|
Good afternoon everybody and welcome to English Etymology 201.
I hope that all of you have found a seat and can hear me; if not,
please let me know. My name is Professor Patricia Morris; I'll
be your instructor for the next 10 weeks. As you can probably
tell, this is one of the most popular-and crowded-classes on campus;
indeed, every time this etymology course is offered, this room
is filled to capacity. Why is that? Well, in order to use the
English language, it's very important to have at least a basic
understanding of word parts. Just to cite one estimate-and there
are many-there are over 1 million words in the English lexicon.
If you are an English learner, you might wonder how you can possibly
remember all of these words. Well, for one thing, you don't have
to; no native speaker exists who knows all of the words in the
English language. Besides, there are shortcuts. Shortcuts? Yes,
if you know the most commonly used prefixes, roots, and suffixes-most
derived from Latin, Greek and Germanic sources-you will understand
a good number of English words when you first run across them.
Ears perk up whenever I put it this way-knowing the word parts
that make up many English words will substantially increase your
vocabulary. This is probably the number one reason why this class
is so popular.
|
|
