VOCABULARY JOURNAL

UNIT 1
OTHER WORDS
There are things you mean to do, like brushing your hair or buttoning your shirt.
Then there are things you do accidentally: you didn't mean for them to happen, but
they happened anyway. Just about all spilled milk happens accidentally.

If something happens accidentally, it didn't happen on purpose — blame

it on a mistake, chance, or outside forces.
HAVE YOU HIT SOMEONE ACCIDENTALLY BEFORE?
Anything you're accustomed to is a regular thing for you. A rich person is probably
accustomed to fancy clothes, expensive food, and beautiful houses. A football player
is accustomed to getting tackled and tackling other people.

If you're accustomed to something, you're

used to it. Being accustomed has to do
with habits and lifestyle.

WHAT ARE YOU ACCUSTOMED TO?

Some countries are marked by deprivation especially of the necessities of life
or healthful environmental influences. These countries are disadvantaged.

When you think of children in those

countries, do you see yourself as
advantaged?
Most modern homes are full of appliances that perform various useful tasks — or
help you perform them. A hairdryer is an appliance that dries your hair, and a
television is an appliance that offers hours of mindless entertainment.

An appliance is a tool or device

that performs a certain job. Your
toaster is an appliance, and so is
your dishwasher.
Your dog? Not so much.
A communicative person is one who can communicate easily. Being communicative is one of the qualities we
most value in other people. There's nothing more frustrating than a person who's not communicative, because
you can't talk to them. I'm surprised when others are surprised at how communicative my dog is. Aren't all dogs
good at talking to their owners?

WHO IS THE MOST COMMUNICATIVE PERSON

AROUND YOU?
Countless means more than you could possibly count. If you have countless reasons
why you love living in İstanbul, there are so many reasons that you can't list them
all.

Countless is a good adjective to use

when you want to emphasize how
endless, huge, or immeasurable
something is. Your could say that
smoke detectors save countless
lives each year, or that your
principal has tried countless times
to ban soda at school.

Can you count the birds in

the picture?
A kid might deceive his mother into thinking he has a fever by
holding the thermometer to a light bulb to increase the
temperature.

Deceive is the trickier cousin of lie. You

might lie about why you were late to
school. But if you simply don't explain to
your mom that you were late in the first
place, you are deceiving her. 

HAVE YOU DECEIVED YOUR

TEACHERS BEFORE?
Despair is the feeling of not having any hope left. If you
completely forgot to study for your final exam in math, you
might feel despair when your teacher passes out the test.

Do you remember the

last time when you felt
despair?
The word deteriorate describes anytime something gets worse.
Due to neglect, a relationship can deteriorate.

Why is this
building
deteriorating?
An ethic is framework, or guiding principle, and it's often moral. People
with a strong work ethic believe that hard work is a good thing in and of
itself.

A social ethic might include

"treating people as you want to
be treated." Used in the
plural, ethics refers to the moral
rules that you live by. You can
use it generally, as in:
"my ethics don’t include
cheating."
An expense is a cost, but you can also use this
word to mean the figurative cost of something.
Generosity is a quality that's a lot like unselfishness. Someone
showing generosity is happy to give time, money, food, or kindness to
people in need.

Generosity is a quality — like honesty

and patience — that we all probably wish
we had more of. When you show
generosity, you might give away things or
money or put others before yourself. But
generosity is about more than cash and
stuff. When you're forgiving and gentle to
people, you show generosity of spirit. If
you give others help or credit, that shows
generosity. The world would certainly be
a better place if more people showed
generosity to others.
To be helpless is to have no ability to take care of or protect yourself from harm. A
newborn baby is helpless, and needs parents to care for her.

If you're helpless, you're dependent on other people

to assist or care for you. Breaking both your legs will
leave you helpless, and even being in an unfamiliar
city can make you feel helpless as you wander
around looking for your hotel late at night.
When you infer something, you read between the lines. To infer is to
make a well informed guess — if you see your mom’s bag on the table,
you might infer that she’s home.

When you infer, you listen closely to

someone and guess at things they mean but
haven't actually said. It’s like guessing, but
not making wild guesses. You're making
deductions — guesses based on logic. 
The verb inquire means "to ask for information." If you wonder about
how the world began, you inquire about its origin.

 Inquire can also mean "to conduct an

investigation." No matter how you do
it, when you inquire, you seek
answers.
The meantime is the time between two events. You might be waiting for the second
half of a soccer game to begin, and in the meantime call your best friend to tell her
the score.

You'll most often see the

word meantime in the phrase "in
the meantime," and it can be used in a
similar way to meanwhile. You could say, "I
have to go to the store soon. In
the meantime, I'm playing with the dog." 
To modernize is to adjust or improve something, especially in a way that uses new
technology. You might modernize your grandmother's kitchen by buying her a
microwave and an espresso machine

When you modernize something, you bring

it up to date. You could modernize your
office by buying new computers, for
example, or modernize your antique car by
installing seat belts and a stereo. At the
heart of modernize is the
adjective modern, "relating to the present
time" or "up-to-date."
If you describe something as partial, you're usually saying it's just part of
the whole, or incomplete. Say someone asks how you started your band
and you say, "I bought a guitar." That would be a partial answer, at best.
Something problematic poses a problem or causes difficulties. Your
ambitions to become the next great leader of Spain are great, but your
inability to speak Spanish might prove problematic.
If a sign says "Swimming Prohibited," don't go for a dip. It's
not allowed. To prohibit is to forbid, or to disallow something.