O.K., without looking at a dictionary (It's O.K. if you already have, but don't turen to it right now), write down your homespun definitions for the words: levity, amanuensis, exegesis, eschatology, and homiletics. Then go to a dictionary or dictionaries. If the word is listed, what meaning listed comes closest to yours. (It's O.K. if you were even "way off" in your guesses.)
So, go to the comments section at the bottom of the post and write your results.
You will have the word, your guess at to what it means, and an actual dictionary definition (if the dictionary has one).
Give us those three things for each of the following words:
levity
amanuensis
exegesis
eschatology
homiletics
Post your answers in the comments section below this post.
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3 comments:
Levity: frivolous,uncaring :
lightness of manner or speech, frivolity
(obsolete) lack of steadiness
The state or quality of being light,buoyancy
Amanuensis: A scribe, someoene writing another persons ideas::
One employed to take dictation, or copy manuscripts
A clerk, secretary or stenographer
Exegesis: ??????? :
A formal written exposition or explanatory essay especially of a scripture or other religious text.
Eschatology: The study of religious writings:
System of doctrines concerning final matters, such as death.
The study of the end times — the end of the world, the Second Coming, or the Last Judgment.
homiletics: the study of the structure of a sermon:
The art of preaching (especially the application of rhetoric in theology).
Levity-a state of being "silly"-
lightness of mind, character, or behavior;lack of appropriate seriousness or earnestness
Amanuensis-someone who writes for someone else- a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another
Exegesis-a study of scripture- critical explanation of interpretation of a text or portion of textespecially the Bible
Eschatology- study of doctrines- any system of doctrines concerning last or final matters, such as death, the judgement, the future state, etc.
Homiletics- styles of preaching- the art of preaching; the branch of practical theology that treats of homilies or sermons
Impressive, brethren (to use a Bible word:))!
See how that you were able to get some idea of the meanings of the words by using the context. Sometimes your words were more general, but for the most part you were pretty well on track.
Just as an experiment, when I first heard of doing this, I went to the library and checked out a book called The Iliad by a man named Homer. Well, it was a translation of the book at least. It had a lot of unfamiliar words, and I did not go to the dictionary. When I came to one of those words, I wrote down the meaning that I guessed would work. The next time I came to the same word, I looked to see if my earlier guess would still fit in the sentence. Sometimes I was able to refine my guess a little. Sometimes I had written the word followed by my first guess and then I wrote "OR" and wrote down a second guess.
I remember learning the word "Pyre" (a pile of wood that lit on fire and used to burn dead bodies) at that time.
I was able to get through the story with it seeming to make sense to me.
After that, I went to the dictionary. For the most part I had guessed closely to one of the dictionary meanings. Sometimes my definitions were more general, and I guess I might have had some gesses that were just plain wrong (although I don't remember that).
I encourage you to continue to use this technique. The important part, though, is to write down your guesses as you come to them. We already often use the context idea, but if we don't write down our definitions, we often forget what we thought of earlier.
Anyway, thanks for going through this exercise. Good job, both of you.
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