VOCABULARY S2
& APPOSITIVE WORK
January 31, 2014
Vocabulary example…AGAIN
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Word: indelible (adjective)
Original sentence: “It was grim living and those years made indelible memories that would never die
or even fade enough to be misremembered” (Woodrell).
Definition (taking into account the context of how utilized in the above sentence)
Impossible to remove or forget – Ruby’s memories are impossible to forget, and she is forever marked
(emotionally by them)
Connotation – Rudy’s indelible memories were caused by the abuse she suffered at the hand of her
drunk father. He assumed she was the progeny of another man because of how beautiful she was; she
did not resemble him in any way.
Other example: “Perhaps because I am marked by indelible color they easily suppose that I am
unchanged by social mobility, that I can claim unbroken ties with my past” (Rodriquez).
Compound-complex example sentence: Jazzercise day left indelible images that are impossible to
forget; men in tights are just wrong, and there are some things you can never unsee.
New requirement for S2!—as we learn more about syntax, you will need to apply
Citation
that instruction to your vocab cards.
Woodrell, Daniel. The Maid’s Version. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2013. 35. Print.
Rodriquez, Richard. “The Hunger of Memory.” – class handout
S2 requirements
10 cards will
be checked
every two
weeks. You’re
welcome.
EACH
sentence type
MUST be
included (you
are not YET
responsible
for the
verbals)
Your sentences must be labeled:
 Appositive phrase
 Participial phrase – verbal
 Gerund phrase – verbal
 Infinitive phrase – verbal
 Simple
 Compound
 Complex
 Compound complex
 Loose
 Periodic
Appositives—professional work
How did you describe Polish Mary? Theodore Dreiser, in
An American Tragedy, used 8 words to describe her thusly:
Thus, one noontime, coming back from the office lunch
downstairs a little earlier than usual, he found her and
several of the foreign-family girls, as well as four of the
American girls, surrounding Polish Mary, one of the gayest
and roughest of the foreign-family girls, who was
explaining in rather a high key how a certain “feller”
whom she had met the night before had given her a
beaded bag, and for what purpose.
Appositives—professional work
How did you describe Salinger’s issue? J.D. Salinger, in
Franny and Zooey, used 12 words to describe it thusly:
The rest were standing around in hatless, smoky little
groups of twos and threes and fours inside the heated
exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, as though each
young man, in his strident, conversational turn, was
clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial
issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had
been bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries.
Appositives—professional work
How did you describe the herd of cattle? Glendon
Swarthout, in Bless the Beasts and Children, used 13
words to describe it thusly:
Out in the distances the fans of windmills twinkled,
turning, and about the base of each, about the drink
tank, was a speckle of dark dots, a herd of cattle
grazing in moonlight and meditating upon good
grass, block salt, impermanence, and love.
Appositives—professional work
How did you describe the game of “Post Office”? Henry
Miller, in Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, used 18 words
to describe it thusly:
Perhaps two or three times a year we would come
together at a party, one of those teen-age affairs which
last until dawn with singing and dancing and silly games
such as “Kiss the Pillow,” or “Post Office,” the game which
permits one to call for the creature of one’s choice and
embrace her furtively in a dark room.
Other uses of appositives
19. My bed was an army cot, one of those affairs
which are made wide enough to sleep on
comfortably only by putting up, flat with the middle
section, the two sides which ordinarily hang down
like the sideboards of a drop-leaf table.
20. He, the enlightened man who looks afar in the
dark, had fled because of his superior perceptions
and knowledge.
21. I had hardly any patience with the serious work
of life which, not that it stood between me and desire,
seemed to me child’s play, ugly monotonous child’s
play.
22. There was Major Hunter, a haunted little man of
figures, a little man who, being a dependable unit,
considered all other men either as dependable units
or as unfit to live.
On Your Own!
Putting the Appositive Phrase to Work
Write TWO sentences containing two appositive phrases
that identify two different objects, persons, or places within
the same sentence. Each of the two phrases must be at
least ten words long and incorporate your own vocabulary
words (underline them).
It would behoove you to be prudent and use words from
“Rewriting American History” as you practice this structure.