Grammar Punk Blog

Agreeable: pleasing to the senses or to somebody’s taste

pleasant, friendly, and ready to please others

willing to consent to or consider something

good enough or suitable for somebody

I’ve been killing my long commute every morning with books on tape—or to be precise, audio books on my iPod.  This week’s offering happens to be Pride and Prejudice. It’s a lovely book, and a long-winded one positively stuffed to the gills with twenty dollar words and phrses and colloquialisms that are sadly long gone. Agreeable being an-oft used one and a word you almost never hear anymore. More’s the pity.

Jane liked the word agreeable and used it in each and every one of it’s definitions. Elizabeth’s sister Jane was agreeable, Mr. Bingley was decidely agreeable, the English countryside was agreeable and Elizabeth’s friend Miss Lucas was most agreeable. And yes, I’m going to say that Jane did indeed rather overuse this rather bland little word—at least if feels more that way having it read aloud by a soft-spoken English accent. It’s still a good word. A very agreeable word.

Grammar Punk Sentence: L E 4 Agreeable

Though entirely and noticeably agreeable on the surface, everyone knew that beneath Stu’s clown makeup there lurked a grouch.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, challenge your students to see how agreeable—or disagreeable characters in their favorite books can be. Then write about it.

Renaissance: ren-uh-sahns

the period in European history from about the 14th through 16th centuries regarded as marking the end of the Middle Ages and featuring major cultural and artistic change

the cultural and religious spirit that characterized the Renaissance, including the decline of Gothic architecture, the revival of classical culture, the beginnings of modern science, and geographic exploration

This is a word that is a particular favorite of mine. The Renaissance is more than just a period of time; it was a time of tremendous change, volatility and movement. The word also came to represent the concept of rebirth or revival of culture, skills, or learning forgotten or previously ignored. This concept makes the impossible seem possible, the unreachable accessible, the implausible worth trying for. What a great word to embrace and strive for.

Teachers of English, writing, and grammar, challenge your students to stage their own renaissance as they explore this fabulous word. Then write about it!

Grammar Punk Sentence: R E 5 Renaissance

Determined to demonstrate a Renaissance of edible food, Stella raised her hand to volunteer for cafeteria duty.

car⋅tog⋅ra⋅phy

   /[kahr-tog-ruh-fee]

–noun

Origin:
1855–60; < L c(h)art(a) carte + -o- + -graphy

Cartography is one of those words that’s fun to know. Anyone can be referred to as a mapmaker, a maker of maps, but to be able to properly address that someone as a cartographer is just plain powerful.

And like a good powerful word, it has more than one part that means what it means standing on its own. The word carte means chart, or the practice of gridding out a location  and of course graph

Grammar Punk Sentence: G A 3

Sneaking glancesat his rare map of the thirteen colonies, Hubert waited anxiously for the Cartographers of American club meeting to begin.

bil⋅ious

[bil-yuh s]

Use bilious in a Sentence

See web results for bilious

See images of bilious

–adjective

Origin:
1535–45; < L bīliōsus. See bile, -ous

Synonyms:
3. grumpy, crabby, cross, grouchy, dyspeptic.

 As you know if you have been reading this blog I do so enjoy a word that sounds or looks or behaves like its definition. Bilious is such a word. You can see this word has been around a while, they knew how to create words back in 1525. To be more succinct (if a little on the ick side) bilious is another of those words that when taken apart offers more illumination into its origin. Namely the word bile. (I warned you about the ick thing.) Which just makes bilious not only a literal kind of word, but also a nice use of imagery. Bilious can pertain to a physical condition, an emotional state, or just a particularly noxious color. You have to love the English language.

 Grammar Punk™ Sentence:

B I 2 Pro | bilious 

Write a Grammar Punk™ sentence that contains 2 words that contain the letters B and I, a pronoun and the word bilious.

 Stricken, Clementine spotted him across the room, resplendent in a particularly bilious green sport coat, the promised pink rose in his lapel; her blind date.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, this is a great challenge word to add to your student’s vocabularies. Just don’t let them get bilious about it.

chi·ca·nery noun \-ˈkān-rē,-ˈkā-nə-\ pluralchi·ca·ner·ies

1: deception by artful subterfuge or sophistry

2: a piece of sharp practice (as at law)

This one comes from the French, to chicaner, which means to complain or argue in a trivial or petty manner. How arguing pettily became deceitful by subterfuge is a bit dim. I like that this definition includes another cool and underused word, namely, sophistry:

sophistry (countable
and uncountable;
plural sophistries)

1. (countable) An argument that seems plausible, but is fallacious or misleading, especially one devised deliberately to be so.
2. (uncountable) The art of using deceptive speech or writing.
3. (uncountable) Cunning or trickery.

So instead of just accusing someone of dishonesty or deceit you can tell them their chicanery smacks of sophistry. That’ll teach em.

Grammar Punk Sentence: R A 4

He wasn’t above using chicanery to ensure his diorama of the Grand Canyon won first place; he was quite sure no one would tumble to the fact that he’d used real
rocks instead of salt clay.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, this is a great word to add to your students lexicon. Challenge them to write about chicaneries they might have witnessed—or attempted themselves. Then write about it.

Corollary: cor·ol·lar·y

Natural consequence: something that is a natural consequence of or accompaniment to something else

Statement easily proved from another: logic: a proposition that follows, with little or no further reasoning, from the proof of another

Obvious deduction: something that is very obviously or easily deduced from something already proven

Something added: something added to something else, e.g. something appended to a document

I do so love a good corollary; I just find it a bit tricky to define—at least to myself. I did find a cool definition that says it well:

A corollary is something that is true by default based on indirect facts. You see it a lot in mathematics, specifically geometry. For example, you are shown a triangle and are told that two of the angles are 90 degrees and 35 degrees. it is a corollary that the third angle is 55 degrees. You weren’t told that… but based on other facts, it has to be true.

Grammar Punk Sentence:  T A 5 corollary

Faced with a most daunting corollary, Stu solved the mathematical equation with the only logical explanation he could find: he cheated.

Write a Grammar Punk sentence that contains at least five words with the letters T and A and the word corollary.

Teachers of English, grammar and writing, this is a tricky one. Challenge your students to find corollaries in their own schoolwork. Then write about it.

Defenestration: to throw something or somebody out of a window

 a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office)

I know this is hardly the cheeriest word ever but it is interesting. And morbid. And creepy. All things I usually like in a word. I know I’ve heard the word before but never its literal meaning. And I do mean literal.

I ran across the definition while watching a Director’s cut of Braveheart, tuning in just in time to see the King-To-Be’s, um, friend, being thrown from the top floor of the castle to the unforgiving flagstones below. Splat. And there, scrolled across the bottom of the screen was the little tidbit that this act was known as defenestration—the irony added that apparently this mode of punishment had been common enough to have earned it its own word. Yikes.

The second definition, the one I had been heretofore familiar with is much less bloodthirsty and all the more effective for its grisly cousin. My kind of word.

Grammar Punk Sentence: L A 3 defenestration

With a particularly effective (and cruel) finality Suzanne’s defenestration from the Girl Scout Troup was all the more shocking since it occurred at the annual Jamboree.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, this is a particularly interesting word to incorporate into your student’s vocabularies. Just don’t encourage them to take it literally.

Write a Grammar Punk sentence that contains at least 3 words using the letters L and A and the word defenestration

Beatific: be·a·tif·ic

Blissful, expressing or radiating great happiness and serenity

Of heavenly happiness: bringing or expressing the perfect happiness and inner peace supposed to be enjoyed by the soul in heaven

What a lovely word. I like to think I’ve experienced the emotion of perfect happiness but I have to say I doubt it. I was watching a program about wee kittens and puppies and their first days and weeks of life and there was beatific.  It took so little to make them happy, food, sleep, play. And just watching them, I felt decidedly beatific.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, this is a great word to add to your students’ vocabularies. An even better one to try and add to your classrooms.

Grammar Punk Sentence: B A 3

Snuggled together in a pile of paws and tails and muzzles, the brand new batch of kittens created a positively beatific picture of domesticated bliss.   

Write a Grammar Punk Sentence that includes at least three words that contain B and A and the word beatific.

Basilisk: bas·i·lisk

a legendary reptile, said to have been hatched by a serpent from a rooster’s egg, whose look or breath was supposed to be fatal

a lizard, related to the iguana, that is able to run upright on its long hind legs. Native to: Central and South America

I’d guess you’d be baleful too if your breath and gaze was fatal!

In Roman mythology a basilisk was a serpent-like creature that had the power to mesmerize with its ferocious gaze and one breath could kill you. There is also an actual basilisk lizard related to the iguana with a large crest of skin that flares up menacingly and can also skitter across the surface of water.

Not bad for a lizard.

Grammar Punk Sentence: T E 5 basilisk

Intercepting the decidedly basilisk glare, the class quickly quieted down and gave their attention to the new substitute teacher. 

Write a Grammar Punk Sentence that contains at least 5 words with the letters T and E and the word basilisk.

Teachers of English, writing, and grammar, this is a nice word to add to your students lexicon. You might also try out your own basilisk stare if they get rowdy…

Apodictic: ap·o·dic·tic

demonstrably or indisputably true; expressions of the nature of necessary truth

I like a word that is sure of itself. This is a handy little word that describes a conclusive concept. So the next time you wih to make your point clearly and without fear of repudiation be apodictic about it.

Teachers of English, writing, and grammar this is a great word to add to your students’ vocabulary. Challenge them to think of things or ideas or concepts that they are positively apodictic about then write about it.

Grammar Punk Sentence: P O 3

So apodictic as to make one apoplectic just listening to her, we all began to avoid Nanette when she began talking politics.