WEBVTT

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- [David] Hello readers,

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today I want to talk about vocabulary

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and how many English words
have Greek or Latin roots

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embedded in them and how you
can use that to your advantage.

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The story of why English has
Greek and Latin in it at all

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is super fascinating to me

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and if I allowed myself, I'd go off

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on a big old tangent about it

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but let's save that for another time.

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Suffice it to say that English has

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Latin and Greek chunks in
it for fun history reasons

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and let's just leave it at that for now.

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I'm not gonna say that you need to be able

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to speak modern Greek
or read ancient Latin

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in order to understand English

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but many complicated words are made up

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of little language building
blocks that we can break apart,

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using the power of understanding!

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(explosion)

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That was cool right?

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I'm cool?

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I'm cool.

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I'm gonna introduce some
vocabulary about vocabulary now,

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so brace yourselves.

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There's this idea of a root word.

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Take the word dent,
which is Latin for tooth.

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From that root word, we can
get the adjective dental,

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which means about teeth,

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or the noun dentist, which means a person

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who specializes in teeth,

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or the noun dentures,
which are false teeth.

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That's what a root is.

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Now you can also combine
roots to make words.

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The word phot is Greek for light,

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the root graph comes from
the Greek for writing.

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You put those together, you get photograph

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or writing with light.

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It's kind of poetic, isn't it?

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To this understanding, let
us add the idea of an affix.

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Affixes aren't words or roots
but they are word particles

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that convey meaning.

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Maybe you've heard of
prefixes and suffixes,

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if you have, these are
both types of affixes.

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Prefixes attach at the
front end of a word,

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whereas suffixes attach at the back end.

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An example of a suffix would
be logy, meaning the study of

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or the science of.

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So we can make a bunch of words with logy,

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like biology, that's supposed
to be a little amoeba;

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cetology, the study or science of whales;

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anthropology, the study of human beings;

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cosmology, the study of the universe.

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So if you see a logy, it's
going to be some kind of science

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or specialized area of study.

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A good example of a prefix
would be the Greek para,

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which means alongside.

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So a paralegal is someone
who works alongside lawyers,

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a paramedic works alongside doctors

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and if your house is
haunted, you don't need

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a normal pest control expert
to get rid of the ghost,

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you need a paranormal pest control expert,

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one that is alongside
but not within normalcy

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and thus, you call the Ghostbusters.

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So what does all of this
mean for you as a reader?

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Well when I encounter a
word I don't understand,

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it's like I had been
walking down a hallway

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and was suddenly confronted
with a locked door.

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It's frustrating but the
magic, the power of studying

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roots, prefixes and suffixes
is that when you master

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a small handful of them,
you suddenly become

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the proud owner of a ring of keys.

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Doors fling themselves open
for you, you can go anywhere,

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you can understand any concept,
any piece of vocabulary.

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An army of locked doors fall
off their hinges all at once

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when you approach.

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Don't believe me?

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I'll show you.

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While excavating the foundation
for a geothermal plant,

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my companion Neha found a fossil.

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Upon closer inspection, she
realized it was a pterodactyl.

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Wow, lot of big words in
that little paragraph.

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Now, watch this.

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Excavating,

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so hollowing out.

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Foundation, bottom-making.

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Geothermal, Earth heat.

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Companion, so this is someone
you would eat bread with,

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so bread together, who do
we eat bread together with?

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Our friends.

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Inspection,

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looking in

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or closer

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and pterodactyl,

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pter means wing,

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dactyl means finger,

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it is a prehistoric winged reptile.

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So while she was digging in the ground

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to prepare the bottom of a
plant that gets electricity

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from the heat of the Earth,
my friend Neha found a fossil.

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When she looked at it
closely, she realized it was

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a flying reptile with fingery wings.

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Do you see what I mean about keys?

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Studying roots and
affixes gives me the power

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to look at those words
and crack them apart.

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You're not so big now, vocabulary word.

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You have no power over me!

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Studying roots, prefixes
and suffixes will give you

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that same power.

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I promise you it is awesome,

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like, literally it fills
me with a sense of awe.

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The power is yours for the taking.

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You can learn anything, David out.

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Okay are we doing those
fun history reasons though?

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Okay, the short version
is that first the Romans

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then some Vikings, then
some French Vikings invaded

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the island of Great
Britain a bunch of times

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over the last 1500 years,
shaping the language

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and making what I like to
call French-shaped dents

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in the Germanic structure of English.

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English is a Germanic language,

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French is a Romance language,

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meaning not that it is full of love

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but that it is an offshoot
of Latin or you know, Roman.

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French took root in 11th Century
English and merged with it,

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grafting an enormous amount
of Greek and Latin vocabulary

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on to a German root stock.

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We often reach for Latin
and Greek compounds

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when we compose new words,

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which is why we say television in English,

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which comes from the Greek
tele, meaning far away,

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and the Latin vire, meaning to see.

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If we reached for Germanic
roots to make new words,

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we'd call a television a
farseer because indeed,

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that's what the word is
in German, fernsehen.

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So why do we have Greek and
Latin in our vocabulary?

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Because England was
colonized by French speakers

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almost a thousand years ago.

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Imagine what English will sound like

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in another thousand years.

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Anyway, thanks for coming
on this tangent with me.

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David out for real this time, bye.