Iranians Turned "Avuncular"? Ten Words in This Week's News

As East Coasters fight a storm to get home for Thanksgiving, we're all still digesting news of the historic agreement signed by the U.S. and Iran, waiting to see if HealthCare.gov has been fixed, and looking into making Advanced Placement classes more diverse.

To fully understand these unfolding news stories, learn ten key words taken from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post coverage.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. copious
    large in number or quantity
    The storm will deposit copious amounts of rain (1.5-3 inches, with locally higher amounts) over a wide area, with heavy snow possible on the storm’s western flank (6-12 inches).
    -- Super soak, slide, slap: Pre-Thanksgiving East Coast storm a travel nightmare, The Washington Post, Nov. 25, 2013
    Does it provide any comfort to East Coast travelers whose Thanksgiving plans are being stymied by the storm that copious as in "copious rain" derives from the same Latin copia for "plenty," that gives us the horn of plenty/cornucopia on the Thanksgiving table? Probably not.
  2. pelt
    attack and bombard with or as if with missiles
    Howling winds, in addition, will pelt coastal locations.
    -- Super soak, slide, slap: Pre-Thanksgiving East Coast storm a travel nightmare, The Washington Post, Nov. 25, 2013
    Huge rain on the biggest travel day of the year is not good. Especially when that rain is not just coming down but pelting us, as in "attacking as if with missiles." Sheesh. Happy Thanksgiving to you too, weather gods!
  3. batter
    strike violently and repeatedly
    As the storm winds up late Tuesday night into Wednesday, very strong winds may batter the Northeast coast, particularly around Long Island and New York City.
    -- Super soak, slide, slap: Pre-Thanksgiving East Coast storm a travel nightmare, The Washington Post, Nov. 25, 2013
    Is this word for long-term domestic abuse also appropriate to rain?! Sadly so.
  4. avuncular
    being or relating to an uncle
    Smiling and avuncular, he reiterated Iran’s longstanding assertion that its nuclear program was peaceful, adding that the Iranian people deserved respect from the West.
    -- Accord Reached With Iran to Halt Nuclear Program, The New York Times, Nov. 23, 2013
    Whatever else the newspapers may be reporting about the historic accord signed by Iran this week, you know the shift is seismic when the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, is described as avuncular, which means "uncle-like." Think of a fat, jolly, red-cheeked Santa with a suitcase nuke for every girl and boy.
  5. renege
    fail to fulfill a promise or obligation
    Mr. Obama addressed those concerns in his speech, insisting that the easing of sanctions could be reversed if Iran failed to reach a final agreement or reneged on the terms of this one.
    -- Accord Reached With Iran to Halt Nuclear Program, The New York Times, Nov. 23, 2013
    This verb for "going back on a promise" is as maddeningly deceptive as promise-breakers themselves: the re prefix, rather than meaning "again," simply intensifies the Latin root of negare, which means to "deny."
  6. qualm
    uneasiness about the fitness of an action
    He also noted the qualms of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies of the United States, saying they “had good reason to be skeptical of Iran’s intentions.”
    -- Accord Reached With Iran to Halt Nuclear Program, The New York Times, Nov. 23, 2013
    Signing an agreement with Iran shifts the delicate and dysfunctional balance in the Middle East. So you're going to see lots of words for "worry" popping up in news stories, including the delightful qualm, which you can remember means "uneasy feeling" if you train yourself to associate it with other "qu=nervous" words such as queasy and quivering. Even the image of an egg-on-spoon race with a quail egg will do.
  7. tout
    advertise in strongly positive terms
    But he offered a more upbeat view Tuesday in California, touting improvements to the site.
    -- Health Website Deadline Nears, The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 26, 2013
    The fact that the people behind HealthCare.gov are touting the website's fix is a good sign for anyone hoping to sign up for health coverage. Tout means to speak highly of. It rhymes with "look out" and derives from the 17th century thieves' tout or "lookout." Over the years, as a politicians' tout stopped looking for votes and started soliciting them, tout has come to mean "to promote."
  8. fret
    worry unnecessarily or excessively
    Meanwhile, some Democrats have fretted that even a vague but optimistic goal might have been too much to promise.
    -- Health Website Deadline Nears, The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 26, 2013
    We're seeing lots of "worry" words in the news, as U.S. allies in the Middle East experience qualms about Iran's going back on its promises, and now Democrats fret or "worry" that new administration promises about HealthCare.gov will lead to further embarrassment and distress.
  9. sage
    a mentor in spiritual and philosophical topics
    “If A.P. courses are going to be a successful experience for a variety of students,” said Trevor Packer, the head of the Advanced Placement program at the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the exams, “A.P. teaching can’t rely on the ‘sage on the stage’ model that characterized and continues to characterize some of A.P. teaching today.”
    -- Pulling a More Diverse Group of Achievers Into the Advanced Placement Pool, The New York Times, Nov
    The phrase for lecture-based teaching, "sage on the stage," helps us remember that a sage is a person who knows a lot. Also, as today is the first night of Chanukah, we point out that the Chanukah song Who Can Tell also helps us out here, with the line: "In every age a hero or sage came to our aid."
  10. aptitude
    inherent ability
    Three years ago, the district dropped its requirement of teacher recommendations for A.P. classes, and schools began mining data from Preliminary SAT exams more intensively to find students with the aptitude for more difficult courses.
    -- Pulling a More Diverse Group of Achievers Into the Advanced Placement Pool, The New York Times, Nov. 26, 2013
    If you can remember that S.A.T. stands for the "Scholastic Aptitude Test," you'll knock out in one blow two words you might be tested on when you take it: scholastic means "having to do with school or learning," and aptitude means "ability." Colleges look at your S.A.T. score because they want to know how well you are going to do in school.
Created on Wed Nov 27 08:54:44 EST 2013 (updated Wed Nov 27 11:23:53 EST 2013)

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