Answers to “city” suffixes a) happiness …felicity……… b) speed of motion …velocity…………….. c) boldness …audacity………. d) talkative people ……loquacity.……….. e) advertising …publicity…. f) lively, animated . …vivacity.………….. g) truthful ……veracity…….. h) greedy ………voracity…………………. i) shrewd, wise …sagacity….. j) easy to understand …simplicity……. k) stretches …elasticity…… l) short supply ………necessity………….. m) family life …domesticity…. n) deceit - double dealing…duplicity…… o) holds a lot …capacity……. p) brutal, fierce …ferocity…………………. q) lots of them …multiplicity r) partner in crime …complicity………….

Answers to Latin words to “kill” # Each relate to killing: ones brother - > fratricide one’s self - > suicide any human being - > homicide one’s mother - > matricide insects - insecticide one’s wife - uxoricide one’s sister - sororicide a king - regicide germs - germicide one’s children - filicide any infant - infanticide one’s father - patricide any near relative - parricide any woman - femicide

Changes in Meaning # The English language has evolved over more than a thousand years and words have come and gone with many changing their meanings, sometimes opposite to what they originally meant. Some words become more acceptable while others decline. Some become more specific, while others more general. Some words change because of sloppy misuse, while others change due to changing circumstances. Sometimes changes in technology occur, but words retain their original reference.

Collective Nouns # Nouns are words that used as name of a person, place or thing. e.g. tree; horse. Proper nouns name specific people, places or things, common nouns name general ones, while abstract nouns name ideas or things we can not see, feel or taste. Collective nouns name groups of people, places of things. Here are some interesting words that describe groups of people, places or things: Animals

Confusing Words # Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Latin for “kill” # Latin Phrases: tend to add gravitas or significance. Homicide To kill another human being is always murder; unless of course, it is accompanied by trumpets. Voltaire The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of 50,000, becomes a statistic. Stalin There are four kinds of homicides: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another – the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.

Nouns as labels # “Many actors are masochists.” Did you know what David Niven meant? Did you work out from the context what a masochist probably was? Actors proved, according to David Niven, that they were masochists by voluntarily subjecting themselves to “the most ghastly torture ever invented for people in my profession”. Can you guess now what the word means? Check your answer in a dictionary. Below you will find some more quite difficult words that are used to describe people with certain human characteristics.

The English Language # On the eve of the First World War, an editorial in the Berlin Deutsche Tageszeitung argued that the German language, “coming direct from the hand of God,” should be imposed “on men of all colors and nationalities.” The alternative, the newspaper said, was unthinkable: Should the English language be victorious and become the world language the culture of mankind will stand before a closed door and the death knell will sound for civilization.

Vocabulary You and Your Vocabulary # Studies have shown that the single most significant factor in success in life is determined by the size of your vocabulary. Language is a tool we have created to communicate with each other and the people who get what they want use language to achieve their purpose. If you are not articulate you will not be as persuasive as someone who has the gift of the gab.

“City” words # The English language is organic; meaning it grows naturally by people democratically coining new words all the time. At least 30,000 new words are created each year. Many die a natural death but some survive to become part of our vocabulary. Some words emerge as a result of Nominalisations; verbs, adjectives, verbs made into nouns: *brevity, inhibition, diffidence..*or by a reverse transformation where nouns are created from verbs or adjectives.