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This video explains the difference between affect and effect and provide tips for remembering which is which and when to use each one. If you suffe...
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Word Choice 2013 Views
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Description:
This video explains the importance of word choice and analyzes the word choice of authors like Jane Austen and Robert Frost and statesmen like Abraham Lincoln. Why do these writers and orators choose the words they do? How do you increase your own vocabulary?
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We speak word joyce allah shmoop there are
- 00:06
more than a million words in the english language and
- 00:09
yet with so many different words to choose from we
- 00:11
often fall back on the same ones over and over
- 00:13
again and it makes sense Some words were just so
Full Transcript
- 00:16
simple understandable and university there the workhorses of our vocabulary
- 00:21
You know how that goes but a workhorse doesn't always
- 00:24
do the trick Sometimes our conversations and are writing requires
- 00:27
to be more selective you know creative but wise word
- 00:31
choice So important the language is a tool We use
- 00:35
words to express the ideas thoughts and emotions in our
- 00:37
heads to the world via the spoken word or the
- 00:41
written word and because we want others to fully understand
- 00:44
what we have to say and not misinterpret anything We
- 00:48
have to care about word choice And choose the appropriate
- 00:53
words for each situation For example max wakes up one
- 01:01
morning and tells his mom i feel bad Well sure
- 01:04
we get the gist of what max is saying but
- 01:06
he could be more specific if his stomach is churning
- 01:10
and he's fairly certain He's going to spend the next
- 01:12
twenty four hours in the bathroom Max should opt for
- 01:15
i feel ill or i feel sick over I feel
- 01:18
bad if he's down in the mouth about spending yet
- 01:22
another boring day in high school max could say i
- 01:25
feel depressed The football team is going to give him
- 01:29
a wedgie again Max could say i feel anxious There
- 01:34
are so many words that more accurately convey what max
- 01:37
feeling that plain old bad also bad isn't likely to
- 01:41
grant him and get out of school free pass card
- 01:43
from mommy Dearest there let's try another example Say we
- 01:47
have the sense jane ran to the pie Well the
- 01:51
word ran is perfectly acceptable But what if jane's movements
- 01:54
could be better articulated by a different word like skip
- 01:58
your scurry or bolton Well these words are more descriptive
- 02:03
than the word ran and they provide us with more
- 02:05
interesting visual images While we tend to not think too
- 02:11
hard before we speak in casual conversation Imagine the length
- 02:17
writers go to in order to come up with the
- 02:19
perfect word for something particular they want to convey Take
- 02:24
this line from jane austen's pride and prejudice where darcy
- 02:27
mentions that elizabeth has fine eyes now jane austen could've
- 02:31
used any number of adjectives here She might have had
- 02:34
darcy save it Elizabeth had lovely eyes or wide eyes
- 02:37
or expressive eyes but she has him describe elizabeth i's
- 02:41
as fine of all the words she might have chosen
- 02:45
Jane austen went for this one Honest or what about
- 02:48
this line from robert frost poem stopping by woods on
- 02:51
a snowy evening where the narrator says that the woods
- 02:55
are lovely dark and deep The words frost uses here
- 02:59
not only convey a certain image but they continue the
- 03:02
flow of his poetry is the word deep rhymes with
- 03:05
a final word in the next three lines of the
- 03:07
poem we might think that writers have a tough sweating
- 03:10
over a fous rs or addiction areas They search for
- 03:12
that perfect word but what about statesmen Take the opening
- 03:19
words of abraham lincoln's gettysburg address Four score and seven
- 03:23
years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a
- 03:26
new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition
- 03:30
that all men are created equal Okay so lincoln could
- 03:34
have started his speech with the less poetical eighty seven
- 03:37
years ago instead of kicking it old school with that
- 03:40
four score and seven things But lincoln was a gifted
- 03:43
order with a very specific goal for his speech Not
- 03:50
only did he want to emphasize that civil war was
- 03:52
a fight for the survival of the union But he
- 03:55
also wanted americans to understand that the civil war was
- 03:57
a battle for human equality Human equality set forth in
- 04:01
the declaration of independence Written eighty seven also known as
- 04:05
four score and seven years earlier in seventeen seventy six
- 04:13
It is said that lincoln was ill with small pox
- 04:15
when he gave the gettysburg address But let's be honest
- 04:18
We know he's probably threatened over word choice Increasing our
- 04:24
vocabulary So we have more choice when it comes towards
- 04:26
isn't difficult books A great resource is as our books
- 04:29
books and more books Yeah Also we can practice replacing
- 04:35
the workhorse words we use when we talk or write
- 04:38
of other vocabulary Won't max islam be surprised when he
- 04:45
emerges from the bathroom and shows off what he's learned 00:04:48.8 --> [endTime] about word choice
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