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100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know [moiety???]
Houghton Mifflin ^

Posted on 07/23/2007 7:30:03 PM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative

BOSTON, MA — The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.

"The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."

The following is the entire list of 100 words:

abjure
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
antebellum
auspicious
belie
bellicose
bowdlerize
chicanery
chromosome
churlish
circumlocution
circumnavigate
deciduous
deleterious
diffident
enervate
enfranchise
epiphany
equinox
euro
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
fiduciary
filibuster
gamete
gauche
gerrymander
hegemony
hemoglobin
homogeneous
hubris
hypotenuse
impeach
incognito
incontrovertible
inculcate
infrastructure
interpolate
irony
jejune
kinetic
kowtow
laissez faire
lexicon
loquacious


lugubrious
metamorphosis
mitosis
moiety
nanotechnology
nihilism
nomenclature
nonsectarian
notarize
obsequious
oligarchy
omnipotent
orthography
oxidize
parabola
paradigm
parameter
pecuniary
photosynthesis
plagiarize
plasma
polymer
precipitous
quasar
quotidian
recapitulate
reciprocal
reparation
respiration
sanguine
soliloquy
subjugate
suffragist
supercilious
tautology
taxonomy
tectonic
tempestuous
thermodynamics
totalitarian
unctuous
usurp
vacuous
vehement
vortex
winnow
wrought
xenophobe
yeoman
ziggurat



TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: vocabulary
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To: FoxInSocks
Thank you for the editing. It's very kind of you.

Did you mean to say anything? You didn't, you know.

81 posted on 07/23/2007 8:39:17 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Billthedrill

Yep, I agree. I think good writing is kind of like good engineering in that wherever possible you should try to use off-the-shelf materials, fasteners, etc. A custom part should only be used when something less specialized won’t get the job done.

However, it is fun every now and then to watch someone pop a wheelie and use a word like “moiety” even if it’s not totally called for.


82 posted on 07/23/2007 8:39:39 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: sarasmom
I will pay close attention to “access rights” and “easements”, and look for “moitey”.

Louisiana doesn't have easements. They have predial servitudes.

83 posted on 07/23/2007 8:46:10 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: weegee
“y’know, it shifts the paradigm and stuff”.

lol!

(Actually I kind of like that usage because the "and stuff" is so obviously flip and disarms cheezy learnedness of "paradigm")

84 posted on 07/23/2007 8:46:13 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

It might be a run-on.


85 posted on 07/23/2007 8:46:39 PM PDT by Sloth (The GOP is to DemonRats in politics as Michael Jackson is to Jeffrey Dahmer in babysitting.)
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To: neodad

>subjugate

Where those who speak Hebrew board an underwater vessel.


86 posted on 07/23/2007 8:47:22 PM PDT by Andyman (The truth shall make you freep.)
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To: SteveMcKing

“thermodynamics” does not derive from “thermal dynamics”, which would imply “the dynamics of heat”.

It expresses the idea of the interplay between heat energy and mechanical energy, and the laws governing this interplay. For example, we can calculate the mechanical work which can be obtained from a give thermal transformation.

In a similar spirit, he word “dynamo” is a contraction of “dynamo-electric”, expressing the conversion of mechanical to electrical energy, and of course there’s “magnetohydrodynamics”. I would even have to suppose that “aerodynamics” was conceived in the same way. That is, “dynamics as affected by, or in the presence of, air” as opposed to “the dynamics of air”.


87 posted on 07/23/2007 8:47:26 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half. . . . I never write "metropolis" for seven cents, because I can get the same money for "city." I never write "policeman," because I can get the same price for "cop." . . . I never write "valetudinarian" at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.

—Mark Twain, American writer and journalist, Mark Twain Speeches

88 posted on 07/23/2007 8:48:22 PM PDT by Dinsdale
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To: Alas Babylon!

>homogeneous

Plato or Aristotle


89 posted on 07/23/2007 8:48:57 PM PDT by Andyman (The truth shall make you freep.)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
Is it a common legal principle outside of Louisiana?

Yes, in countries that base their laws upon the Code Napoleon.

90 posted on 07/23/2007 8:48:59 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: Rembrandt
“You know”

All she lacks when she says this is the sound of her chewing gum crackling.

91 posted on 07/23/2007 8:49:52 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

So you use the word “ziggurat” frequently?

Unless you are an Egyptologist, you are one odd bird.

(I had to look the word up)

Somehow, I’m reminded of Al Gore proudly trotting out the word “zeitgeist.” It was laughable pseudo-intellectualism on full display.


92 posted on 07/23/2007 8:50:13 PM PDT by bluefish (Are you really that thick, or are you simply trolling for fun?)
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To: sarasmom

Speaking of all this very proper English, now I read that you had a “former Cajun” for a father-in-law. Tell me, how do they differ from present Cajuns? (Just kidding, doncha know?) (Wisconsin-speak)


93 posted on 07/23/2007 8:51:03 PM PDT by MondoQueen
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To: Right Wing Assault

LOL


94 posted on 07/23/2007 8:52:04 PM PDT by bluefish (Are you really that thick, or are you simply trolling for fun?)
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To: Billthedrill

They say brevity is the soul of wit. My humor this evening must be too subtle. Please excuse me.


95 posted on 07/23/2007 8:53:15 PM PDT by FoxInSocks
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To: bluefish

“It was laughable pseudo-intellectualism on full display.”

As are many of the words on this list, IMHO! Maybe we could begin with ensuring that most high schoolers understood the difference between ask and axe.


96 posted on 07/23/2007 8:57:36 PM PDT by VRWCer ("The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests." - President Andrew Jackson)
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To: FoxInSocks

Not in the least. It was a damn good job of editing in my opinion. I’d have to insist in including “with a subject and a predicate” though. ;-)


97 posted on 07/23/2007 9:00:37 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

How about some hard ones??


98 posted on 07/23/2007 9:00:59 PM PDT by dodger
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To: PAR35
Yes, in countries that base their laws upon the Code Napoleon.

That's what I figgered. So, you still think "moiety" should be an essential part of the vocabulary of Americans outside of Louisiana?

99 posted on 07/23/2007 9:02:20 PM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative (Global Warming Heretic -- http://agw-heretic.blogspot.com)
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To: NittanyLion

Once precipitously gerrymandering to assume her new totalitarian vortex, Emporer Clinton’s first chicanery will be to kowtow the senate and usurp the country.


100 posted on 07/23/2007 9:06:05 PM PDT by Proud_USA_Republican (We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. - Hillary Clinton)
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