Being "Word Detectives"

This week, let's work on the exercise of being word detectives as mentioned in the earlier post on important words.

Let's focus on important words in the material we are reading. I know the emphasized words are important, but I think it would be interesting if you would give us a few results of words you have defined by being a "word detective" like we mentioned in the earlier post. The need for this would be for the unfamiliar or (not completely unfamiliar in the sense that we have never heard of them) vague words--words that we thought we had a glimmer of an idea of what they meant. What meaning did you give these words based on your past understanding? What meaning did you give them when you tried to define or guess at their meanings based on the context. Finally, what dictionary definition (if any, occasionally we might miss a meaning altogether) came closest to your own definition?


For this assignment, pick out two words out of what you are (or have been) reading and perform the following exercise: 1. Review this technique: "When dealing with unfamiliar words, maybe like "homiletics," I would suggest you become a word detective. When you come across an unfamiliar word, stop long enough to write down the word. Then replace the word in your imagination with a blank line, like a "fill in the blank" question on a test. Then make your best guess as to what that word means as it is used in the sentence. Write that guess beside your important word, and keep reading. When you come to the word again, stop and see if your earlier guess still fits. If it does, keep reading. If it does not, either refine your earlier guess based on the context of the new sentence (The context is the words or sentences immediately surrounding the word in question) or put down a completely new guess that seems to fit both situations. When you come to the end of the chapter or section you are reading for the day, then get your dictionary. Look at the different dictionary meanings. Many times you will find a dictionary meaning that matches fairly closely with one of your guesses. I find this a lot more fun than stopping to look up each unfamiliar word as I come to it."

2. Pick out two important words from the material you read last week or what you are reading this week and perform the steps above. Do a word-detective exercise on them, and then tell us what you found out. Post your results in this week's comment sections.

3. Let's use the example of "exegesis" as mentioned in some of Sean's material. He said the word appeared twice in his reading. He will give us the sentences in which the word occurred and at least the sentence before and after each of those sentences. We will remove the word and treat it as a blank. Then we will list our guesses. This will be done in addition to the other two words you pick out.

My problem is that I already have some glimmer of understanding of what the word means, Here is what I said when first asked about the word, "Yes, I have heard of it. Actually it is quite a common word used in religious schools, but it is otherwise not very well known. Before going to a dictionary, let's try some of the principles mentioned earlier. Would you list the two sentences in which it occured and maybe the sentences right before and after those?" However, I will try to go through the exercise too based just on the information Sean gives us from the actual sentences in the book.

Important: Don't go to the dictionary first.(Sean, if your have already seen the dictionary meaning, you will have to do like me and perform the exercise just based on the context of the given sentences. Then we will compare our guesses with the dictionary.)