think" means just the thought of something upsets you enough to shudder. shackled: bound by chains fastened around the ankles

While reporting in Oakland, Calif., a girl with a side ponytail berated me in a Mardi Gras-themed bar for glorifying "worthless straight white men of privilege."

A strong verb for harshly cutting someone down with words is berate. "He didn't just correct the cashier who gave him the wrong change, he started to berate her, calling her names in front of the whole store." When you berate someone it is more than just raising your voice at them; it implies putting them down by insulting their character. Berate comes from the 16th-century English and French for "to scold" or "to blame." Often the anger behind the scolding seems over-the-top, as in "When the young man behind the counter dropped the scoop of vanilla, the manager berated him excessively by declaring him worthless and weak."

Even more remarkably, mass entertainment today can be tailor-made

A tailor helps make your clothes fit you better. Similarly, when you tailor something to the needs of others, you are adjusting what you do to best suit them rather than taking a general approach. The word tailor comes from the Latin taliare, meaning "to cut." A tailor is someone who cuts and adjusts your clothing to better fit. When you tailor a jacket, you have it taken in to better suit your physique. But tailor isn't used strictly in reference to clothing. For example, a restaurant might tailor an order for a vegetarian by getting rid of the meat in a portion. A teacher might tailor a lesson plan to the demands of her ESL students.

Every tremor of progress in history has been accompanied by a moral panic.

A tremor is a trembling or shaking in a person or the Earth. If you're scared about speaking in public you might have a tremor in your voice — or wish that an earthquake tremor would open up the floor and swallow you first. If you're nervous or feeling queasy as you read a paper aloud, you might get a tremor in your hands and the paper itself will start to shake. When an earthquake rumbles, a powerful tremor might make a building shake so that it looks as fragile as a piece of paper. Not every tremor comes from fear or seismic activity, though: you can tremor or quiver with excitement as you anticipate something enjoyable.

accusations of sexism in the ride-hailing company had turned it from a Silicon Valley "unicorn" into something more of an ogre.

An ogre is a big, ugly monster. In many myths and fairytales, ogres are giant, unintelligent, human-like creatures that eat people. However, the ogre Shrek comes off as a right jolly fellow. The grotesque, awkwardly large ogre has been a figure in mythology for many years, a close relation to evil giants and other frightening creatures. In many stories, ogres eat babies, and they're usually quite ugly, with strangely colored skin, large heads, and strong bodies. The word ogre is also sometimes used to describe despicable, evil people. Ogre comes from the French, coined by the French fairy tale writer, Charles Perrault.

It remains a rite of passage for analog pilgrims.

Analog is the opposite of digital. Any technology, such as vinyl records or clocks with hands and faces, that doesn't break everything down into binary code to work is analog. Analog, you might say, is strictly old school. The original definition of analog is something that is similar to something else; the two are said to be analogous. In technological terms, it means something that has an output that's proportional or similar to its input — usually a voltage. Anything digital is the exact opposite: whatever comes out the other end bears no relationship to the soup of binary code that goes in. The word can also be spelled analogue.

you'll find a bronze commemorative in front of the nautical-themed restaurant that serves New England-meets-"Mexican-street-style" fusion to baying tech bros and yoga mom Yelpers.

Anything that acts as a memorial to something or someone is commemorative — whether it's an action like a charity walk or an object like a war memorial. Certain commemorative objects are known simply as commemoratives. Think, for example, of the Elvis Presley commemorative stamps your Dad keeps in his sock drawer (he was young once), or the commemorative coins minted for such events as the inauguration of a new President or the moon landing. See late night TV in particular for "special commemorative offers."

Driven by an insatiable hunger for both food and knowledge, endowed with great intellectual as well as physical brawn, and prone to laughter as seismic as an earthquake, the eponymous father-and-son duo overwhelm.

Brawn means muscular strength. Brawn is thought of as the opposite of brains, but let's face it — people can be strong and smart! No matter how smart you are, though, you must have big muscles to have brawn. The word brawn is from the Old French word braon, which means "fleshy or muscular part," referring to a part of an animal that people cook and eat. British English still uses brawn to mean meat, headcheese in particular. In American English, brawn refers to strength and heft. You may also have heard the adjective brawny, meaning strong and muscular. When something is eponymous, it takes its own name as its title. For example, Foo Fighters' first album was eponymous — it was called "Foo Fighters." It's interesting that books are almost never eponymous. For instance, Herman Melville never wrote a story or a novel called "Herman Melville," and Dickens never titled any of his novels "Charles Dickens." But singers and bands often name at least one of their albums or CDs after themselves. The same goes for TV shows. Think of "Roseanne." Her eponymous show was called, obviously, "Roseanne." Sometimes there's a pun in the name. For example, the Doral Company is named for its founders, Doris and Al. Is that eponymous? You tell me...

Ubiquitous tools like YouTube, eBooks, digital sheet music and digital flashcards are becoming staples of music-learning.

Bread. Milk. Gasoline. Xboxes. What do these all have in common? They're all a staple of most people's consumption — basic products for which there will always be a demand. Staple also has the broader more abstract sense of being anything that's popular or necessary. A staple of the political scene is partisan bickering; a staple of Broadway theater is the musical revival. And let's not forget another meaning — those handy little metal clasps that hold things together. Though most people wouldn't consider a staple a staple.

Ahmed seems to conflate philosophical complexity and moral importance. What other reason does she have to cloak her simple complaints in the outsized trappings of scholarly jargon? B

Conflate is a more formal way to say "mix together." You probably wouldn't say you conflated the ingredients for a cake, but if you blended two different stories together to make a new one, conflate would work. The verb conflate comes to us from the Latin word conflare, which literally means "to blow together." So think of using this word when you want to talk about two things getting thrown together and combined. Things that have been conflated often seem mixed up or confused, as when you conflate two different ideas, taking parts of one and parts of another to build your own Frankenstein version of things. A cloak is anything that conceals or hides something, like an over-sized, dark raincoat you wear when you don't want your friends to see you're going to the movies without them. As a noun, a cloak is usually a loose piece of clothing that you wear over your other clothes, like a cape or a gown. It especially refers to an outer garment that you might wear while traveling in order to protect your outfit or to conceal your identity. As a verb, to cloak is to conceal or hide something. If you were a famous person who wanted to go out alone, you might cloak your identity with a cloak.

perhaps I can offset the offense of pairing intellectual facility with femininity. Or so I have often reasoned. I can eviscerate your novel or your argument, but don't worry: I'm too ditzy to drive!

Eviscerate is not a pretty word. To eviscerate can mean to remove the entrails of a creature. On the Discovery Channel you can watch a vulture eviscerate or take out the guts of a dead animal. The word eviscerate comes from the Latin evisceratus, meaning "to disembowel." It's not strictly used in such a gruesome sense though. Sure, you can eviscerate a chicken by gutting its insides, but eviscerate can also be used to describe when you deprive something of its most important quality. If you take away the disco ball, it could eviscerate the spirit of your dance party. When you offset something—say, the price of gas—you find a way to make up for it. My new car's ability to get fifty miles per gallon offset the rise in the price of gas. Offset functions as both a noun and a verb. Okay, let's talk turkey. The Duke's lack of height was offset by his enormous wig. Even without shoes, he towered above most people, because his wig alone was five feet tall. The cost of the wig—close to $10,000—was easily offset by its quality: it was worth every cent. The inconvenience of the blizzard was offset by the joy of not having to go to school or work—or even get out of bed. The joy was what you might call an offset.

That evening's fallout led directly to the full flowering of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, the cultural revolution of the 1960s

Fallout is the cloud of radioactive material that falls from the sky after a nuclear blast. Fear of the effects of fallout is just one reason some people are nervous about nuclear energy. Nuclear fallout settles on the ground and in the atmosphere after a nuclear bomb explodes or a reaction occurs at a damaged nuclear power plant. The dangers of this kind of fallout are enormous, including immediate death and long-term illness caused by breathing and eating the radioactive dust. Another kind of fallout is more figurative — it's any kind of negative effect or result, like the fallout from telling your family you're getting an enormous tattoo.

Sometimes I find myself enmeshed in a nested doll of apologies, apologizing for apologizing until apology supplants apologia and the seed of self that once grounded it and "Sorry!"

Ground is the surface of the earth under your feet. Whether you're walking on the beach or climbing a hill, you're standing on the ground. When a plane lands, it touches down on the ground, and when you get off a scary carnival ride, you're usually very happy to have your feet on solid ground. The noun shows up in phrases like "break new ground," which means to do something completely new, and "stand your ground," or refuse to give up your advantage during an argument or competition. The Old English root is grund, "bottom, foundation, or surface of the earth."

Nor did he seem defiant or smug or even insincere

Have you ever seen a picture of a protester who is about to be carried off by police but is still shouting or resisting, fighting to the bitter end? That person is defiant. Someone who is defiant is bold, even in the face of defeat. A defiant person is usually fighting a powerful enemy. People who protest in countries controlled by dictators are defiant. Rosa Parks was defiant when she refused to give up her seat on the bus, even though the law at that time dictated that black people had to stand when whites needed a seat. Small children are defiant too, sometimes over nothing more than a request to share their toys. A smug person is self-satisfied. You can usually recognize someone who is pleased with himself by his smug little smile and self-righteous remarks. Smug is the opposite of modest and unsure. In cartoons, the smug character often walks around with his chest puffed out and his ego leading the way. "Too much good fortune can make you smug and unaware," thought Rachel Field, the children's author. What she means is that successes are appreciated much more when they don't come so often that you begin to feel entitled to them.

His failing eyesight has been swapped for oracular vision. He looks vaguely like a bust of Socrates, bald, white-bearded and wise

If you bust something, you have broken it. A bust can also be a statue of someone from the shoulders up. Be careful to not bust a bust on your next field trip! Several meanings of bust are pretty discouraging. You might describe your business as bust if it's totally out of money, for example. Or you might threaten your younger sister, "If you bust my ceramic unicorn, you're in big trouble!" There's also the kind of bust that might sit on your piano, like a bust of Mozart or Bach — a statue of a person's head and upper shoulders. This is the oldest meaning of the word, from the Italian busto, "upper body."

He concedes that there are challenges: improving the optical performance of the elements;

If you concede something, you admit that it is true, proper, or certain--usually in an unwilling way and often in the context of a competition, as in "At midnight, the candidate finally conceded defeat." In its most common senses, a near synonym of concede is acknowledge--if your mom is pointing out that you need sleep before the test, you should concede the truth of what she's saying. But another meaning of concede is to give away or grant something: The leaders are not ready to concede power. Concede is from Latin concēdere, from the prefix com- "completely" plus cēdere, "to go along, grant, yield." The corresponding noun is concession.

Mr Venturi reconciled an unprepossessing site with a wealth of architectural history.

If you find someone to be unprepossessing, you find them unattractive. Not that they're ugly, mind you! Just unprepossessing. Unprepossessing is a rather indirect way of calling someone unattractive, or at best OK-looking. Unprepossessing is not quite the same as "ugly." Rather, just a way of saying that someone's looks aren't what you're most likely to remember about them. Cinderella was most unprepossessing in the filthy clothes and worn-out shoes that her step-sisters forced her to wear. But when she was all decked out by her fairy godmother, she was the belle of the ball: she was no longer unprepossessing.

ownership automatically confers such a right. In an increasing number of cases, sadly, it does nothing of the sort

If you gab, chat, and talk it up with someone, you have conversation, but if you're looking for input from each other as you talk, you confer, or consult, together. They had a family meeting to confer about a schedule for sharing the new laptop. Many uses of the verb confer involve consulting with another person or as a group. Confer has a second use meaning "bestow," which means to award or hand over something. You can confer a medal on a winner or hero, or you can confer status through a promotion or assignment. Each year the teacher would confer the special honor of summer hamster-sitter on one responsible student.

In Rabelais's age, however, carnivals were simply subversive, turning upside down the official feasts and pageants regularly staged by throne and altar. Laughter laced these festivals that larded the medieval calendar

If you have an annual festival going on in your neighborhood that involves live music, street vendors, and games, you could call that a carnival. The word carnival originally referred to a public festival involving general merriment and feasting, often taking place on the street and frequently associated with a religious holiday. Later the word's meaning broadened to refer to a traveling show that offers similar activities, like a winter carnival or a fair. Nowadays the word carnival is also used figuratively to refer to something characterized by raucous disorder. If, for example, your coworkers ended up heckling your CEO at a company meeting, you could describe the scene as a carnival (although you would most likely NOT see any cotton candy in the board room). lard: prepare or cook with lard 2. v add details to

he and his team plan to replace them with truly minuscule devices that spurn every aspect of current photographic technology

If you reject your mother's offer to buy you a pair of lederhosen with a snort and eye roll, you are spurning her generosity. To spurn means to reject with disdain. Originally, to spurn was to kick away. Though it's not used in that context so often anymore, being spurned still feels like a kick in the gut. You can reject someone kindly, or let them down easily, but you can't spurn someone with anything but malice.

Shaking off the slanders of age, he carefully walked here alone, sans cane, carrying a City Lights satchel filled with advance copies of the 60th anniversary Pocket Poets Series collection and his collected letters with Ginsberg.

If your classmate spreads a false rumor that you cheated on the math test, that's slander. Slander is the act of saying an untrue, negative statement about someone. In law, the word slander is contrasted with libel, which is the act of making a false written statement about someone. The noun slander is from Old French esclandre, escandle, or "scandal," from Late Latin scandalum "stumbling block, offense."

"THAT'S pants!" says the exasperated Londoner, confusing Americans.

It's understandable if you get exasperated, or really frustrated, if you're standing in the supermarket's express lane and everyone in front of you has way more than the 10-item maximum. Over the centuries, nothing much has happened to the definition of this word — the Latin original means "irritated to anger." Speaking of which, let's get back to the supermarket, a veritable hotbed of exasperated people pushing wobbly-wheeled shopping carts their children try to fill with cartoon-branded junk food, brushing past unstable store displays that come tumbling down, enduring inoffensive but flavorless supermarket music, and emerging into the cold light of day unable to remember where they parked the car.

Mr Kissin's trajectory was stellar, and soon he was playing to packed houses all over the world, as he still does.

Meaning outstanding, wonderful, better than everything else, stellar is a word of praise or excitement. Thomas Edison invented many things, but his stellar achievement might have been the light bulb. Stellar literally means "like a star." When it comes time for your debut on Broadway, you will sure hope that the reviews say that you delivered a stellar performance. You could also use stellar to talk about actual stars, of course, or you could even blend the two: enjoy the stellar beauty of your beloved under the stellar light of a moonless night.

Some shared the regrettable misogyny of the period, but the broader constellation produced enduring writing from di Prima

Misogyny is the hatred of women. Whenever someone thinks that all women share one trait — usually something negative — that's misogyny. The noun misogyny, pronounced "miss-AH-jih-nee," comes from the Greek word misogynia, which means "woman-hater." Misogyny is prejudice — like bigotry or racism — that's directed toward women. Misogyny takes many forms, from hiring a less-qualified male job candidate instead of a woman to excluding women from joining a club, just because of their gender.

Some international schools are privately run, including offshoots of famous foreign institutions such as Dulwich College in Britain or Haileybury in Australia.

On a plant, an offshoot is a sprout or shoot that branches off. From this botanical meaning, offshoot has come to describe anything that starts or grows from something else. You can start a whole new plant with a houseplant's offshoot, by putting it in water and waiting for it to grow roots. Another kind of offshoot is a local branch of a library, an offshoot of the central location, or an offshoot of a popular TV show, also called a "spin-off." Interestingly, the earliest definition of offshoot, in the seventeenth century, referred to family trees. It wasn't until 1814 that offshoot was used for actual plants

The fact that people tend to mimic the expressions and body language of their superiors can aggravate this problem:

People who chew with their mouths open often aggravate the people near them, meaning that they exasperate their neighbors. Choose Your Words aggravate / irritate Aggravate means to make something worse, and irritate is to annoy. But if you use aggravate to mean "annoy," no one will notice. That battle has been lost in all but the most formal writing. Continue reading... One trick for remembering the meaning of aggravate is to recall that it rhymes with one of its synonyms, irritate. When you irritate, you aggravate. Younger brothers often aggravate their older brothers, because they find it entertaining to get a reaction out of them. Aggravate is also used is to mean "make worse." For example, if you have an old knee injury, it's probably best not to climb Mount Everest, because you might aggravate the injury. If your house is in foreclosure, calling your banker an ugly name is likely only to aggravate the situation. Try a little sweet talk instead!

it does nothing to rein in the use of copyright to achieve similar ends.

Rein is both a noun and a verb for guiding and restraining. You can use the long strap, or rein, on a horse to control its speed and direction, and you can rein in your own tongue by closing your mouth. Rein rhymes with rain but the two words describe very different things. Rain comes down all over the place, uncontrolled, while a rein holds things in place or controls what comes out. As a noun, rein is often used as a plural word "reins" when talking about actual leather restraints used in horse riding, but a rein also is something non-physical like when you put a rein on spending by shopping less.

It could be enough to render any book of scales or songs unnecessary

Render is a synonym of make--technically it means "cause to become." An illness might render you unable to walk, or a shocking site might render you speechless. Another basic meaning of the verb render is to give, present, or perform something: to render assistance. And a specialized sense is to formally declare a verdict in a court case. Render is from Middle English, from Old French rendre "to give back, deliver," an alteration of Latin reddere "to restore," from the prefix red-, re- "back" plus dare "to give."

he was one of the administration's most scathing critics.

Scathing means witheringly harsh. If you enter a singing contest and the judge says that your singing is like that of a toad with laryngitis, that is scathing criticism. Scathing comes from an old Norse verb, to scathe, which means to injure by fire or lighting. Now we use it when someone's critique is so harsh that it feels like you've been burned. If your best friend turns against you and advertises your faults to the world, and you feel like everyone is staring and talking about you, you are having a scathing experience

for being the wayward creature I am, 5-foot-2 and female but brash and contrarian.

Someone wayward is a little stubborn and independent — they're determined to find their own way and are not easily controlled. Being wayward can mean a few things, but they all have something to do with doing your own thing — often, going against what others want you to do. A rebellious student is wayward. A son who ignores his parent's advice is wayward. A politician who goes against everyone else in his political party is wayward. Wayward folks like to go their own way — and they often take the unexpected path. Brash sounds like what it means: harsh, loud, and maybe a little rude. Sometimes that's good, like when you have a serious rash on your face and give Aunt Nell a brash warning before she showers you with kisses. There's nothing warm and fuzzy about brash. New Yorkers are sometimes thought of as the poster children for brash behavior: they can be bold and brazen. Pushy even. You might find brashness offensive, or maybe you think it's refreshingly direct. If you're a cab driver, a tough exterior might be useful, but being brash probably won't advance your career if you work in a hotel, where you're supposed to be polite and welcoming. contrarian:an investor who deliberately decides to go against the prevailing wisdom of other investors

This average was dwarfed by differences within each sex, with some taciturn types speaking just a few thousand words,

Someone who is taciturn is reserved, not loud and talkative. The word itself refers to the trait of reticence, of seeming aloof and uncommunicative. A taciturn person might be snobby, naturally quiet, or just shy. Having its origin in the Latin tacitus, "silent," taciturn came to be used in mid-18th-century English in the sense "habitually silent." Taciturnity is often considered a negative trait, as it suggests someone uncommunicative and too quiet. Jane Austen wrote, "We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb."

The idea that HBS is responsible for the ills of Western civilisation is far-fetched

Something farfetched is imaginative but very unlikely. It's a lot easier to think of than to do. Our brains can think of all sorts of ideas. Some are realistic, like going to the store or getting married. Others are farfetched: a farfetched idea or plan is implausible because there's very little chance it will happen. Flying to Jupiter is farfetched. Marrying a movie star is a farfetched ideas, and so is becoming a movie star. Farfetched things aren't necessarily impossible, but they're very unlikely. Children are especially good at coming up with farfetched notions because of their powerful imaginations.

HBS has lost its crown as the top business school in America and also become a breeding ground for toxic behaviour, with conflicts of interests rife within the school, and its alumni responsible for pushing a rapacious form of capitalism that explains many of the ills of the world's biggest economy.

Something rapacious is out to devour — anything, and little can stand in its way. A rapacious landlord is out for more rent, and a rapacious eater is only satisfied at the all-you-can-eat buffet. A 17th-century word, from the Latin rapere, "to snatch," rapacious originally described the people and animals who often preyed on weaker creatures and devoured them, by eating them or by ruining them through some scandal. Modern-day companies even get the label rapacious when their appetites for profit seem to devour "lesser" interests, like the environment and employee benefits.

That is a perfect-sized job for a budding designer.

Something that is described as budding is growing brand new buds. A budding rose bush is getting ready to burst into bloom. If you are in a budding romance, it is also just about to burst into a new phase of excitement. Ooh la la. When a tree or flower is budding, it's showing signs of the branches and blossoms that will soon appear. The same is true of a person who's described as budding — if you're a budding filmmaker, you're new at making movies but already show great promise. Budding most likely comes from the Old French boter, "push forward or thrust."

The stereotype largely stems from the unshaven romanticism of Kerouac's "On the Road," the manic alienation of "Howl" and subsequent Time/Life caricatures of Beatnik

Sometimes stem means to originate; other times it means to stop something at its source. You stem the flow of a river, but you can also observe that a river's flow stems from a spring. To remember stem's meaning think of the stem of a plant--it's where a plant begins but also where you pluck it from the ground. Once teachers realized that the students' anger stemmed from the overload of homework, they stemmed the rebellion's tide.

The findings are a stark reminder that the twin scourges of poor wage growth and income inequality, left unaddressed, will only worsen.

Stark means "complete or extreme," like the stark contrast between your music taste — punk and weird metal — and your mom's, with all her 1950's doo-wop favorites. In describing a place, stark means "providing no shelter or sustenance." A barren desert or a room with no furniture or curtains is stark. It can also mean "severe, stern, or austere," like the stark beauty of the rocky cliffs in the west of Ireland. Stark can also be used to mean "totally." If you are called stark, raving mad, there's no question about it: you are acting completely crazy. A scourge is a whip — or anything else that is punishing and dreadful. You could confront "a scourge of corruption" or "a scourge of hunger." As a verb, scourge means to cause suffering. Not surprisingly, it comes from the old French word meaning "to whip." A dictatorship could scourge and oppress its citizens, and an infectious disease could scourge an entire community. When you see scourge, think "suffering."

where deference to him is a natural law and 5,000 a commendably small number.

Sure you wear ripped jeans to school every day, but you don't wear them to your grandmother's house out of deference to her. When you show deference to someone, you make a gesture of respect. The noun deference goes with the verb defer, which means "to yield to someone's opinions or wishes out of respect for that person." If you and your dad disagree about the best route to the grocery store, you might defer to him, and take his route. You're taking his route out of deference to his opinion and greater experience. If something's commendable it deserves whatever praise it receives. When you developed a car that could run on solar power, that was a commendable accomplishment. Now, it's time to move from Seattle. Coming from the verb "to commend," commendable can find its roots in the Latin commendāre, meaning "to praise." So, it only makes sense that someone who has done some commendable deed should get praise for it. American author James Branch Cabell once wrote: "While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction."

The closet door, in other words, had been left ajar;

The adjective ajar describes something that is slightly open. A door that has been left ajar is easily pushed open by the wind or a nosy person. To correctly pronounce ajar, say "uh-JAR." People in a hurry leave drawers and cabinet doors ajar, or hanging open. If a chime starts ringing when you start a car, a door or the trunk may be ajar. Check that everything is securely closed before taking off. But don't describe a mouth that is open in surprise as ajar. A better word choice is agape.

Social media, tablets and mobile phones and apps such as Mr Scott's have since opened the floodgates

The gates used to control the flow of water over a levee or in a reservoir is called a floodgate. Some floodgates protect areas that are vulnerable to hurricanes or typhoons. There are many kinds of floodgates, all designed to hold water back sometimes and to let it flow at others. A figurative floodgate holds back strong emotion or something equally powerful. You'll most often find this floodgate in the phrase, "Open the floodgates." For example, a school principal might worry that allowing one student to bring his pet rabbit to class will open the floodgates for everyone bringing animals to school.

Beneath pudgy glasses, his eyes are hauntingly blue and compassionate.

To be pudgy is to be a chubby and short. Baby piglets are sometimes pudgy, but not the runts. Pudgy can describe body parts, too, like a baby's pudgy cheeks. The word pudge is a short, thick person. Make it an adjective and pudgy describes the same qualities. When you're pudgy, you're a little overweight and short. Many children are pudgy, though they usually outgrow the baby fat. Being pudgy is often associated with being cute. For example, bulldogs and pugs are pudgy dogs — they have squat, round bodies that are adorable. This is a gentle word; you probably wouldn't call someone obese pudgy.

it serves as a powerful counterpoint to the argument that Le Corbusier's architecture was soulless.

To counterpoint is to contrast. If you point out that you should have class outside, someone might counterpoint by reminding you that it's raining. In music, counterpoint is when two separate melodies are played or sung at the same time. When a composer writes a piece of music using voices that follow different rhythms or pitches but ultimately come together harmonically, she uses counterpoint. You can also use this word as a verb to mean "to highlight difference:" "My tidy bookshelves counterpoint the mess of papers and books on my desk." The musical meaning of counterpoint, "pricking musical notes under the original melody on a manuscript," comes from an earlier sewing or quilting meaning.

Commercial interests and political institutions have, in our own age, hijacked carnivalesque events such as Mardi Gras, flattening them into carefully policed occasions marked by bar-crawling and souvenir-hawking.

To hijack a vehicle is to take control of it by force. Chances are you've seen an action movie in which some villains hijack a car or plane. To hijack a vehicle is to take it over illegally. Such a crime is called a hijack or a hijacking. Hijack can be used more generally to mean "take over." If your friend has a bad habit of interrupting other people to talk about himself, you can say that he tends to hijack the conversation. hawking- the act of selling goods for a living

laughing when others laugh or tensing when others tense does more than ingratiate.

To ingratiate is to make obvious efforts to gain someone's favor, in other words — to kiss up to someone. Ingratiate has not strayed much from its Latin roots, in gratiam, (in plus gratia meaning "favor") which means "in favor" or "for the favor of." To ingratiate is to gain the favor of someone by doing lots of favors to the point of being a nudge. Like the teacher's pet who answers every question, stays after class to clean the chalkboard, and brings the teacher an apple every day. When you ingratiate yourself to people, you risk annoying them — like a little dog nipping at their heels.

in the stereotype, it seems they are nattering on with no clear purpose.

To natter is to talk at length about unimportant things. When you feel a little awkward and uncomfortable at a party, you might natter to the one person you know there for far too long. To natter is to chatter or blather or jabber — you don't natter about serious or deep topics. If you gossip with your neighbor for a few minutes, you can say that you natter. And, if you chat with your best friend on the phone in a lighthearted way, you also natter. Natter comes from the northern England dialect gnatter, "chatter," and also "grumble." Earlier, it meant, "nibble away."

Technology is making the rich richer, skewing people's consumption of entertainment towards the biggest hits and the most powerful platforms.

To skew is to turn or place at an angle. When you build a house of cards, you must slightly angle, or skew each card, so structure will stand up. From the Middle English skewen ("swerve"), this verb was born to describe things in the physical world. Nowadays, though, we encounter it more informally: If you're in advertising, you might skew (target, aim) your commercials toward a particular demographic. Even before that, you may collect some statistical data on your intended audience, and then make sure that data is accurate, because bad or irrelevant info might skew (distort, inaccurately depict) the results of your research.

You can see their progressive slant in contemporary attitudes toward drug-and-environmental policy, same-sex marriage and creative expression.

To slant is to tilt or slope sharply to one side. Many streets in San Francisco are so steep that they slant dramatically upward. You can slant the brim of your hat down to keep the sun out of your eyes, and the sun itself can slant at a lower angle (or slant), forcing you to put on your dark sunglasses. There's also the slant that means "show bias," the way a newspaper reporter does when she slants a story in favor of one political party over another. Slant was originally slenten, "slip sideways," from a Germanic root.

is an illuminating account of how science has stoked the views that innate preferences and abilities differ between men and women.

To stoke is to poke a fire and fuel it so that it burns higher. It can also mean "incite"--a principal's impassive silence in the face of requests for more tater tots might stoke the flames of student anger. When a surfer says, "I am so stoked," it means they are excited--the fire of enthusiasm is burning hotter. It's interesting to reflect on how many words in our language have to do with the tending of fires, an activity that has become much less common in recent human history.

often derided as "mansplaining". If one partner in a conversation is seeking dominance and the other is seeking co-operation, the status-seeker will wind up hearing co-operative conversational turns as submissive

To wind up is to turn the key of a toy or device that uses a clockwork motor to run. A good way to scare your sleeping dog is to wind up a mechanical hopping frog and set it loose. You can wind up a mechanical toy (also called a wind up toy), or wind up just before you pitch a baseball. This involves a step back in the direction of second base before a forward step with the hands lifted overhead, preparing to throw the ball. Then there's the way people wind up, or end up, in some place or position: "At the end of the play, the characters wind up right where they started."

Some critics, however, began castigating his pianism as mere heartless dazzle

Use castigate when you mean reprimand but in an especially harsh way. If you take a mean teacher's books, even accidentally, you might worry that she's going to castigate you as soon as she finds out. Castigate means punish, and punish harshly, but the punishment is always a severe scolding. Sometimes it means criticize severely. Politicians in the Senate are always castigating each other for their alliances and opinions. Castigate and chasten, which also means "to reprimand" but is less severe, share the Latin root castus which means "pure." Ideally, if you castigate someone, you mean to guide someone away from the wrong path and toward a more pure one. But it sure doesn't feel like that when you're being castigated!

The printing press allowed "evil men" to "flood the market with anything that hints of lasciviousness",

Use lascivious to describe a person's behavior that is driven by thoughts of sex. If someone gives you a lascivious smile, they've got only one thing in mind. Latin-based lascivious and the Old English word lust both share the same Indo-European root las- "to be eager, wanton." The much older word lust originally meant "desire, pleasure" and over time developed to mean sexual desire. Lascivious, on the other hand, entered the English language in the early 15th century complete with the meaning "lewd, driven by sexual desire."

In interviews he has always been strikingly gauche, leaving long silences before giving lapidary answers. His autobiography, "Memoirs and Reflections", is an eccentric work with a similarly jerky momentum, but its revealing leitmotif is embodied in the extraordinary epitaph which he wrote for himself when still a young boy

Use the word gauche when you want to call something tacky, graceless, tactless, rude, boorish, or awkward and foolish. Have you just pointed out someone's misuse of this word? Oh dear, how gauche! Gauche was used for a long time to refer to things that were just so wrong, it almost hurt to talk about them, like publicly asking someone why they don't like you. That is so gauche, it could induce a cringe! Gauche is almost a gauche word, as it is comes from a French word meaning left (as opposed to right). It would be gauche to call left-handed people tacky! The word lapidary relates to precious stones, especially the things people do with them such as cut, polish, and set them in a fancy bracelet. If you know someone who carves gems, engraves marble, or does other work with precious stones, then you know someone who does lapidary work. A lot of lapidary work involves making jewelry, but doing inscriptions in monuments is also lapidary. Someone who collects precious or rare stones has a lapidary hobby. You can also call a person who works with such stones a lapidary. Lapidary comes from the Latin word, lapis, for stone. If you notice the subject of freedom coming up again and again in a book you're reading for English class, you can impress your teacher by calling it a leitmotif, or a theme that recurs. The noun leitmotif is most useful for talking about music, and it usually comes up in the context of classical music, whenever a particular phrase or tune is repeated. The word comes from the German Leitmotiv, which literally means "lead motif," or "guiding motif." Though leitmotif makes music experts think of Wagner's operas when they hear it, it's been around at least since Mozart's time.

The author thinks cash will and should dwindle away.

What do love, money, and the earth all have in common? All can dwindle, or shrink away, if we don't handle them properly. The word dwindle has a wonderfully descriptive, almost childlike sound to it, as though it belongs in a nursery rhyme. That might help you remember the meaning, which is to shrink away gradually, like the Cheshire Cat in "Alice in Wonderland," who dwindles away until nothing is left but his grin.

San Francisco isn't merely under siege from gentrification; it's been sacked.

When people with money start fixing up poor neighborhoods, that's gentrification. Sounds great, except it usually means the poor residents can't afford to live there anymore and have to move. In the United Kingdom, the gentry are the highest class of people aside from royalty. When you add -fication (the suffix that means "making"), you see how gentrification means "making something suitable for a higher class of people," usually the middle class (the upper class already have their mansions). When a neighborhood goes through gentrification, buildings get makeovers, new businesses open, and many people who've lived there their entire lives must leave because everything gets more expensive. sacked:having been robbed and destroyed by force and violence Your city is under siege if it is surrounded on all sides by an opposing force on attack. Think of a castle surrounded by a legion of armed knights.

the debut public reading of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" consecrated this Marina District landmark.

When something is consecrated it is declared to be sacred or holy. Many Catholics, for example, believe that bread and wine are consecrated, or made sacred during Holy Communion, becoming the body and blood of Christ. The word consecrated is made up of the Latin suffix con-, which expresses intensive force and sacrare meaning "dedicate." Something that is consecrated is intensely dedicated to the point of being declared holy. It's not just bread and wine that people believe to be consecrated. Lincoln mentioned how soldiers consecrated the Civil War battlefield in his Gettysburg Address: "The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

one professional pianist in the audience commented ruefully afterwards.

When you do something in a way that expresses regret, you're doing it ruefully. If someone asks you about your Saturday night and you smile ruefully in response . . . well . . . you probably made some poor choices. The origin of the word ruefully is a Germanic word that means "repentance." But over time the word has adopted a slightly humorous tone, so you can go ahead and shake your head ruefully at your friend who has just put his boot on the wrong foot — you feel a little bit sorry for him at the moment. You might grin ruefully when asked about how many pairs of shoes you bought on your trip.

Lords of misrule would make a mockery of royal pronouncements and practices, while monks would subvert sacred rituals into scatological riffs.

When you subvert something, your words or actions criticize or undermine the usual way of doing something or common values. The girl who wears a tuxedo to the prom might subvert traditional ideas about beauty. To subvert an institution like a school or a government is to overthrow it or stop its normal way of functioning. Subvert comes from the Latin word subvertere, which combines the prefix sub, under, and the suffix vertere, to turn. So you can imagine something that subverts as overturning or flipping the usual way of doing things, like a student who subverts a teacher's authority, causing chaos in the classroom. A riff is a short section of music, especially in jazz. When you're first learning to play the saxophone, you may just play the same riff over and over. When one jazz musician in a band is improvising, the others are typically playing riffs in the background. Sometimes a riff introduces the start of a song or its chorus. To play this section is also to riff, and you can also talk about improvised speech using riff: "The stand-up comic decided to riff on the subject of his mom, since it was the only joke that was getting any laughs."

The study shows that stagnating wages and rising inequality are deeply entrenched.

When you're entrenched, you're dug in. Sometimes that means you're literally in a trench, but usually it means you just won't budge from a position or belief. Entrenched things are buried so solidly that they can't move — or just behave like they're firmly lodged in some deep hole. Usually this word refers to views people hold very strongly. Having turkey on Thanksgiving is a tradition that's entrenched in American culture — it's long been established and isn't going anywhere. When you're entrenched, you're being stubborn or consistent, depending on your view.

To watch him reverentially drinking in performances by his heroes,

When you're reverential, you treat someone or something with a lot of respect. You might speak about your beloved kindergarten teacher in a reverential voice. To talk about someone in a reverential way or treat a family heirloom with reverential care is to act out of a deep, almost solemn kind of respect. The adjective reverential comes close to implying worship — a devoutly religious person feels reverential toward God, for example. It's rooted in the Latin word reverentia, "awe or respect," from revereri, "to stand in awe of, fear, or be afraid of."

Even the most direct barbs—"You have got to be kidding me" (Sean Duffy of Wisconsin); "I can't believe some of what I'm hearing here" (Gregory Meeks of New York)—failed to shake him awake

Whether it is a spike on the wire atop a security fence or a mean remark someone said about you, a barb can hurt. When you encounter either kind of barb, you should stay away. Barb comes from the Latin word barba, which means "beard." Beards offer protection from things like cold and wind, but as Mommy found out when she kissed Santa Claus, they can also be quite scratchy. Perhaps this is why, when it comes to talking about beards, some people speak nothing but barbs.

Except that there is not a whit of evidence that they do. Abby Kaplan, a linguist at the University of Utah, rounded up the facts in "Women Talk More Than Men...And Other Myths About Language Explained", published last year.

Whit means a small tiny part of something. If you don't even have a whit of courage, you are most likely a chicken. Whit indicates a bit of something, and usually something abstract like a feeling or emotion. You might feel the last whit of your confidence depart when your teacher hands out the 32-page final exam. Don't confuse whit with wit, meaning mental sharpness or keen sense of humor. Let's hope you have more than a whit of wit in your personality!

he has not found it easy to make friends in his new abode.

Your abode is where you live. The Queen of England's abode may be far from humble, but it's the home where she rests her weary crown at the end of each day. Though it is often humble, as in, "Welcome to our humble abode," an abode is just a formal way of describing your home. A British solicitor (lawyer) would also use the word abode to describe his office, and if he worked from his home the word would cover both his work and his residence. Interestingly, if you were to substitute the o in the middle of the word for a c, you'd have the first five letters of the alphabet — abcde.

The world they prophesied only partially took root: The hippies they inspired got rich; Steve Jobs swaggerjacked Kerouac for an Apple commercial; the Bay Area that the Beats once electrified has been terraformed into an anthropomorphic app.

Your favorite TV shows when you were a toddler probably had anthropomorphic characters like Thomas the Tank Engine or Arthur, who are non-human, but have human characteristics, such as human faces and the ability to talk. You may have heard of anthropology, the study of human beings. Like anthropomorphic, it derives from the Greek word anthrōposi, which means "human being." One thing human beings like to do is anthropomorphize animals and inanimate objects. If that sounds fancy, just think about a kindergarten student putting a smiley face on his drawing of a sun.

And as he moved into his 30s, Mr Kissin's ego seemed in overdrive, leading to inappropriately gladiatorial performances of Schubert and Schumann.

a high gear used at high speeds to maintain the driving speed with less output power Type of: high, high gear a forward gear with a gear ratio that gives the greatest vehicle velocity for a given engine speed n the state of high or excessive activity or productivity or concentration "Troops are ready to go into overdrive as soon as the signal is given" "Melissa's brain was in overdrive" Type of: action, activeness, activity the state of being active v drive or work too hard "Overdriving people often suffer stress" Type of: exploit, overwork work excessively hard v make use of too often or too extensively Synonyms: overuse Type of: apply, employ, use, utilise, utilize put into service; make work or employ for a particular purpose or for its inherent or natural purpose

To get over the hump, the guidance from well-read journalists echoes what William James said about religion: Just find a way to start the practice, and somehow, the faith will always follow.

a large round shape that rises above a surface or above the ground They sat on a hump of grass.

Worries about the warping effect of technology are nothing new.

a moral or mental distortion

HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL (HBS) has come under the cosh this month.

a piece of metal covered by leather with a flexible handle; used for hitting people

Likewise, anyone who tried to fix a duff device of his own

a stiff flour pudding steamed or boiled usually and containing e.g. currants and raisins and citron useless, broken, or poor in quality

The same technological tools that have atomised entertainment have also made it easier to aggregate audiences.

break up into small particles 2. v strike at with firepower or bombs

Many houses that architects build for their parents are bravura coming-of-age designs

brilliant and showy technical skill

partially because there was no consistent ideology binding them

executed with proper legal authority "a binding contract" 2. n the capacity to attract and hold something 3. n the act of applying a bandage

Discussing reading habits tends to make people nervous about coming off, as one newspaper writer put it, "like a pretentious twit."

harass with persistent criticism or carping someone who is regarded as contemptible aggravation by deriding or mocking or criticizing

Kissin turns each variation into a small explosion of rage, grotesquery or pathos, and moves repeatedly from a smoulder to a blaze and back again, with magical results.

ludicrous or incongruous unnaturalness or distortion

unvarnished look at the damage.

not having a coating of stain or varnish free from any effort to soften to disguise

he now has an unerring mastery both of the fine detail and the architecture.

not liable to error

No matter how you approach them, they are volcanic and titanic, immense and elemental.

of or being the essential or basic part 2. adj relating to severe atmospheric conditions 3. adj relating to or being an element

Nor did I interview any stunt readers like Esquire's A.J. Jacobs, who spent a year ploughing through Encyclopedia Britannica A to Z, 44 million words in all.

plough through something to finish something that takes a long time and is difficult or boring

If I can be sufficiently helpless or self-deprecating or infantile, if I can affix enough implied exclamation marks to whatever harsh verdicts I deliver,

showing that you do not approve of something or someone infantile behaviour annoys you because it is very silly, like a child's behaviour an opinion that you have or a decision that you make

though originally concerned with conveyance of property, this voids attempts by an owner to prohibit a recipient from reselling or transferring its interest in a property—on the grounds that a present owner should not be able to tie the hands of future generations.

the process of moving people, animals, or goods from one place to another

Luan County is a rustbelt community on the polluted outskirts of the steel city of Tangshan in north-east China.

urban areas in New England and Midwest characterized by concentrations of declining industries (steel or textiles)

Mr Kissin has made an aesthetic breakthrough, with performances of Liszt tone-poems and late Beethoven sonatas which are revelatory in their sweep and authority.

vn sweep with a broom or as if with a broom 2. v force into some kind of situation, condition, or course of action 3. vn cover the entire range of 4. vn win an overwhelming victory in or on 5. n a long oar used in an open boat 6. n (American football) an attempt to advance the ball by running around the end of the line

But the new regulations threaten to nullify the very point of such institutions for most parents

To nullify something means to make it invalid or ineffective. A peace treaty is an attempt to nullify aggression and division within a region. If you take a null, or a zero, and make it into an action you can take, and you've got nullify — the act of making something void or zero-like. If you have an argument with your friend, it might nullify the fun you had together that day. This word is particularly used in legal language — a divorce nullifies a marriage — or in business disputes where you are trying to nullify someone else's actions or plans.

he psychic enmeshment deepens after reading syntactically peculiar passages like these

caught as if in a mesh

A law that undermines educational opportunities for the privileged and the underprivileged at once could prove far more incendiary than a little foreign influence.

designed to cause fires: an incendiary bomb/device likely to cause violence or strong feelings of anger: incendiary remarks

constraints on international schooling in China are likely to swell the growing flow of Chinese students leaving to study abroad at ever younger ages.

to become larger and rounder than usual; to (cause to) increase in size or amount: It was obvious she had broken her toe, because it immediately started to swell (up). The group recruited more members, swelling its ranks (= increasing its size) to more than 1.3 million. literary His heart/breast swelled with pride (= he felt very proud) as he stood watching his son graduate.

urban private schools that cater to migrant children who cannot get places in regular state schools

to provide, and sometimes serve, food: I'm catering for twelve on Sunday - the whole family is coming. Which firm will be catering at the wedding reception? us Who catered your party?

But lashing out against international schools could prove risky.

to spend a large amount of money in a way that is unnecessary or that wastes it:

the government has called for artists and architects to serve socialism, clamped down on video-streaming sites

to take strong action to stop or limit a harmful or unwanted activity:

Mr Kissin went on discreetly refining his art in Moscow before making his west European debut at 16

with discretion; prudently and with wise self-restraint