STUDY GUIDE FOR MIDSEMESTER EXAM FOR ENG 312: ENGLISH IN ITS SOCIAL
SETTING; COVERING Vocabulary--Plus High School and Up: A Source-Based Approach by
Alleen and Don Nilsen (Allyn and Bacon, 2004).
Borrowing from: French, German, Latin, Spanish, Arabic, American Indian Languages
Contrast: Conceptual Metaphors vs. Source-Based Metaphors, Lexical Categories vs.
Grammatical Categories, Bound vs. Free Morphemes, Ambiguity vs. Paraphrase vs.
Anomaly, Pun vs. Metaphor, Right vs. Left Metaphors, Black vs. White Metaphors
Definitions: Matrix, Venn Diagram
Etymological Intelligent Guessing: List four tests and tell which of these test is most important.
Etymologies: Obi-Wan Error (e.g. IBM  HAL), pie, scape goat, SPAM, Trojan horse virus,
UTSL, Vulcan Nerve Pinch
Examples: Acronyming, Amelioration, Antithesis, Blending, Clipping, Compounds, Eponyms,
Generalization, Specialization, Metonymy, Part-of-Speech Change, Pejoration, Place
Metaphors, Synecdoche
Explanations: AD, AM, PM, PS, arpeggio, bias, biting off more than you can chew, bitter
experience, blooming idiot, budding genius, canvassing a neighborhood, celebrity roast,
cooking someone’s goose, corduroy, drum stick, fringe benefits, gravy train, grilling a
witness, jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, Lotus Spread Sheet, mincing words,
on pins and needles, patching someone through (telephone), seamy side of life, slicing a
golf ball, peeling off some twenties, spicy movie, strawberry blond, supercilious, that’s
how the cookie crumbles
Folk Etymologies: guerilla warfare, hero sandwich, Pidgin
Latin Equivalences: disheartened, heart attack, hearty greeting, horn of plenty, to learn by
heart
Numbers as Symbols: 180º, Catch 22, Heinz 57 Varieties, The Sabbath, Sixty minutes, V-8
Juice
Sound Change: Draw a diagram of Grimm’s law and the Great English Vowel Change
2-POINT METAPHOR EXAMPLES:
ANIMAL METAPHORS: animal group, animal horn, animal home, animal tail, bear, bird,
buffalo, cats, chicken, cow, crab, dog, donkey, female animal, fish, fox, goat, goose,
horse, lion, male animal, mouce, monkey, pig, rat, sheep, tail, tiger, young animal
BODY-PART METAPHORS: arm, back, body, butt, elbow, face, hair, head, kidney, neck,
nose, foot, shoulder, skeleton, skin, tooth, throat (SEE ALSO LATIN METAPHORS)
CLOTHING METAPHORS: apron, belt, boot, button, cap, coat, collar, cotton, crown, cuff,
dress, glove, hood, lace, muff, pants, rag, shirt, shoe, shuttle, silk, skirt, sleeve, sock, spin,
spur, string, thread, veil, vest, weave, wool (SEE ALSO LATIN METAPHORS)
LATIN & GREEK METAPHORS: ambi (both), bi (two), bio (life), bursa (purse), cantare
(singing), capillus (hair), caput (head), centum (100), cordis (heart), corona (crown),
corpus (body), decem (10), dentes (tooth), dicere (speak), digitus (finger), duo (two),
fructose (fruit), gen (birth), giga (billion), graphere (to write), jocus (joke), killo (1000),
lexis (word), lingua (tongue), loquere (speak), manus (hand), mill (1000), mono (one),
mortalis (death), nascent (birth), nihil (zero), novem (nine), oct (eight), oculis (eye),
onyma (name), opus (work), parabola (comparison), pedis (foot), pent (five), phonus
(sound), plangere (lament), primus (first), quere (ask), quattour (four), quinque (five),
rhetorica (oratory), scribere (to write), semi- (half), hept (seven), hex (six), signum
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(mark), sonus (sound), spel (tale), spiritus (spirit), tonus (tension), tres (three), unus
(one), vivere (life)
LIVING, DYING & TIME METAPHORS: birth, death, life, give 5 euphemisms for death; give
5 flippantisms for death; give 5 Gothic movies; give 5 Gothic symbols (SEE LATIN &
OLD ENGLISH METAPHORS)
NUMBER METAPHORS: zero, half, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten (SEE
LATIN METAPHORS & NUMBERS AS SYMBOLS)
OLD ENGLISH METAPHORS: ban (bone), beran (give birth), gast (ghost), skeleton (skeleton)
PLANT & FOOD METAPHORS: apple, branch, bread, bush, cultivate, egg, field, fruit, grain,
hay, hedge, leaf, log, meat, muck, plant, stem, stick, straw, stump, thresh, trunk (SEE
ALSO EXPLANATIONS)
PREFIX & SUFFIX METAPHORS: anno (year), ante- (before), anti- (before), arch(prototypical), bene- vs. mis- (good-bad), contra- (against), con- vs. dis- (with-away), de(away), eu- vs. fore (first), mal- (good-bad), hyper- vs. hypo- (above-below), in- vs. ex(toward-away from), in- (negative [note assimilation], maxi- vs. mini- (big-little), mega(huge), micro- (diminutive), neo- (new), non- (negative), -or vs. –ee (agent-receiver),
ortho- (straight), poly- (many), pre- vs. post- (before-after), pro- vs. con (for-against),
re- again, super-sub (above-below), trans (across), un- (negative) PART-OF-SPEECH
CHANGE: -ate, -y, -ion, -ious
SENSE & COMMUNICATION METAPHORS: alphabet shape, bitter, communication,
double entendre (linguistic & visual), hearing, musical instrument, salty, sight, smell,
souer, taste, theatre, touch, voice, writing (SEE ALSO LATIN METAPHORS)
10-Point Essay Questions (at least ½ page of small writing per answer) (Three of these will be
asked):
1. Explain how and why the meanings of words change. Consider typical metaphorical
sources and targets. Also consider denotation and connotation.
2. Explain how a knowledge of Grimm’s law and the Great English vowel shift helps you
better understand words that have been borrowed into English from other
languages.
3. Explain how color words such as black, white, red, yellow, blue, green, brown, grey,
orange pink, and purple develop metaphorical meanings.
4. Explain why English speakers use the Arabic number system rather than the Roman
number system.
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