Crossword Puzzle Snobbery

So...

Looking up crossword puzzles for teens, I find many that are gorgeous, educational, and relevant. I see ones on statistics, WWI, mythology, geometry terms, civil rights, the works. Each one gives a brief example of the kind of clues you'll find.

Congress:
a provision not likely to pass on its own merit that is attached to an important measure certain to pass. is the House sitting not as itself but as one large committee of itself. divisions of existing committees formed to address specific issues. are little different from bills, and when passed have the force of law. a procedure to bring a bill to the floor of the legislative body when a committee has refused to report it.

Electromagnetism:
used to located objects on Earth. electromagnetic waves that you can detect with your eyes. has the highest frequency and therefore they carry the most energy. electromagnetic waves with wavelengths longer than about 0.001 . even higher frequncy than ultraviolet rays and has enough energy to go through the skin and the muscle.

And then I see ones on sports. Music.

Sports:
im good at wrestling and holding other players. im very strong . often played by kids with chalk. the ball is oblong shaped. often played by smart people.

Music:
i sing threw this. i add intense bass. i have wee bells and tap on the knee. when on stage in front of a crowd i like to. a hillbilly guitar.

Which is not to say that the subject material isn't RIFE with critical, intellectual possibilities. It's just also the material that is more likely to draw authors who haven't grasped the concept of capitalization and apostrophes.

Props to the Music guy for his use of "wee," though.

"Gradysauce"

I'm... I'm an adjective, now. Or maybe a noun. I don't know the origin of adding "sauce" to the end of adjectives like it's a suffix, which seems to turn them into nouns, but it's apparently a little more widespread than I thought. "_____-sauce." I'd only heard of "awesomesauce" and "weaksauce," but I immediately understood when Virtus described a particularly easy lesson as "simplesauce." I was in fact able to make immediate use of the word, discovering that it's now apparently a noun in the process: "Yes, this lesson was quite simplesauce. The last lesson, if you recall, was simplesauce as well. And really, I refuse to do two such simplesaucy lessons in a row, so we're mostly skipping this one."

Virtus was appreciative of my use of his word, so he and the Boys started playing around with "Gradysauce." They ultimately decided that it was best used as a stand-in for Latin; that the class was now "Gradysauce." As in, "guess what I learned in Gradysauce, today?"

So. My titles have now expanded to Ms. Grady, Mrs. Grady, Miss Grady, Miss, Grady, "Grades," occasionally "Anya" to bold students outside the classroom, and Mom. In seventh period, I teach Gradysauce.

My, how many hats I wear.

Analyzing a New Word: "Eludicate"

“It is the mission of the twentieth century to elucidate the irrational.”

-Maurice Merleau-Ponty

I keep talking to my Reading kids about the USEFULNESS of understanding prefixes, suffixes, and root words. Of how you might not know a word (you might not know MANY words. English is like an obsessed fanboy with words: you gotta collect the whole set), but you can at least piece together and idea from the bits of the context.

Take the above quote. I found it by briefly browsing Dictionary.com’s “give me a random quote” section, and realized that I’m not entirely sure what Mr. Merleau-Ponty means. “The irrational” isn’t too difficult, as he’s either talking about irrational thoughts or irrational people. Maybe both, given the vagueness of his substantive adjective. “Elucidate,” however, is not a word I’ve come across often enough to know. So I had a moment of “wha-?” confusion and was about to hit the next button, when I decided to think about it for a moment.

Let’s break it down.

Elucidate: The first thing I notice is luc, usually a root word for “light”. Next is the e-, likely from the Latin ex, meaning “from” or “out”. That –ate ending means it’s a verb.

Five, ten seconds of actually blinking at the word and not just blitzing past it means that I think he’s talking about bringing the irrational out into the light. I’ll look it up, later, to see if I’m right.

[Edit, end of the day]

YUP.  Or close enough. Elucidate, v. To make something clear, explain. Mr. Merleau-Ponty wants to make the irrational clear, or to explain the irrational. Irrational more likely stands for “irrational things/thoughts,” in that light.