Honors Vocabulary- Week 2

For this week we only had to choose five words and do "photo vocabulary entries," where we describe a picture depicting the word and expand with our thoughts about it.

1) incognito: The meaning of incognito is to hide one's true identity. Sometimes this means creating a fake name or image to deter people from discovering it. This photo shows the "big nose and heavy eyebrows" glasses that represent the typical disguise. By wearing these, one is "incognito." For example, batman must go incognito in public, and become is "normal" self, so people can't discover his real identity as a superhero. On the other hand, you could say batman is the incognito character, hiding Bob Kane's true face from harm as he fights crime.

2) empathy: The word empathy means in simple terms: "to understand and share the feelings" of others. This word goes hand in hand with sympathy (to feel pity) and apathy (not to feel) for other people. They are derived from the Greek word "pathos" to feel, suffer, pity, praise (or whatever has happened). This picture shows a pregnant woman next to a man in a pregnant suit. This indicates that he is trying to empathize with the woman, to try to feel and understand her burden of carrying a child (even though the woman is actually wearing a suit as well).

3) deduct: The word deduct means to deduct or take away from, to solve. A common form of the word you may have heard is deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is a from of critical thinking or scientific thinking used to reason from a general topic to a specific one, to take away from the broad discourse to reach a more precise idea. This picture shows an abacus, which is a kind of counting frame used to make mathematical calculations and deductions, originating in 2700 B.C.E. in Asia.

4) precipitous: The meaning of precipitous is "dangerously high or steep." There is an actual mountain range called The Precipitous Mountains, which are especially steep and found in Canada. This picture is a warning sign informing hikers of the danger of the mountains they are hiking and of the harmful consequence that awaits them if they get too close to the edge. Precipitous can also mean sudden or quick, as in the phrase: The constant hunting of the villagers led to a precipitous decline of moose.

5) plagiarize: Plagiarism is the act of taking someone's work or ideas and displaying them as one's own. Plagiarism is a constant problem at schools, and is always addressed at the beginning of the year to discourage kids from "cutting and pasting" as the photo shows. It used to be looked down upon and punished, but is now actually considered a federal crime! Students can earn an immediate expulsion hearing with only one offense. With so many people in the world, it is important to distinguish our ideas from one another and make them original.