Saturday, December 15, 2012

Fall Semester Reflection

  1. Do you read your colleagues’ work online?  How often? What is it like to read their work? How does being able to see everyone’s work online at any given time change the way you do your work?
  2. How has the publicly and always visible course blog made this course different from one without a blog?  How would the course change if the course blog disappeared tomorrow?
  3. Has publishing your work for the public to see changed your approach to completing an assignment? How so?  How would your feelings about the course change if you couldn’t publish your work that way?
  4. Has your experience of the physical classroom changed because of the open & online aspects?  Where does your learning actually happen?  
  5. You were described in the Macarthur Foundation/DML  interview as “a pioneer”-- how do you describe the experience on the edge to people who haven’t been there (friends and family)?
  6. How do they respond when you describe the brave new world in which you’re working?
      
        7.What do their responses mean to you?  What effect(s) (if any) do they have on you?

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1. I wish i had the time to read others blogs more often but when i do i am nearly always impressed by the level of quality/polish that is blatantly depicted by my peers. Having our work published online in my mind does effect my writing, motivates me to produce my best-work as well as audience targeting compositions, such as subtle jokes or references my classmates would recognize for example.

2. Having the course blog accessible at all times is a blessing and a blight to some degree. On one hand its always accessible and, if there's a question, it can be answered by leaving a quick comment. But, on the other hand, its accessible if your internet is up and running properly, if you happen to have it (hard to believe but some don't). Like all tech it requires ease of adaptation which i feel ive personally adapted to over the course of this first semester.

3. As i mentioned briefly in answer 1., knowing my work will be visible to the public's eye pressures me, no, motivates me even moreso then traditional "hand-in" assignments to always produce my best work, it additionally influences me as i often target my audience, making pieces and connections within those pieces that they will quickly recognize. 

4. Yes. Now when i walk into class i often enage in conversations with my fellow peers bout last nights posts, commenting on each others works, complementing, even critiquing. Learning on the other hand? well independent study is what i would liken the learning aspect of this class, though collaboration is indeed possible/encouraged, my best learning is done (at least initially) solo. 

5. To my surprise, they all think its cool as well as interestingly innovative. I know for one my parents support this approach, supporting the use of technology but not abuse/fear of it. 

6. Again, they believe it to be the next step in education, more an inevitability than just gimmicky interesting implementation. They support it.

7. One of my first posts, asking for comments on facebook thereafter, saw to a unexpected and ultimately eye-opening experience. Even though i only asked/expected fellow classmates to comment on my blog post, others, my family members, actually followed the link and read my work.  Commenting on my work, complementing me and supporting my writing, i couldn't believe they took the time to go out of thier way to read it without even mentioning it to them. Now, whenever preparing a post, i keep this ever public eye in mind. I always strive to present my bestwork to impress no teacher, no classmate, not even myself, but my loved ones. Indeed the scope of what we are doing now is one we wont realize, i believe, until much later, far off into a future when everyone else i following the steps we are taking thru internet-interactive learning today.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Here's our skit....(rough cut)





Though i lost twenty hours of work on my original project, i was surprised and pleased by the positive reception of our vid, it was alot of fun filming, just wish i didn't loose all that time, and worst all the quality film in the process. Damn technology you are a cool but cruel interactive mistress!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Literature Analysis # 5: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck



Cannery Row
by John Steinbeck  

Literature Analysis
By Hayden Robel

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.” – John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

________________________________________________
GENERAL______________________________________

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).

2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid clichés.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)

_____________________________________________________________

1. “How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise—the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream—be set down alive? When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book—to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.” The same quote is true to attempting a summarization of this novel. A master of the written craft, nearly unparallel by even today’s contemporary “standards”, John Steinbeck remains one of the greatest American writers in the history of the medium (and that’s a looong history). Steinbeck’s prodigious career spans the vicissitudes, voluminous expanse of the twentieth century, the “American century”, his litany of works, each meaningfully impacting, influencing if not completely constructing the nature of American literature as a whole. John Steinbeck’s works capturing the spirit of the United States, of Americans. Cannery Row is one such novella. From a Chinese immigrant grocer (Lee Chong), a generous but dually coldhearted businessman, to a marine biologist (Doc) “A man who ministers sick puppies and unhappy souls” Steinbeck’s Cannery Row has no underlying, overarching, linear plotline, nor even an established protagonist, central cast, composed only of brief, interspersed vignettes, a one-off episodic structure with no real structure. No, with Cannery Row John Steinbeck set out to paint a fantastically idealized portrait unto a romanticized yet all to real, humanized canvas. With his novel Steinbeck set out to record, to capture the urban magic of Monterey, California, capture the soul of a city, of a street, of its denizens, of Cannery Row.

2. As a true summarization of Cannery Row is arduous, a theme is so to singularly indefinable. Cannery Row utilizes an episodic series of vignette shorts often times to convey themes ranging from morality, the inherent nature of man, to monitarial materialism.  Yet one thematical motif flows as the undercurrent, lifeblood of the entire novel: a sense of community. (Without spoiling specifics of the novels ending) Steinbeck’s purpose (of course in my opinion) with Cannery Row, aside from capturing the zeitgeist of the region and its inhabitants, was to emphasize the imperative of community. Not necessarily focusing upon the localized region of Monterey, Cannery Row is Steinbeck’s allegory of mankind’s need for community, to live not as one but as one global, diverse, community. Reliant, self-reliant, independent, interdependent, a species of separate individuals but a species all the same. Steinbeck thru the eponymous Cannery Row sought to tell the story of such a place, tell the stories, the lives of Monterey indigenous, but so to a lesson to everyone, our own lives. Life is just that: a story of one yet everyone. A grand story made up of many smaller ones.

3.
·        “Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.”

·        “Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals.”

·        “Cannery Row becomes itself again, after the canning is stopped, done-quiet and magical. Its normal life returns.”

Romanticized yet all the while riveted to reality, Steinbeck’s unmistakable writing prowess lends itself to an expertly executed tone complementing, if not the reason for, the mood of the novel’s tales. As a frequent visitor of Monterey and Cannery Row in fact, I too can’t help but feel the same sense of aesthetic, je ne sais quoi quality that Steinbeck attempts (and succeeds in my opinion) to describe throughout Cannery Row. It envelops you as you amble about the port and wharfs, as if a babe nestled coddled in the tranquil, warm thralls of its sleepy but ever-alive urban magic. A blanketing sense of comfort rarely ever found or matched. Steinbeck’s tone epitomizes this sense of urban magic, his tone notably romantic in its various seaside riffs, sentimental in its vivid abstractions. Indeed no one does tone exactly like John Steinbeck, Cannery Row one of his best examples.  

4. Here we go, ad infinitum.
·        Imagery: “Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses.” (pg. 1) Wow, unbelievable, John Steinbeck is the master of imagery to which I hope I can ever hope to aspire towards, achieve.

·        Metaphor: “Mack and the boys, too, spinning in their orbits. They are the Virtues, the Graces, the Beauties of the hurried mangled craziness of Monterey and the cosmic Monterey where men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food.” (pg. 15) Steinbeck here utilizes the literary element of metaphor ascribing Mack (a homeless bum) and his friends as the “Virtues, the Graces, the Beauties of the hurried mangled craziness of Monterey” Steinbeck noting that they are above the avaricious greed of material lusting men/women, “men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food.” The certain food a symbol for money/material wealth to which everyone else seems to only seek and prioritize above all else, destroying what makes us human, yet so to exhibiting what makes us human all the same.

·        Characterization: “What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals? Mack and the boys avoid the trap, walk around the poison, step over the noose while a generation of trapped, poisoned and trussed-up men scream at them and call them no-goods, come-to-bad-ends, blots-on-the-town, thieves, rascals, bums.” (pg. 16) Steinbeck characterizes the money lusting men/women of Monterey, and allegorically many of our world, as “trapped, poisoned, and trussed up” these people “trussed” in their own selfish-goals, unlike the ironically material-less Mack and friends. 

·        Personification: “…Then cannery whistles scream and all over town men and women scramble into their clothes and come running down to the Row to work. They come running to clean and cut and pack and cook and can the fish. The whole street rumbles and groans and screams and rattles while the silver rivers of fish pour in and out of the boats and the boats rise higher and higher in the water until they are empty (pg. 2) Do I really even need to state how much personification is in this mere paragraph, yeah try the entire book, its amazing! Steinbeck’s skill is blatantly evident.

·        Symbolism: “Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals.” (pg. 31) the final lines of this excerpt is a commentary on the proclivities of our own species, if you didn’t catch Steinbeck’s ocean drifts.

·        Imagery: “The anemones expand like soft and brilliant flowers, inviting any tired and perplexed animal to lie for a moment in their arms, and when some small crab or tide pool Johnnie accepts the green and purple invitation, the petals whip in, the stinging cells shoot tiny narcotic needles into the prey and it grows weak and perhaps sleepy while the searing caustic digestive acids melt its body down.”(pg. 33) Cant you feel the tides as your toes are swallow by coarse beach sand? I know I can. The imagery here is incredibly visceral as if observing the violent consumption of one living being by another, life by life ending life.

·         Simile: “Cats drip over the fences and slither like syrup over the ground to look for fish heads.” (pg. 81) How does a cat drip? J

·        Personification: “The water chuckled on the stones where it went out of the deep pool.” (pg. 78) How can water chuckle you ask? Steinbeck’s personification that’s how!

·        Imagery: “The Carmel is a lovely little river.  It isn’t very long but in its course it has everything a river should have.  It rises in the mountains, and tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, is dammed to make a lake, spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live, drops in against banks where crayfish live.  In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in.  Frogs blink from its banks and the deep ferns grow beside it.  Deer and foxes come to drink from it, secretly in the morning and evening, and now and then a mountain lion crouched flat laps its water.  The farms of the rich little valley back up to the river and take in water for the orchards and vegetables.  The quail call beside it and the wild doves come whistling in at dusk.  Raccoons pace its edges looking for frogs.  It’s everything a river should be.”  (pg. 72) Sorry couldn’t help myself, I had to add more imagery. Steinbeck’s imagery is just so….JUST READ THE BOOK AND YOU’LL UNDERSTAND!

·        Tone: “Cannery Row becomes itself again, after the canning is stopped, done-quiet and magical. Its normal life returns.” (pg. 7) Steinbeck’s tone is undeniably sentimental, he like all who traverse there, comfortably coddled in the thralls, blanket of Cannery Row’s, Monterey’s magic.
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CHARACTERIZATION__________________________
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?

2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?

3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.

4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.
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                  1.

Direct Characterization

·        EXAMPLE 1:

·        “Everyone who knew [Doc] was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, "I really must do something nice for Doc."

·        EXAMPLE 2:

·        “What [Lee Chong] did with his money, no one ever knew. Perhaps he didn't get it. Maybe his wealth was entirely in unpaid bills. But he lived well and had the respect of all his neighbors”

Indirect characterization

·        EXAMPLE 1:

·        “And the loneliness—the desolate cold aloneness of the landscape made Andy whimper because there wasn't anybody at all in the world and he was left.”


·        EXAMPLE 2:

·        “Everyone in town was more or less affected by the skater. Trade fell off out of sight of him and got better the nearer you came to Holman's. Mack and the boys went up and looked for a moment and then went back to the Palace. They couldn't see that it made much sense.”

After completing now five separate literature analysis, if you haven’t caught on to my own analysis on this question here’s the stint, “Any writers worth their royalties utilize both direct and indirect characterization.” And John Steinbeck deserves some hefty royalties (postmortem even!). As substantiated by the direct examples, Steinbeck employs more often then not this type of characterization, preferring to layer levels of character complexity in the actions of his “actors”. Indirect characterization is used by the writer when communicating not just a facet of a given character such as indirect example one’s Andy believing himself the only “real” “conscious” person left walking, but frequently to relate a scene to a specific theme. Subsequently Steinbeck fleshes out his characters more realistically as people defined by their actions, not thoughts or directly expressed archetypal features.

2.

·        “The Carmel is a lovely little river.  It isn’t very long but in its course it has everything a river should have.  It rises in the mountains, and tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, is dammed to make a lake, spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live, drops in against banks where crayfish live.  In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in.  Frogs blink from its banks and the deep ferns grow beside it.  Deer and foxes come to drink from it, secretly in the morning and evening, and now and then a mountain lion crouched flat laps its water.  The farms of the rich little valley back up to the river and take in water for the orchards and vegetables.  The quail call beside it and the wild doves come whistling in at dusk.  Raccoons pace its edges looking for frogs.  It’s everything a river should be.” 

·        “Everyone who knew [Doc] was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, "I really must do something nice for Doc."

Yep. Steinbeck’s syntax notably differs from his usually visually extravagant style, panache prose flair. Just by a cursory glance you can observe Steinbeck’s syntax with descriptive prose composed of verbose and vivid picture pieces building the setting whilst characterization almost takes a backseat with its brevity in length/description of character and their respective actions. So yes, yep indeed his syntax shifts visibly when transitioning to characterization pieces.

3. UGH! Cannery Row’s cast is rather erratic and as I stated in the beginning is, save for a few, often times a rotary of one time, one story, characters. So there really is no “protagonist” even plural for that matter, thus this question cannot be answered. I will answer/give my opinion on the “dynamic” quality of the characters in general in the proceeding question however.

4.
·        "I love you…” Frankie said to Doc one afternoon. “Oh.” Doc smiled. “I love you too.”

The nature of Cannery Row as John Steinbeck sought to capture is undeniably idyllically romanticized, sentimental in its world building of the setting as well as occasionally trope-filled with some simple, stereotypical type-cast characters (like Mack arguably as the archetype of a carefree, little troubled, homeless man innocent and absent of most realistically common avarices like that of greed, alcohol, etc.) but the excerpt above, one of so many throughout the novel, can only express the ultimately inexpressible complexity of man. Doc is the closet character the novel has to a “main protagonist” for good reason. He is kind a “man who ministers sick puppies and unhappy souls” yet at one point in the novel he beats the living !@#@$@ out of Mack after the kindhearted, good intentioned transient accidentally obliterated his lab, and at another point essentially adopts a mentally challenged child (Frankie; the quote above deriving from a conversation between the two) who has no place to go, without anyone who really loves him. Just like Doc. Doc is Steinbeck’s tool to some degree.  Doc before Frankie was a slave to his own devices, cold, scientific routine and rationale, having no interest really in human affairs though he was always nice to his fellow man (truthfully he avoided them as he was a recluse in his seaside lab). Thus Doc is a symbol for what compassion can do. Doc by the end of the novel, Frankie at his side, realized his rationale would only lead to a lonely husk of an existence, no love from a fellow human being, he found the soul of community, restoring his own soul. This all accomplished without even a detonated sentence in the novel truly detailing the turn of character transformation. So indeed, Doc and many of the other characters are “dynamic”, as “dynamic” as us “real” human beings with depth and breathe of complexity in character, faults and flaws mirroring are self-centered society. Cannery Row an allegory for mankind’s inherent, but often times ignored, need for community. Reliant, self-reliant, independent, interdependent, a species of separate individuals but a species all the same. For life is just that: a story of one yet everyone. A grand story made up of many smaller ones.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Fall Vocabulary study sheet

Not really anything creative per se, i am pretty orthodox in my studying, just reading the words/definitions is enough of a mnemonic device for me! Feel free to utilize anyone who actually reads this :)



Fall Vocabulary
List 1
  • Adumbrate: verb (used with object), ad·um·brat·ed, ad·um·brat·ing. 1.to produce a faint image or resemblance of; to outline or sketch.2.to foreshadow; prefigure.3.to darken or conceal partially; overshadow.
  • Apotheosis: 1.the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.2.the ideal example; epitome; quintessence: This poem is the apotheosis of lyric expression.
  • Ascetic: a person who leads an austerely simple life, especially one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or denies himself or herself material satisfaction.
  • Bauble: a showy, usually cheap, ornament; trinket; gewgaw.
  • Beguile: to influence by trickery, flattery, etc.; mislead; delude.
  • Burgeon: to grow or develop quickly; flourish: The town burgeoned into a city. He burgeoned into a fine actor.
  • Complement: something that completes or makes perfect: A good wine is a complement to a good meal.
  • Contumacious: stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient.
  • Curmudgeon: a bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person.
  • Didactic: intended for instruction; instructive: didactic poetry. Inclined to teach or lecture others too much: a boring, didactic speaker.
  • Disingenuous: lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere: Her excuse was rather disingenuous.
  • Exculpate: verb (used with object), ex·cul·pat·ed, ex·cul·pat·ing. to clear from a charge of guilt or fault; free from blame; vindicate
  • Faux pas: a slip or blunder in etiquette, manners, or conduct; an embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion.
  • Fulminate: to explode with a loud noise; detonate. 2. to issue denunciations or the like (usually followed by against ): The minister fulminated against legalized vice.
  • Fustian: inflated or turgid language in writing or speaking: Fustian can't disguise the author's meager plot. 1. fustian means "pompous" or "bombastic"
  • Hauteur: haughty manner or spirit; arrogance.
  • Inhibit: to restrain, hinder, arrest, or check (an action, impulse, etc.).
  • Jeremiad: a jeremiad is literary work or speech expressing bitter lament, prophecies of doom, or mournful complaints about society. (Think gothic tale)
  • Opportunist: An individual that readily adapts to a given scenario, embracing opportunism no matter ethical provisions/concerns or oversights.
  • Unconscionable: not guided by conscience; unscrupulous.

List 2
  • Accoutrements: personal clothing, accessories, etc.
  • Apogee: the highest or most distant point; climax.
  • Apropos: fitting; at the right time; to the purpose; opportunely.
  • Bicker: to engage in petulant or peevish argument; wrangle
  • Coalesce: to unite so as to form one mass, community, etc.: The various groups coalesced into a crowd.
  • Contretemps: an inopportune occurrence; an embarrassing mischance: He caused a minor contretemps by knocking over his drink.
  • Convolution: a rolled up or coiled condition; byzantine; overly complicated
  • Cull: to choose; select; pick.
  • Disparate: distinct in kind; essentially different; dissimilar: disparate ideas.
  • Dogmatic: asserting opinions in a doctrinaire or arrogant manner; opinionated.
  • Licentious: unrestrained by law or general morality; lawless; immoral.
  • Mete: to distribute or apportion by measure; allot; dole (usually followed by out): to mete out punishment.
  • Noxious: harmful or injurious to health or physical well-being: noxious fumes.
  • Polemic: a controversial argument, as one against some opinion, doctrine, etc.
  • Populous: full of residents or inhabitants, as a region; heavily populated.
  • Probity: integrity and uprightness; honesty.
  • Repartee: a quick, witty reply.
  • Supervene: to take place or occur as something additional or extraneous (sometimes followed by on or upon ); to ensue
  • Truncate: to shorten by cutting off a part; cut short: Truncate detailed explanations.
  • Unimpeachable: above suspicion; impossible to discredit; impeccable: unimpeachable motives.
List 3
  • Accolade: any award, honor, or laudatory notice: The play received accolades from the press.
  • Acerbity: harshness or severity, as of temper or expression: It's a strange experience to read a critic best known for extreme acerbity writing about a subject he loves.
  • Attrition: a wearing down or weakening of resistance, especially as a result of continuous pressure or harassment: The enemy surrounded the town and conducted a war of attrition.
  • Bromide: a platitude or trite saying; a person who is platitudinous and boring: We continually hear that education is the bromide that will solve everything.
  • Chauvinist: a person who is aggressively and blindly patriotic, especially one devoted to military glory; a person who believes one gender is superior to the other, as a male chauvinist or a female chauvinist: The man was brazenly chauvinistic in his comments on the lady’s strength.
  • Chronic: continuing a long time or recurring frequently: a chronic state of civil war.
  • Expound: to set forth or state in detail; to explain; interpret: The man expounded knowledge in a very pedantic, hauteur manner.
  • Factionalism: of a faction or factions: Factional interests had obstructed justice.
  • Immaculate: free from fault or flaw; free from errors; spotless, clean: The dress was immaculate.
  • Imprecation: the act of imprecating; cursing: The boy avoided the imprecation that was his teacher’s long lectures, rants.
  • Ineluctable: incapable of being evaded; inescapable: The man had an ineluctable fate.
  • Mercurial: changeable; capricious; volatile; fickle; flighty; erratic: The man was mercurial in his activities.
  • Palliate: to relieve or lessen without curing; mitigate; alleviate: Applying pressure to an open wound palliates the pain.
  • Protocol: the customs and regulations dealing with diplomatic formality, precedence, and etiquette; It was protocol to clock in everyday before beginning work.
  • Resplendent: shining brilliantly; gleaming; splendid: The troops were resplendent in their white uniforms.
  • Stigmatize: to set some mark of disgrace or infamy upon: The crimes of the father stigmatized the whole family.
  • Sub rosa: confidentially; secretly; privately: The man sent his message in sub rosa fashion.
  • Vainglory: excessive elation or pride over one's own achievements, abilities, etc.; boastful vanity: The man’s vainglory was unparalleled.
  •  Vestige: a mark, trace, or visible evidence of something that is no longer present or in existence: A few columns were the last vestiges of a Greek temple.
  • Volition: the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; exercise of willing: She left of her own volition.


List 4

  • Apostate: a person who foresakes his religion, cause, party, etc: The monk was an apostate after his blatant breach of his religious law.

  • Effusive: pouring out; overflowing: The teenager’s exuberance was overtly effusive.

  • Impasse: a position or situation from which there is no escape: Between a literal rock and a hard place, the hikers were at an unfortunate impasse.

  • Euphoria: a feeling of happiness, confidence or well-being sometimes exaggerated in pathological states as mania: The hipster felt a euphoric high as he listened to his indie band’s tracks.

  • Lugubrious: mournful, dismal or gloomy: Busy work is a lugubrious task…

  • Bravado: a pretentious, swaggering display of courage: The bullriders animated bravado in the face of the horned steer was unparalleled.

  • Consensus: majority of opinion: We came to a consensus on what was the best movie of the summer this year.

  • Dichotomy: division into two parts: Varied colors and shades in peacocks further the evidence of sexual dichotomy present in biology.

  • Constrict: to draw or press in; cause to contract or shrink; My bloodflow is constricted when up late.

  • Gothic: style of architecture; barbarous or crude, dark brooding tone/writing; Many Cathedral’s of Germany illustrate features of Gothic style.

  • Punctilio: a fine point particular, or detail, as of conduct, ceremony, or procedure: Lawyers often emphasize the subjective punctilios of law to secure loopholes in cases.

  • Metamorphosis: a complete change of form, structure, or substance; Butterflies are the apotheosis of biologic metamorphosis.

  • Raconteur: a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes interestingly: Connor McNamara constantly references quotes to preface his essays/conversations, he is quite the raconteur.

  • Sine qua non: an indispensable condition, elements, or factor; something essential: Her presence was the sine qua non of every social event.

  • Quixotic: extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary, impractical, or impracticable: When he did get around to talking about his own ideas, they seemed quixotic.

  • Vendetta: any prolonged and bitter feud, rivalry, contention or the like; Seems like the fates have their own personal vendettas against me some days.

  • Non sequitur: an inference or a conclusion that does not follow from the premises: Family Guy, with its constant random vignettes utilizes/ has mastered the art of non sequitur comedy.

  • Mystique: an aura of mystery or mystical power surrounding a particular occupation or pursuit: There was a certain mystique about the fog ensconced mountaintop.

  • Quagmire: a situation from which extrication is very difficult; There were in a vehicular quagmire when there car failed on the side of the road.

  • Parlous: dangerous; or obsolete: Today’s systems of education are widely parlous in there ridiculous techniques/execution.  


List 5

  • Acumen: keen insight; shrewdness: He had remarkable acumen in business matters.

  • Adjudicate: to settle or determine (an issue or dispute) judicially: The court adjudicated the domestic dispute.

  • Anachronism: something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time: A dinosaur in NY? What an anachronism!

  • Apocryphal: false; spurious: He told an apocryphal story about the sword, but the truth was later revealed.

  • Disparity: lack of similarity or equality; inequality; difference: there was a marked disparity in age between the mother and her daughters.

  • Dissimulate: to disguise or conceal under a false appearance; dissemble: The man quickly dissimilated the argument.

  • Empirical: provable or verifiable by experience or experiment; The evidence was empirically in favor to the suspects claims.

  • Flamboyant: strikingly bold or brilliant; showy; The colors were ostentatiously flamboyant.

  • Fulsome: offensive to good taste, especially as being excessive; overdone or gross: The fulsome praise embarrassed her deeply.

  • Immolate: to kill as a sacrificial victim, as by fire; offer in sacrifice; Sacrifices were often immolated in the lava of active volcanoes.

  • Imperceptible: not perceptible; not perceived by or affecting the senses; Her emotion were imperceptible.

  • Lackey: a servile follower; toady; The lanky teen was followed by his large lackey.

  • Liaison: a person who initiates and maintains such a contact or connection: The woman was the liaison, intermediary between federal and local governmental affairs.
  • Monolithic: characterized by massiveness, total uniformity, rigidity, invulnerability, etc: the black tile was monolithic compared to the surrounding hominids.

  • Mot juste: the exact, appropriate word.; the writer always found the Mot juste when composing his descriptions.

  • Nihilism: total rejection of established laws and institutions; Caleb was indeed the apotheosis of nihilism.

  • Patrician: a person of noble or high rank; aristocrat; Patricians are not looked kindly upon in the American Revolution.

  • Propitiate: to make favorably inclined; appease; conciliate.; The immolated sacrifices propitiated the tribal’s pagan gods.

  • Sic: to attack (used especially in commanding a dog); to de-notate error: Sic 'em!

  • Sublimate: purified or exalted; sublimated: The purifier sublimated the tap water.

List 6

  • Obsequious: servilely compliant or deferential; The servants were obsequious.

  • Beatitude: supreme blessedness; exalted happiness; To kiss the ladies hand was of the greatest of the man’s beatitudes.

  • Bête noire: a person or thing especially disliked or dreaded; bane; bugbear.; Busy work is the Bête noire of my existence.

  • Bode: to be an omen of; portend; The storm clouds bode inclement weather ahead.

  • Dank: unpleasantly moist or humid; damp and, often, chilly; The room was dank with mold and rain residue.

  • Ecumenical: general; universal; English is often a ecumenical exercise in universal subjectivity/relativity.

  • Fervid: heated or vehement in spirit, enthusiasm, etc; The agnostic and clergymen had a fervid religious debate.

  • Fetid: having an offensive odor; stinking; Her shoes pervaded with an odiferous, dank, and fetid aroma.

  • Gargantuan: large, monolithic, huge; The boxer was gargantuan, a titan amongst men.

  • Heyday: height, in monitarial prosperity, success etc.; In its heyday, Blockbuster was a blockbuster in the retail space.

  • Incubus: demonic, impish in character or appearance/actions. A cause of distress or anxiety like a nightmare; The boy was nearly an incubus with his mischievous behavior.

  • Infrastructure: the basic, underlying framework or features of a system or organization.; The schools infrastructure was dilapidated, crumbling from age.

  • Inveigle: to entice, lure, or ensnare by flattery or artful talk or inducements; The femme fatale is frequently depicted inveigling her male prey.

  • Kudos: honor; glory; acclaim; He received kudos as well as accolades from everyone for his performance.

  • Lagniappe: Something given as a bonus or extra gift; As a Christmas bonus, Scrooge gave a gracious lagniappe to his laborers.

  • Prolix: Using or containing too many words; tediously lengthy; My writing is occasionally prolix in prose.

  • Protégé: a person who receives support and protection from an influential patron who furthers the protege's career; Padowans are Jedi protégés.

  • Prototype: A first or preliminary model of something, esp. a machine, from which other forms are developed or copied; The first prototype rockets were failures.

  • Sycophant: A person who acts obsequiously toward someone in order to gain advantage; a servile flatterer; Sycophants are self-subscribing pukes to put it harshly, bluntly, always kissing up to get into the good graces of an individual.

  • Tautology: The saying of the same thing twice in different words; Tautology is synonymous with redundancy.

  • Truckle: Submit or behave obsequiously; The servants were truckling pilgrims, unquestioning in their servitude.

List 7

Aberration: an optical phenomenon resulting from the failure of a lens or mirror to produce a good image; a disorder in one's mental state; a state or condition markedly different from the norm; The mutant was a biological aberration.

Ad hoc: for the special purpose or end presently under consideration; The PSP function of Wi-Fi was ad-hoc for multiplayer connections.

Bane: something causes misery or death; Busy work is not just the bête noire of my existence, but the bane.

Bathos: triteness or triviality of style; a change from a serious subject to a disappointing one; insincere pathos; Bathetic stereotypes/stable characters are common in “Urban Fantasy” novels.

Cantankerous: having a difficult and contrary disposition; stubbornly obstructive and unwilling to cooperate; The old spy was cantankerous on his last mission.

Casuistry: moral philosophy based on the application of general ethical principles to resolve moral dilemmas; argumentation that is specious or excessively subtle and intended to be misleading; Fickle casuistry is prominent in schools of thought.

De facto: in fact; in reality; Detroit used to be the defacto heart of US industrial endeavors.

Depredation: an act of plundering and pillaging and marauding; (usually plural) a destructive action; The bandits acts of depredation knew no bounds.

Empathy: understanding and entering into another's feelings; Empathy is crucial to human relationships.

Harbinger: an indication of the approach of something or someone; verb foreshadow or presage; Grey clouds are the harbinger of a storm, boding inclement weather.

Hedonism: an ethical system that evaluates the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good; the pursuit of pleasure as a matter of ethical principle; Many were persecuted for their deemed “hedonistic” ways.

Lackluster: lacking luster or shine; lacking brilliance or vitality; The fireworks display was lackluster to say the least, the opposite of resplendent.

Malcontent: discontented as toward authority; noun a person who is discontented or disgusted; With a low brow, frowning lips, the teen’s malcontent was evident, a nihilist in every sense of the word.

Mellifluous: pleasing to the ear; sweetly or smoothly flowing; sweet-sounding; Bebop is inarguably an audio pleasure, mellifluous to the ears.

Nepotism: favoritism shown to relatives or close friends by those in power (as by giving them jobs); Nepotism is common in economically unsound regions of the world.

Pander: give satisfaction to; The politician pandered to the people with false promises.

Peccadillo: petty misdeed; Stealing is no little peccadillo, nor a punctilio.

Piece de resistance: the most noteworthy or prized feature, aspect, event, article, etc., of a series or group; special item or attraction; Snow is the piece de resistance of any Christmas.

Remand: the act of sending an accused person back into custody to await trial (or the continuation of the trial); verb refer (a matter or legal case) to another committee or authority or court for decision; lock up or confine, in or as in a jail; The court remanded the civilian.

Syndrome: a complex of concurrent things; a pattern of symptoms indicative of some disease; PTSD syndrome is prevalent in war veterans.


List 8

  • abeyance (noun) A state of temporary disuse or suspension


  • ambivalent (adjective) Having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone

  • beleaguer (verb) Beset with difficulties

  • carte blanche (noun) Complete freedom to act as one wishes or thinks best

  • cataclysm (noun) A large-scale and violent event in the natural world

  • debauch (verb) Destroy or debase the moral purity of; corrupt.

  • eclat (noun) An enthusiastic approval

  • fastidious (adjective) Very attentive to and concerned about accuracy and detail

  • gambol (verb) Run or jump about playfully

  • imbue (verb) Inspire or permeate with a feeling or quality

  • inchoate (adjective) Just begun and so not fully formed or developed

  • lampoon (verb) Publicly criticize (someone or something) by using ridicule or sarcasm

  • malleable (adjective) Easily influenced; pliable

  • nemesis (noun) The inescapable or implacable agent of someone's or something's downfall

  • opt (verb) Make a choice from a range of possibilities

  • philistine (noun) A person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts, or who has no understanding of them

  • picaresque (adjective) Of or relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero

  • queasy (adjective) Nauseated; feeling sick

  • refractory (adjective) Stubborn or unmanageable

  • savoir-faire (noun) The ability to act or speak appropriately in social situations


List 9

Abortive: failing to produce the intended result: The experiment produced only abortive results.

Bruit: spread a report or rumor widely: The man bruited his misgreavings, expounded them in fact.

Contumelious: scornful and insulting behavior: His contumelious, contumacious, behavior was uncalled for.

Dictum: a formal pronouncement from an authoritative source; a short statement that expresses a general truth or principle: The Roman Empire issued many a dictum, fulmination, during its draconian reign.

Ensconce: establish or settle: The meadow was ensconced by conifers, sentries for centuries van-guarding one of the last gardens not yet harvested by man.

Iconoclastic: characterized by attack on established beliefs or institutions: Nazi culture was incredibly iconoclastic.

In medias res: a narrative that begins somewhere in the middle of a story rather than the beginning: Many notable works of fiction begin in medias res.

Internecine: destructive to both sides in a conflict: Internecine love triangles are common tropes in fiction.

Maladroit: ineffective or bungling; clumsy: His actions were maladroit.

Maudlin: self-pitying or tearfully sentimental, often through drunkenness: His maudlin expression was pathetic.

Modulate: exert a modifying or controlling influence on: The scientist modulates all his experiments.

Portentous: of or like a portent; done in a pompously or overly solemn manner: Her portentous demeanor was disrespectful.

Prescience: the power to foresee the future: Ancient oracles were said to be imbued with prescience, precognition.

Quid pro quo: a favor or advantage granted in return for something: Giving a dish is only quid pro quo in dinner gatherings.

Salubrious: health-giving, healthy; pleasant, not run-down: The drink was a salubrious brew.

Saturnalia: the ancient Roman festival of Saturn in December; an occasion of wild revelry: Effervescent and intoxicated, the festival reveled in saturnalia.

Touchstone: a standard or criterion by which something is judged or recognized:
There are many touchstone moments in our nation’s history.

Traumatic: emotionally disturbing or distressing; relating to or causing psychological trauma: Batman’s parent’s death was indeed traumatic.

Vitiate: spoil or impair the quality or efficiency of; destroy or impair the legal validity of: The car jam vitiated the flow of traffic.

Waggish: humorous in a playful, mischievous, or facetious manner: The imp was waggish in his swagger.

List 10

Aficionado- a serious devotee of some particular genre, thing, person, etc.

Browbeat- to discourage or frighten with threats or a domineering manner; intimidate

Commensurate- able to be measured by a common standard; mete out

Diaphanous- Of such fine texture as to be transparent or translucent

Emolument- Payment for an office or employment

Foray- an initial venture

Genre- a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like: the genre of epic poetry;

Homily- An inspirational saying or platitude

Immure- To confine within or as if within walls; imprison

Insouciant- carefree or unconcerned; light-hearted

Matrix- a substance, situation, or environment in which something has its origin, takes
form, or is enclosed

Obsequies- A funeral rite or ceremony

Panache- a grand or flamboyant manner; verve; style; flair: The actor who would play Cyrano must have panache.

Persona- The role that one assumes or displays in public or society; one's public image or personality, as distinguished from the inner self

Philippic- a bitter or impassioned speech of denunciation; invective

Prurient- unusually or morbidly interested in sexual thoughts or practices

Sacrosanct- Regarded as sacred and inviolable

Systemic- Of or relating to systems or a system

Tendentious- having or showing a definite tendency, bias, or purpose: a tendentious novel.

Vicissitude- A change or variation


List 11

  • Affinity- love or passion towards a particular thing; aficionado etc.

  • Bilious- of or indicative of a peevish ill nature disposition

  • Cognate- of the same nature

  • Corollary- an immediate consequence or easily drawn conclusion.

  • Cul-de-sac- any situation in which further progress is impossible.

  • Derring-do- a daring action

  • Divination- The art or practice that seeks to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge due to the interpretation of omens

  • Elixir- A substance capable of prolonging life indefinitely

  • Folderol- a useless accessory

  • Gamut- an entire range or series

  • Hoi polloi- the General populace

  • Ineffable- incapable of being expressed in words

  • Lucubration- to study by night

  • Mnemonic- intended to assist memory

  • Obloquy- abusive language

  • Parameter- an independent variable used to express the coordinates of variable point and functions of them

  • Pundit- a learned man

  • Risible- provoking laughter

  • Symptomatic- having the characteristics of a certain disease but arising of a different cause

  • Volte-face- a reversal in policy