Date: 11/11/09
Activities
1) Find the definitions of the following words in the oxfordref online and paste them into your webpage:
- Consonant n.
a speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable. • a letter representing a consonant.
(From The Concise Oxford English Dictionary in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)
- Vowel n.
a speech sound which is produced by comparatively open configuration of the vocal tract and which is capable of forming a syllable. • a letter representing such a sound.
(From The Concise Oxford English Dictionary in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)
- Diphthong n.
a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves towards another (as in coin). • a digraph representing the sound of a diphthong or single vowel (as in feat). • a ligature (such as æ).
(From The Concise Oxford English Dictionary in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)
2) From the OED insert the following:
- The pronunciation of “kestrel”
/ ˈkstrɪl /
- The main definition of “philology” in English.
1. Love of learning and literature; the branch of knowledge that deals with the historical, linguistic, interpretative, and critical aspects of literature; literary or classical scholarship. Now chiefly U.S.
(By the late 19th cent. this general sense had become rare, but it was revived, principally in the United States, in the early 20th cent. For a fuller discussion of this, see A. Morpurgo Davies Hist. Linguistics (1998) 4 I. 22.)
- The etymology of “crow” and look for the translation into Spanish.
crow, n.1 [OE. cráwe f., corresp. to OS. krâia, MLG. krâge, krâe, krâ, LG. kraie, kreie, MDu. kraeye, Du. kraai, OHG. chrâwa, chrâja, chrâ, crâwa, crâ, MHG. kræe, krâwe, krâ, Ger. krähe; a WG. deriv. of the vb. crâwan, crâian to