Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Look That Up in Your Funk and Wagnalls

 

It seems hard to believe now, but most high schools used to teach Latin and Greek to kids, and for 100 years, most of the kids graduating had at least some grounding in those languages. As time went by, more and more schools stopped offering those, even as electives. In my own school system, although Greek had been long since passed by the wayside, they were still offering elective Latin when my two oldest brothers attended, and both took the classes. But just four years later when I arrived, Latin was also gone. Not to worry, they had a solution, and as shocking as it might seem, quite a good one. It turned out to be the most useful class I ever took at any level of schooling. (The second most useful was my 8th-grade math class, with the teacher no one wanted to get. But that’s a different story.)

Starting in my junior year, a new one-semester, elective English class was offered, called “Look That Up in your Funk and Wagnalls,” and I signed up. The oldsters among you might recognize the phrase as a standard tagline on “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” a youth-oriented television comedy show of the late 1960s. At the conclusion of some random, weird, wacky skit, they would cut to the host Dan Rowan, and he would say, “Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.”

The purpose of the class was to teach word roots, prefixes, and suffixes from Latin and Greek, in lieu of actually learning Latin and Greek. The idea being that if you know those then you know, or can at least guess, the meaning of tens of thousands of words. It turns out that this is a remarkably effective technique to learn much of what educators hope to convey through teaching those languages.

So, for example, “tele” means far, “graph” means to write, and therefore, “telegraph” is a way to write something far away. “Phone” means sound, so a “phonograph” allows sound to be written, while a telephone allows sound to be heard at a distance. Add several hundred additional word fragments, and your vocabulary takes a quantum leap forward.

Since taking that class, when I run into an unfamiliar word, my first step is to try breaking it down into those fragments. If I can, then I immediately have at least a solid clue as to the actual meaning of the word. And when others ask me the meaning of such a word, I will always start with that etymology, trying to give them the same basis for understanding the word that I got from one very useful class.

So, for all of you parents, if they offer a class that even remotely resembles this one, get your kid enrolled, and let them learn something they can actually use all their lives.

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  1. Nanda Panjandrum Inactive

    Love it, JM! Too right…

    • #1
    • May 4, 2018, at 10:07 PM PDT
    • 5 likes
  2. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental

    Nanda Pajama-Tantrum (View Comment):

    Love it, JM! Too right…

    Thank you, ma’am.

    • #2
    • May 4, 2018, at 11:11 PM PDT
    • 5 likes
  3. Arahant Member

    Had a similar experience as far as being too late to get Latin and Greek classes. I had to settle for Laughing and Grief, instead.


    This well-rooted conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under May’s theme of The Power of Words. If you have stories involving words, about words, or about the power of words in your life, why not sign up to share your story? Group Writing was founded to encourage new voices to come forward by speaking on subjects that everyone has encountered. Our schedule and sign-up sheet is waiting for you. It’s so lonely. Wouldn’t you at least visit? It’s so disappointed you didn’t become a doctor, but still, if you would only stop by more often and perhaps sign up and join Group Writing it wouldn’t be so bad.

    • #3
    • May 5, 2018, at 12:23 AM PDT
    • 4 likes
  4. Kozak Member
    Kozak Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Judge Mental: The oldsters among you might recognize the phrase as a standard tagline on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, a youth-oriented television comedy show of the late 1960s.

    Now available for viewing on Amazon. I doubt it’s aged well…

    • #4
    • May 5, 2018, at 12:30 AM PDT
    • 6 likes
  5. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Judge Mental: The oldsters among you might recognize the phrase as a standard tagline on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, a youth-oriented television comedy show of the late 1960s.

    Now available for viewing on Amazon. I doubt it’s aged well…

    It’s pretty awful. It was mostly up-to-the-second topical humor, most of which you won’t get because you haven’t just experienced one specific week in 1968. The only parts that work are some of the classic skits, like Gladys and the old perve on the park bench, and Ernestine from the telephone company.

    • #5
    • May 5, 2018, at 12:40 AM PDT
    • 7 likes
  6. Kozak Member
    Kozak Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Judge Mental: The oldsters among you might recognize the phrase as a standard tagline on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, a youth-oriented television comedy show of the late 1960s.

    Now available for viewing on Amazon. I doubt it’s aged well…

    It’s pretty awful. It was mostly up-to-the-second topical humor, most of which you won’t get because you haven’t just experienced one specific week in 1968. The only parts that work are some of the classic skits, like Gladys and the old perve on the park bench, and Ernestine from the telephone company.

    LOL. Oh don’t worry. I remember.

    Here comes the Judge….

    • #6
    • May 5, 2018, at 12:41 AM PDT
    • 1 like
  7. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Judge Mental: The oldsters among you might recognize the phrase as a standard tagline on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, a youth-oriented television comedy show of the late 1960s.

    Now available for viewing on Amazon. I doubt it’s aged well…

    It’s pretty awful. It was mostly up-to-the-second topical humor, most of which you won’t get because you haven’t just experienced one specific week in 1968. The only parts that work are some of the classic skits, like Gladys and the old perve on the park bench, and Ernestine from the telephone company.

    LOL. Oh don’t worry. I remember.

    Here comes the Judge….

    Oh yeah, the chicks go-go dancing in bikinis still works, too.
     

    • #7
    • May 5, 2018, at 12:53 AM PDT
    • 5 likes
  8. Randy Webster Member

    I prefer Webster’s, thank you very much.

    • #8
    • May 5, 2018, at 1:02 AM PDT
    • 4 likes
  9. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    The British were wary of the coinage of the new word “television”, roughly 100 years ago, because it was half Greek and half Latin. 

    Television sets for sale in early 1932, 85 years ago.

    • #9
    • May 5, 2018, at 1:45 AM PDT
    • 6 likes
  10. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    In our school system, you could study all the Latin you wanted, especially if you were considering a career of celebrating Mass. 

    Or unifying France and dominating Europe. 

    • #10
    • May 5, 2018, at 1:48 AM PDT
    • 7 likes
  11. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    The British were wary of the coinage of the new word “television”, roughly 100 years ago, because it was half Greek and half Latin.

    Television sets for sale in early 1932, 85 years ago.

    Totally American thing to do, though. And the one part of the class that I remember least is which are Latin and which are Greek, unless there is one for each.

    • #11
    • May 5, 2018, at 1:49 AM PDT
    • 5 likes
  12. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Russian, Serbian, even Czech take lots of cues from Greek. “Kine”, same root as kinetic, is movement, the key attribute of motion pictures, so across the former USSR the movies are “Kino”. In the Romance languages it has a soft sound as cine, or cinema. 

    TV terminology continues to mix up Latin and Greek root words. “Telecine”, with a soft c, is a film projector with a TV camera to show movies on TV; its reverse, a Kinescope, with a hard k, is a film made off a TV screen. The first practical TV camera tube was the Iconoscope (which sounds really sinister in 1936 German TV as Die Ikonoskop). 

     

    • #12
    • May 5, 2018, at 2:08 AM PDT
    • 12 likes
  13. JoelB Member

    I recall an older woman who worked at my office years ago. She decided during her middle years to take some courses at the local community college. She took a history course and aced it easily. The younger students asked her how she was able to do so well. She replied, “I learned all that in the fifth grade in parochial school.” Languages were not all the schools used to teach.

    • #13
    • May 5, 2018, at 3:55 AM PDT
    • 11 likes
  14. Randy Webster Member

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    “Kine”,

    I thought kine were cattle.

    • #14
    • May 5, 2018, at 3:57 AM PDT
    • 4 likes
  15. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Judge Mental: Since taking that class, when I run into an unfamiliar word, my first step is to try breaking it down into those fragments……

    I know exactly what Yer saying, Judge. Same Here.

    I’m figuring I’m a few years younger than You, so I’m surprised this wasn’t taught earlier to You. I was doing this beginning in Mrs. Bailey’s 3rd grade class and on.

    • #15
    • May 5, 2018, at 4:05 AM PDT
    • 3 likes
  16. Arahant Member

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    “Kine”,

    I thought kine were cattle.

    From the Germanic roots, yes, but not from the Greek.

    • #16
    • May 5, 2018, at 4:26 AM PDT
    • 4 likes
  17. WillowSpring Member
    WillowSpring Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Ha! My family had a set of Funk and Wagnalls and I remember them lined up in the bookshelf. I used to just browse through them. They had the first three letters of the first and last entry in each volume on the spine. My older brother (of course!) had me convinced that these 6 letter ‘words’ were actual words. I still remember ‘PRI-SOU’, but I can’t remember his made up definition for it.

    But to your original point – I said this in a comment on the languages post, but one of my most useful Engineering courses was in Bio-Medical Engineering. Each week we had to learn a set of medical terms and take them apart by the prefixes.

     

    • #17
    • May 5, 2018, at 5:39 AM PDT
    • 7 likes
  18. AUMom Member
    AUMom Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Starting in my junior year, a new one-semester, elective English class was offered, called “Look That Up in your Funk and Wagnalls”, and I signed up. The oldsters among you might recognize the phrase as a standard tagline on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, a youth-oriented television comedy show of the late 1960s. At the conclusion of some random, weird, wacky skit, they would cut to the host Dan Rowan, and he would say, “Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls”.

    I can even hear it in Dick Martin’s voice. 

    • #18
    • May 5, 2018, at 5:40 AM PDT
    • 3 likes
  19. Arahant Member

    WillowSpring (View Comment):
    My family had a set of Funk and Wagnalls and I remember them lined up in the bookshelf.

    Mine is on a shelf behind me. Still have it.

    • #19
    • May 5, 2018, at 5:56 AM PDT
    • 4 likes
  20. Quietpi Member

    WillowSpring (View Comment):
    Each week we had to learn a set of medical terms and take them apart by the prefixes.

    My studies in medical and legal subjects have had the same effect. And it has been a huge benefit. Mrs. Quietpi, however, who actually did take Latin in high school, can out-do me any time.

    • #20
    • May 5, 2018, at 6:51 AM PDT
    • 5 likes
  21. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental

    Quietpi (View Comment):

    WillowSpring (View Comment):
    Each week we had to learn a set of medical terms and take them apart by the prefixes.

    My studies in medical and legal subjects have had the same effect. And it has been a huge benefit. Mrs. Quietpi, however, who actually did take Latin in high school, can out-do me any time.

    I expect that would be true, but in schools that just don’t offer it anymore, a class like this will put kids way ahead of the game.

    • #21
    • May 5, 2018, at 6:58 AM PDT
    • 4 likes
  22. Randy Webster Member

    I graduated from a modern high school with 2300 students in Prince George’s County in 1969. I don’t recall Latin being offered.

    • #22
    • May 5, 2018, at 7:29 AM PDT
    • 4 likes
  23. Kay of MT Member

    Latin was mandatory when I was in Jr. High school, 1951-53. The 2nd year I took French. Between both languages I can decipher most English words I’m not familiar with. Cannot speak either Latin nor French today.

    Forgot to add that I learned more English in my Latin class than I did in my English class. A better understanding of English.

    • #23
    • May 5, 2018, at 8:48 AM PDT
    • 12 likes
  24. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

     

    True conservatives go with first edition Strunk.

    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134

    • #24
    • May 5, 2018, at 9:19 AM PDT
    • 5 likes
  25. PHCheese Member

    Kay of MT (View Comment):

    Latin was mandatory when I was in Jr. High school, 1951-53. The 2nd year I took French. Between both languages I can decipher most English words I’m not familiar with. Cannot speak either Latin nor French today.

    Forgot to add that I learned more English in my Latin class than I did in my English class. A better understanding of English.

    I also took Latin in the fifties. Since I am dyslexic I have had extreme problems with spelling. If it hadn’t been for the Latin I think it would have been ultra extreme. It was a miracle that I managed to study both Spanish and French in high school and college but I think with out the Latin that would not have happened.

    • #25
    • May 5, 2018, at 9:25 AM PDT
    • 6 likes
  26. Nanda Panjandrum Inactive

    Kozak (View Comment):

    LOL. Oh don’t worry. I remember.

    Here comes the Judge….

    Me, too…Wondered if that influenced your nom de R>, actually, JM. :-) 

    • #26
    • May 5, 2018, at 9:34 AM PDT
    • 4 likes
  27. Kay of MT Member

    PHCheese (View Comment):
    I also took Latin in the fifties. Since I am dyslexic I have had extreme problems with spelling. If it hadn’t been for the Latin I think it would have been ultra extreme. It was a miracle that I managed to study both Spanish and French in high school and college but I think with out the Latin that would not have happened.

    I have severe hearing problems since age 4, have gone through periods of total deafness, regained some of my hearing and had to relearn to speak again. For some reason, English just scrambled my brain, but the Latin did more than the speech therapy. I’ve always been grateful for it. In my old age, I am losing my word recognition abilities of word sounds. It seems that what you just said, is definitely not what I heard. It’s beginning to cause serous problems with my family.

    • #27
    • May 5, 2018, at 9:39 AM PDT
    • 6 likes
  28. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental

    Nanda Pajama-Tantrum (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    LOL. Oh don’t worry. I remember.

    Here comes the Judge….

    Me, too…Wondered if that influenced your nom de R>, actually, JM. :-)

    Nope. My given name means judge. The mental part just seemed to fit.

    • #28
    • May 5, 2018, at 9:41 AM PDT
    • 5 likes
  29. Nanda Panjandrum Inactive

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Nanda Pajama-Tantrum (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    LOL. Oh don’t worry. I remember.

    Here comes the Judge….

    Me, too…Wondered if that influenced your nom de R>, actually, JM. :-)

    Nope. My given name means judge. The mental part just seemed to fit.

    Ah, no offense meant, hopefully none taken… :-)

    • #29
    • May 5, 2018, at 9:44 AM PDT
    • 2 likes
  30. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental

    Nanda Pajama-Tantrum (View Comment):

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Nanda Pajama-Tantrum (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    LOL. Oh don’t worry. I remember.

    Here comes the Judge….

    Me, too…Wondered if that influenced your nom de R>, actually, JM. :-)

    Nope. My given name means judge. The mental part just seemed to fit.

    Ah, no offense meant, hopefully none taken… :-)

    I don’t know why I would find offense in something like that.

    • #30
    • May 5, 2018, at 9:49 AM PDT
    • 3 likes

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