Unit 22
ACER/ACR STRICT STRU/STRUCT PROP/PROPRI TORT VIV SERV
CLUS Greek and Latin Borrowings
Quiz 22-1 Quiz 22-2 Quiz 22-3 Quiz 22-4 Quiz 22-5 Review Quizzes 22
ACER/ACR comes from the Latin adjective acer, meaning “sharp” or
“sour.” Grapefruit and limes have an acid taste; acid can also describe a
person's sense of humor (other words for it might be sharp or biting). The
acidity of the soil often indicates whether it's good for growing certain crops;
blueberries, for instance, love acid soil, so they're more likely to be found
east of the Mississippi River, where acid soil is the rule.


acerbic

Sharp or biting in temper, mood, or tone.

• She had enjoyed his acerbic humor for years, but then a friend told her
about the nasty jokes he was making about her behind her back.
Acerbic often describes wit. An acerbic critic won't make many friends
among the writers or artists whose work is being criticized, but often keeps
his or her readers amused and entertained. Acerbity may be slightly less sharp
than sarcasm, but not much; both words have roots meaning basically “cut.”


acrid

Unpleasantly sharp and harsh; bitter.

• The acrid odor of gunpowder hung in the air long after the shots' echoes had
died away.
Acrid exactly fits the smoke from a fire—a burning building or forest, for

example. Dense smog may cast an acrid pall over a city, making throats burn
and eyes sting. But, like acid and acerbic, acrid sometimes also describes
nonphysical things, such as the remarks of a bitter person.


acrimony
temper.

Harsh or bitter sharpness in words, manner, or

• Town meetings here were usually civilized, and no one could recall an issue
that had ever aroused such intense acrimony as the new pulp mill.
Acrimony is angry harshness that usually springs from intense personal
dislike. An acrimonious exchange is full of cutting, unpleasant remarks
designed to hurt. Civil wars are often more acrimonious and bloody than
foreign wars. In the same way, a bad divorce may be more acrimonious than
any other kind of legal battle.


exacerbate

To make worse, more violent, or more severe.

• The increase in coal-burning power plants has greatly exacerbated the
buildup of greenhouse gases.
To exacerbate is not to cause, but only to make something bad even worse.
So the loss of a major industry in a city may exacerbate its already serious
unemployment problem. A vicious remark can exacerbate a quarrel. Building
a new mall may exacerbate an area's existing traffic problems. A new drug
can exacerbate the side effects of the drug a patient is already taking. It used

to be thought that too much blood in the body exacerbated a fever, so the
patient's blood would be drained, often by means of leeches—and not all
patients survived.


STRICT comes from the Latin verb meaning “to draw tight, bind, or tie.” So
the English word strict means “tightly controlled.” And when someone
begins a sentence “Strictly speaking, . . .” you know he or she is going to be
talking about a word or idea in its most limited sense, “drawing tight” the
meaning till it's as narrow as possible.


stricture
(1) A law or rule that limits or controls something;
restriction. (2) A strong criticism.
• There are severe legal strictures on the selling of marijuana in almost every
state.
Stricture has meant many things through the centuries, and its “restriction”
meaning—probably the most common one today—is actually the most
recent. High-school teachers often put strictures on texting during class.
Cities concerned about their murder rate have slapped strictures on the
possession of handguns. And the United Nations may vote to put strictures on
arms sales to a country that keeps violating international treaties. With the
meaning “strong criticism,” stricture is slightly old-fashioned today, but it's
still used by intellectuals. So, for example, an article may amount to a harsh
stricture on the whole medical profession, or an art review may just express
the critic's strictures on sentimental paintings of cute little houses with
glowing windows.



restrictive
(1) Serving or likely to keep within bounds. (2)
Serving or tending to place under limits as to use.
• The deed to the property had a restrictive covenant forbidding any
development of the land for 50 years.
Restrictive covenants (that is, agreements) in real-estate deeds were once
used to forbid the buyer from ever selling the property to anyone of another
race. These are now illegal, though other kinds of restrictive covenants are
very common; in some neighborhoods, they may even tell you what colors
you can't paint your house. In grammar, a restrictive clause is one that limits
the meaning of something that comes before it. In the sentence “That's the
professor who I'm trying to avoid,” “who I'm trying to avoid” is a restrictive
clause, since it's what identifies the professor. But in the sentence “That's my
History professor, who I'm trying to avoid,” the same clause is nonrestrictive,
since the professor has already been identified as “my History professor.”
There should always be a comma before a nonrestrictive clause, but not
before a restrictive clause.


constrict

(1) To draw together or make narrow. (2) To limit.

• She felt that small towns, where everyone seems to know every move you
make and is just waiting to gossip about it, can constrict your life terribly.
Arteries constricted by cholesterol slow the flow of blood, just as traffic
arteries or highways constricted by accidents slow the flow of traffic. But
constriction isn't always physical. Economic growth may be constricted by
trade barriers. A narrow, constricted life may be the result of poverty or lack
of opportunity. And an actress may feel constricted by a role she played as a

child or by her TV character from years ago, which the public refuses to
forget.


vasoconstrictor
a drug that narrows a blood vessel.

Something such as a nerve fiber or

• For operations like this, my dentist likes to use a vasoconstrictor to keep
bleeding to a minimum.
Our blood vessels are constantly narrowing and widening in response to our
activity or our environment, constricting in order to retain body heat and
widening to get rid of excess heat. So when we're hot our skin flushes, and
when we're very cold we become pale. Since the width of the blood vessels
affects blood pressure, vasoconstrictors are prescribed to treat low blood
pressure. Vasoconstrictors include antihistamines and amphetamines, as well
as nicotine and caffeine; we commonly buy them for our runny noses and
bloodshot eyes as well. The opposite of vasoconstrictors are vasodilators,
which are commonly used to treat high blood pressure.


Quiz 22-1
A. Indicate whether the following pairs of words have the same or
different meanings:
1. exacerbate / worsen
same ___ / different ___
2. acrid / dry
same ___ / different ___
3. acrimony / divorce payment

same ___ / different ___
4. acerbic / harsh
same ___ / different ___
5. constrict / assemble
same ___ / different ___
6. restrictive / limiting
same ___ / different ___
7. vasoconstrictor / Amazon snake
same ___ / different ___
8. stricture / tightening
same ___ / different ___
Answers


B. Fill in each blank with the correct letter:
a. stricture
b. vasoconstrictor
c. constrict
d. stringent
e. acerbic
f. acrimony
g. acrid
h. exacerbate
1. The list of new demands only served to ___ the crisis.
2. The ___ that Olympic athletes be amateurs would sometimes get an athlete
banned because of a few dollars he or she had earned as a professional.
3. The ___ fumes in the plant irritated his eyes and nose for several days.
4. With four or five ___ comments she managed to annoy or insult almost
everyone in the room.
5. Soon after the banking scandal hit the newspapers, a new set of ___

regulations was announced.
6. She was given a ___ for the tooth extraction, but there was some bleeding
anyway.
7. These deposits are beginning to ___ the coronary arteries to a dangerous
degree.
8. Even for a child-custody case, the ___ between the parties was unusual.
Answers


STRU/STRUCT comes from the Latin verb struere, meaning “to put
together, build, arrange.” A structure is something that's been constructed,—
that is, built or put together. Instructions tell how the pieces should be
arranged. Something that obstructs is a barrier that's been “built” to stand in
your way. And something destructive “unbuilds.”


deconstruction
Analysis of texts, works of art, and
cultural patterns that is intended to expose the assumptions on which they are
based, especially by exposing the limitations of language.
• Deconstruction has been performed on Huckleberry Finn by English
professors so many times that it's a wonder there's anything left of it.
Deconstruction doesn't actually mean “demolition”; instead it means
“breaking down” or analyzing something (especially the words in a work of
fiction or nonfiction) to discover its true significance, which is supposedly
almost never exactly what the author intended. A feminist may deconstruct
an old novel to show how even an innocent-seeming story somehow depends
on the oppression of women. A new western may deconstruct the myths of
the old West and show lawmen as vicious and criminals as flawed but decent.
Table manners, The Sound of Music, and cosmetics ads have all been the

subjects of deconstructionist analysis. Of course, not everyone agrees with
deconstructionist interpretations, and some people reject the whole idea of
deconstruction, but most of us have run into it by now even if we didn't
realize it.


infrastructure
(1) The underlying foundation or basic
framework. (2) A system of public works.
• The public loved her speeches about crime but dozed off when she brought
up highway repair and infrastructure deterioration.
Infra- means “below”; so the infrastructure is the “underlying structure” of a
country and its economy, the fixed installations that it needs in order to
function. These include roads, bridges, dams, the water and sewer systems,
railways and subways, airports, and harbors. These are generally
government-built and publicly owned. Some people also speak about such
things as the intellectual infrastructure or the infrastructure of science
research, but the meaning of such notions can be extremely vague.


construe
(1) To explain the arrangement and meaning of words
in a sentence. (2) To understand or explain; interpret.
• She asked how I had construed his last e-mail, and I told her that something
about it had left me very worried.
Construe can usually be translated as “interpret.” It's often used in law; thus,
an Attorney General might construe the term “serious injury” in a child-abuse
law to include bruises, or a judge might construe language about gifts to
“heirs” to include spouses. The IRS's construal of some of your activities
might be different from your own—and much more expensive at tax time.

Construing is also close to translating; so when the British say “public
school,” for instance, it should be construed or translated as “prep school” in
American terms.


instrumental
(1) Acting as a means, agent, or tool. (2)
Relating to an instrument, especially a musical instrument.
• His mother had been instrumental in starting the new arts program at the
school, for which she was honored at the spring ceremony.
An instrument is a tool, something used to construct. It's often a tool for
making music. A musical saw happens to be a carpenter's tool that can be
played with a violin bow (though you probably wouldn't want to play a
wrench or a pair of pliers). The musical meanings of instrumental, as in “It
starts with an instrumental piece” or “a jazz instrumental,” are common. But
the meanings “helpful,” “useful,” and “essential,” as in “He was instrumental
in getting my book published,” are just as common.


PROP/PROPRI comes from the Latin word proprius, meaning “own.” A
proprietor is an owner, and property is what he or she owns. And the original
meaning of proper was “belonging to oneself,” so a writer around the year
1400 could say “With his own proper sword he was slain,” even if we might
not say it quite the same way today.


proprietary
(1) Relating to an owner or proprietor; made
or sold by one who has the sole right to do so. (2) Privately owned and run as
a profit-making organization.

• The local hospital was a not-for-profit institution, whereas the nearby
nursing homes were proprietary.
A proprietary process is a manufacturing process that others are forbidden to
use, and a proprietary trademark is a name that only the owner can use. Legal
rights of this kind are ensured by copyrights and patents. After a certain
period of time, inventions and processes lose their legal protection, cease to
be proprietary, and enter the “public domain,” meaning that everyone can use
them freely. Baseball fans often take a proprietary attitude toward their
favorite team—that is, they behave more or less as if they own it, even
though the only thing they may own is the right to yell from a bleacher seat
till the end of a game.


propriety
(1) The state of being proper; appropriateness. (2)
Acting according to what is socially acceptable, especially in conduct
between the sexes.
• Propriety used to forbid a young unmarried man and woman to go almost
anywhere without an adult.
In an earlier era, when social manners were far more elaborate than they are
today, propriety and impropriety were words in constant use. Today we're
more likely to use them in other contexts. We may talk about the propriety of
government officials' dealings with private citizens, the propriety of the
relationship between a lawyer and a judge, or the impropriety of speaking out
of turn in a meeting that follows Robert's rules of order. Relations between
men and women still present questions of propriety, but today it's often in the
workplace rather than in social settings. Wherever rules, principles, and
standard procedures have been clearly stated, propriety can become an issue.
Something improper usually isn't actually illegal, but it makes people
uncomfortable by giving the impression that something isn't quite right.



appropriate
(1) To take exclusive possession of, often
without right. (2) To set apart for a particular purpose or use.
• It was one of those insulting words that sometimes get appropriated by a
group that it's meant to insult, which then starts using it proudly and
defiantly.
From its roots, the verb appropriate would mean basically “make one's
own”—that is, “take,” or sometimes “grab.” Each year the President and
Congress create a budget and appropriate funds for each item in it, funds
which mostly come in the form of taxes from the public. In the House of
Representatives, the powerful Appropriations Committee often gets the last
word on how much money goes to each program. “Misappropriation of
funds,” on the other hand, is a nice way of saying “theft.” If someone
appropriated pieces of your novel, you might take him or her to court; and if
you appropriated trade secrets from your former employers, you might be the
one sued.


expropriate
(1) To take away the right of possession or
ownership. (2) To transfer to oneself.
• It was only when the country's new government threatened to expropriate
the American oil refineries that Congress became alarmed.
In ancient Rome, an emperor could condemn a wealthy senator, have him
killed, and expropriate his property. In 1536 Henry VIII declared himself
head of the new Church of England and expropriated the lands and wealth of
the Roman Catholic monasteries. And nearly all of North America was
expropriated from the American Indians, usually without any payment at all.

Today, democratic governments only carry out legal expropriations, in which
the owners are properly paid for their land—for example, when a highway or
other public project needs to be built.


Quiz 22-2
A. Complete the analogy:
1. grant : award :: expropriate : ___
a. find b. want c. move d. claim
2. consumer goods : cars :: infrastructure : ___
a. foundation b. surface c. bridges d. boats
3. accept : receive :: appropriate : ___
a. send b. lose c. take d. offer
4. solve : figure out :: construe : ___
a. build b. misspell c. tighten d. interpret
5. habit : practice :: propriety : ___
a. appropriateness b. property c. behavior d. proportion
6. description : portrayal :: deconstruction : ___
a. demolition b. interpretation c. transference d. translation
7. monetary : money :: proprietary : ___
a. prosperity b. property c. profit d. protection
8. practical : effective :: instrumental : ___
a. hardworking b. tool-shaped c. instructional d. useful
Answers


B. Indicate whether the following pairs of terms have the same or
different meanings:
1. proprietary / public
same ___ / different ___

2. construe / explain
same ___ / different ___
3. appropriate / take
same ___ / different ___
4. infrastructure / dome
same ___ / different ___
5. propriety / ownership
same ___ / different ___
6. instrumental / melodic
same ___ / different ___
7. expropriate / seize
same ___ / different ___
8. deconstruction / demolition
same ___ / different ___
Answers


TORT comes from a form of the Latin verb torquere, meaning “to twist,
wind, or wrench.” In torture, parts of the body may be wrenched or twisted or
stretched; so those “Indian sunburns” that schoolkids give by twisting in
different directions on some unlucky guy's wrist stay pretty close to torture's
original meaning.