Unit 8
PORT PEND PAN EXTRA PHOT LUC MOR/MORT TROPH Words from
Mythology and History
Quiz 8-1 Quiz 8-2 Quiz 8-3 Quiz 8-4 Quiz 8-5 Review Quizzes 8
PORT comes from the Latin verb portare, meaning “to carry.” Thus,
something portable can be carried around. A porter carries your luggage,
whether through a train station or high into the Himalayas. When we
transport something, we have it carried from one place to another. And goods
for export are carried away to another country.


portage
The carrying of boats or goods overland from one body of
water to another; also, a regular route for such carrying.
• The only portage on the whole canoe route would be the one around the
great waterfall on our second day.
Portage was borrowed from French back in the 15th century to mean
“carrying, transporting” or “freight,” and it has kept its simple “carrying”
sense to the present day. But its first known use in its “carrying of boats”
sense came in 1698, and the obstacle that the canoes couldn't be steered over
was none other than Niagara Falls. Though canoes are much lighter today
than they used to be, a long portage that includes a lot of camping gear can
still test a camper's strength.


portfolio
(1) A flat case for carrying documents or artworks.
(2) The investments owned by a person or organization.
• In those days, a graphic artist who had recently moved to New York would
just schlep his portfolio around to every magazine office in the city.
Portfolio is partly based on the Latin folium, meaning “leaf, sheet.” A

portfolio usually represents a portable showcase of your talents. Today actual
portfolios are used less than they used to be by artists, since most commercial
artists have a Web site dedicated to showing off their art. But portfolio in its
other common meaning is extremely common. Not so long ago, a broker
would keep each of his or her clients' investments in a separate notebook or
portfolio. Today the investment portfolio, like an artist's portfolio, usually
takes the form of a Web page, even though everyone still uses the same old
word.


comport

(1) To be in agreement with. (2) To behave.

• This new evidence comports with everything we know about what
happened that night.
With its prefix com-, “with,” the Latin word comportare meant “to bring
together.” So it's easy to see how in English we could say that a college's
policy comports with state law, or that a visit to your parents doesn't comport
with your other weekend plans, or that your aunt and uncle won't listen to
anything on TV that doesn't comport with their prejudices. The “behave”
sense of the word comes through French, and its essential meaning is how a
person “carries” him- or herself. So you may say, for instance, that your 17year-old comported himself well (for once!) at the wedding reception, or that
an ambassador always comports herself with dignity—that is, her
comportment is always dignified—or that your class comported itself in a
way that was a credit to the school.


deportment


Manner of conducting oneself socially.

• At social events she would constantly sneak glances at Alexandra, in quiet
admiration of her elegant and graceful deportment.
We've all seen pictures of girls walking around balancing books on their
heads in an effort to achieve the poise of a princess or a film star. Classes in
deportment were once a standard part of a young lady's upbringing, offered in
all the girls' colleges; and you can still take private deportment classes, where
you'll learn about posture and body language, how to move, sit, stand, shake
hands, dress, drink and eat, and much more. But deportment isn't all about
refined female grace. In fact, deport is often used as a synonym for comport,
but usually in a positive way; thus, people are often said to deport themselves
well, confidently, with dignity, like gentlemen or ladies, and so on.


PEND comes from the Latin verb pendere, meaning “to hang” or “to weigh.”
(In the Roman era, weighing something large often required hanging it from a
hook on one side of the balance scales.) We find the root in English words
like appendix, referring to that useless and sometimes troublesome tube that
hangs from the intestine, or that section at the back of some books that might
contain some useful additional information.


pendant
ornament.

Something that hangs down, especially as an

• Around her neck she was wearing the antique French pendant he had given
her, with its three rubies set in silver filigree.

Most pendants are purely decorative. But a pendant may also hold a picture
or a lock of hair of a lover or a child. And, perhaps because they hang
protectively in front of the body and near the heart, pendants have often had
symbolic and magical purposes. Thus, a pendant may be a charm or amulet,
or its gems or metals may be felt to have health-giving properties. In
architecture, a pendant is an ornament that hangs down from a structure, but
unlike a necklace pendant it's usually solid and inflexible.


append

To add as something extra.

• She appended to the memo a list of the specific items that the school was
most in need of.
Append is a somewhat formal word. Lawyers, for example, often speak of
appending items to other documents, and lawmakers frequently append small
bills to big ones, hoping that everyone will be paying attention only to the
main part of the big bill and won't notice. When we append a small separate
section to the end of a report or a book, we call it an appendix. But in the
early years of e-mail, the words we decided on were attach and attachment,
probably because appendixes are thought of as unimportant, whereas the
attachment is often the whole reason for sending an e-mail.


appendage
(1) Something joined on to a larger or more
important body or thing. (2) A secondary body part, such as an arm or a leg.
• She often complained that she felt like a mere appendage of her husband
when they socialized with his business partners.

Appendix isn't the only noun that comes from append. Unlike appendix,
appendage doesn't suggest the end of something, but simply something
attached. The word is often used in biology to refer to parts of an animal's
body: an insect's antennae, mouthparts, or wings, for example. The
appendages of some animals will grow back after they've been removed; a
salamander, for example, can regrow a finger, and the tiny sea squirt can
regrow all its appendages—and even its brain.


suspend
(1) To stop something, or to force someone to give up
some right or position, for a limited time. (2) To hang something so that it is
free on all sides.
• The country has been suspended from the major trade organizations, and the
effects on its economy are beginning to be felt.
When something is suspended, it is “left hanging”; it is neither in full
operation nor permanently ended. Suspense is a state of uncertainty and
maybe anxiety. When we watch a play or movie, we enjoy experiencing a
“suspension of disbelief”; that is, we allow ourselves to believe we're
watching reality, even though we aren't truly fooled.Suspension can also
mean physical hanging; thus, in a suspension bridge, the roadway actually
hangs from huge cables. When some substance is “in suspension,” its
particles are “hanging” in another substance, mixed into it but not actually
dissolved, like fine sand in water, or sea spray in the air at the seashore.


Quiz 8-1
A. Choose the closest definition:
1. pendant
a. porch b. salary c. flag d. ornament

2. portfolio
a. mushroom b. folder c. painting d. carriage
3. suspend
a. study carefully b. watch closely c. slip gradually d. stop
temporarily
4. deportment
a. manner b. section c. departure d. promotion
5. append
a. close up b. predict c. attach d. reconsider
6. portage
a. small dock b. river obstacle c. light boat d. short carry
7. comport
a. bend b. behave c. join d. transport
8. appendage
a. hanger b. body organ c. limb d. companion
Answers


B. Fill in each blank with the correct letter:
a. portage
b. portfolio
c. deportment
d. comport
e. appendage
f. pendant
g. append
h. suspend
1. He found himself peering at her silver ___, trying to make out the odd
symbols that formed the design.
2. Their ___ consisted mostly of high-tech stocks.

3. On the organizational chart, the group appears way down in the lower left
corner, looking like a minor ___ of the company.
4. The biggest challenge would be the half-mile ___ around the river's worst
rapids.
5. This is the entire report, to which we'll ___ the complete financial data
when we submit it.
6. She never fails to impress people with her elegant ___ in the most difficult
social situations.
7. Whenever his mother got wind of more bad behavior, she would ___ his
allowance for a month.
8. These figures don't ___ with the ones you showed us yesterday.
Answers


PAN comes from a Greek word meaning “all”; as an English prefix, it can
also mean “completely,” “whole,” or “general.” A panoramic view is a
complete view in every direction. A pantheon is a temple dedicated to all the
gods of a religion. A pandemic outbreak of a disease may not affect the entire
human population, but enough to produce a catastrophe.


panacea

A remedy for all ills or difficulties; cure-all.

• Educational reform is sometimes viewed as the panacea for all of society's
problems.
Panacea comes from a Greek word meaning “all-healing,” and Panacea was
the goddess of healing. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, alchemists
who sought to concoct the “elixir of life” (which would give eternal life) and

the “philosopher's stone” (which would turn ordinary metals into gold) also
labored to find the panacea. But no such medicine was ever found, just as no
solution to all of a society's difficulties has ever been found. Thus, panacea is
almost always used to criticize the very idea of a total solution (“There's no
panacea for the current problems plaguing Wall Street”).


pandemonium

A wild uproar or commotion.

• Pandemonium erupted in the stadium as the ball shot past the goalie into the
net.
In John Milton's Paradise Lost, the fallen Satan has his heralds proclaim “A
solemn Councel forthwith to be held / At Pandaemonium, the high Capital /
Of Satan and his Peers.” Milton got the name for his capital of hell, where
Satan gathered together all his demons, by linking pan with the Latin word
daemonium, “evil spirit.” For later writers, pandemonium became a synonym
for hell itself, since hell was then often seen as a place of constant noise and
confusion, but also for any wicked and lawless place. Nowadays it's used to
refer to the uproar itself rather than the place where it occurs.


pantheism
A system of belief that regards God as
identical with the forces and laws of the universe.
• Most of her students seemed to accept a vague kind of pantheism, without
any real belief that God had ever appeared in human form.
Pantheistic ideas—and most importantly the belief that God is equal to the
universe, its physical matter, and the forces that govern it—are found in the

ancient books of Hinduism, in the works of many Greek philosophers, and in
later works of philosophy and religion over the centuries. Much modern New
Age spirituality is pantheistic. But most Christian thinkers reject pantheism
because it makes God too impersonal, doesn't allow for any difference
between the creation and the creator, and doesn't seem to allow for humans to
make meaningful moral choices.


panoply
(1) A magnificent or impressive array. (2) A display
of all appropriate accessory items.
• The full panoply of a royal coronation was a thrilling sight for the throngs
of sidewalk onlookers and the millions of television viewers.
The fully armed Greek soldier was an impressive sight, even if Greek armor
never became as heavy as that of medieval knights on horseback (who
couldn't possibly have marched in such outfits). Panoplia was the Greek
word for the full suit of armor, and the English panoply originally likewise
referred to the full suit of armor worn by a soldier or knight. Today panoply
may refer to full ceremonial dress or lavish ceremonial decoration of any
kind. And it can also refer to striking spectacle of almost any kind: the
breathtaking panoply of autumn foliage, or the stirring panoply of a military
parade, for example.


EXTRA is Latin for “outside” or “beyond.” So anything extraterrestrial or
extragalactic takes place beyond the earth or the galaxy. Something
extravagant, such as an extravaganza, goes way beyond the normal. And
extra is naturally a word itself, a shortening of extraordinary, “beyond the
ordinary.”



extradite
To deliver an accused criminal from one place to
another where the trial will be held.
• Picked up by the Colorado police for burglary, he's being extradited to
Mississippi to face trial for murder.
Extradition from one state to another is generally a straightforward process.
But extradition may become more complicated when two countries are
involved, even though most countries have signed treaties stating that they
will send criminals to the country where they are wanted. Many countries
often won't send their own citizens to another country for trial; countries that
don't permit the death penalty may not agree to send a suspect back to face
such a penalty; and most countries won't extradite someone accused of
political crimes. When extradition seems unlikely, a country may actually
kidnap someone from another country, but this is illegal and rare.


extrapolate
To extend or project facts or data into an area
not known in order to make assumptions or to predict facts or trends.
• Economists predict future buying trends partly by extrapolating from
current economic data.
Scientists worry about the greenhouse effect because they have extrapolated
the rate of carbon-dioxide buildup and predicted that its effect on the
atmosphere will become increasingly severe. On the basis of their
extrapolations, they have urged governments and businesses to limit factory
and automobile emissions. Notice that it's acceptable to speak of
extrapolating existing data (to produce new data), extrapolating from existing
data (to produce new data), or extrapolating new data (from existing data)—
in other words, it isn't easy to use this word wrong.



extrovert
A person mainly concerned with things outside
him- or herself; a sociable and outgoing person.
• These parties are always full of loud extroverts, and I always find myself
hiding in a corner with my drink.
Extrovert (sometimes spelled extravert) means basically “turned outward”—
that is, toward things outside oneself. The word was coined by the eminent
psychologist C. G. Jung in the early 20th century. The opposite personality
type, in Jung's view, was the introvert. Extroverts seem to be favored by
societies such as ours, even though introverts seem to be on average more
mentally gifted. Psychologists have said that the only personality traits that
can be identified in newborn infants are shyness and lack of shyness, which
are fairly close to—but not really the same as—introversion and
extroversion.


extraneous
(1) Existing or coming from the outside. (2)
Not forming an essential part; irrelevant.
• Be sure your essays are well focused, with any discussion of extraneous
topics kept to a minimum.
Extraneous and strange both come from the same Latin word, extraneus,
which basically meant “external” or “coming from outside.” But unlike
strange, extraneous is a slightly formal word, often used by scientists and
social scientists. Researchers always try to eliminate extraneous factors (or
“extraneous variables”) from their studies. A researcher conducting a
psychological test, for example, would try to make sure that the people were
tested under the same conditions, and were properly divided according to

gender, age, health, and so on.


Quiz 8-2
A. Fill in each blank with the correct letter:
a. extrapolate
b. panoply
c. extraneous
d. panacea
e. extradite
f. pantheism
g. extrovert
h. pandemonium
1. From these figures, economists can ___ data that shows a steady increase
in employment.
2. Being a natural ___, he took to his new career as a salesman easily.
3. The new voice-mail system comes with the usual full ___ of options.
4. ___ broke out at the news of the victory.
5. The treaty with Brazil doesn't require us to ___ a criminal who's a nativeborn American.
6. He's locked himself in his studio to ensure that there won't be any ___
distractions.
7. She had always believed in vitamins as a ___, but they weren't always able
to fight off infections.
8. He attended the Presbyterian church, even though for many years his real
beliefs had been a mixture of Buddhism and ___.
Answers


B. Indicate whether the following pairs of terms have the same or
different meanings:

1. panacea / antibiotic
same ___ / different ___
2. pandemonium / chaos
same ___ / different ___
3. pantheism / priesthood
same ___ / different ___
4. panoply / display
same ___ / different ___
5. extrapolate / project
same ___ / different ___
6. extraneous / necessary
same ___ / different ___
7. extradite / hand over
same ___ / different ___
8. extrovert / schizophrenic
same ___ / different ___
Answers


PHOT comes from the Greek word for “light.” Photography uses light to
create an image on film or paper, and a photocopy is an image made by using
light and tiny electrically charged ink particles.