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Words You Need To Know
Words from Latin
No language has been more influential in the development of English than Latin. There are two reasons for this. First, when the French conquered England in 1066, their language was very similar to Latin, and French remained England's official language for 200 years. Second, Latin was, until relatively recently, the language of culture, religion, education, and science in the Western world. It is still used today to name newly discovered species of plants and animals and to form some compound words in various scientific and technological fields.
Now You Try
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1. Curriculum is another word from Latin like necessary and interrupt that has an internal double consonant. Can you think of an adjective related to curriculum that also has double r?
That's Correct! The adjective is curricular.
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2. Some of the Latin study-list words end with the sound \shəs\, and the consonant that begins the last syllable is c or t. Can you think of two words in English that end with this sound and are spelled with xious?
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Show Answer
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English words from Latin ending in xious include anxious, noxious, and obnoxious.
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3. The rarely used plural of consensus is consensuses, but some words from Latin that end in us have a plural that ends in a long i sound (\ī\) and is spelled with i. Can you think of three such words?
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Show Answer
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There are several such plurals in English. The most common ones are probably alumnus/alumni, nucleus/nuclei, cactus/cacti, fungus/fungi.
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4. Three words on the study list come from the Latin verb that means "throw." These words are conjecture, dejected, and trajectory. See if you can unscramble these letters to find four other common English words that have the same root:
That's Correct! The words are subject, reject, project, and object.
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5. The consonants gn often occur in words from Latin. When they divide two syllables of a word, both of them are pronounced. Some words from Latin, however, have the consonants gn in a single syllable. In this case, the g is silent, as in design. Can you think of three other words from Latin in which this happens?
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Some other words with a silent g include assign, benign, impugn, and reign.
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