Transcript Objectives - McGraw Hill Higher Education

Part Three, A Brief Guide to
Important Word Skills
Using the Dictionary
Objectives:
This chapter will help you use the dictionary to:
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McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Look up the spelling of words
Find the syllable divisions in a word
Pronounce an unfamiliar word
Obtain further information about words
© 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.
The dictionary is a valuable tool.
To take advantage of it, you need to understand the main kinds of
information that a dictionary gives about a word.
Look at your dictionary to find the following information:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Spelling and syllabication
Pronunciation
Parts of speech
Meanings
Other forms of the word
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Spelling
The first bit of information, the dictionary entry itself,
is the spelling of the word.
At times you may have trouble looking up words that you
cannot spell. Be sure to pronounce each syllable in the word
carefully and write it down the way you think it is spelled.
If you still cannot find it:
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•
Try the other vowels.
If you think it is spelled with an e, try a, o, i, u, and y
Try doubling consonants
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If you think a word has the letter or letter combination in the first column that
follows but you can’t find the word in the dictionary, try looking at the letter
or letters in the second column.
c
er, re
f
g, j
ie, e
k
oo
s
sh, ch
shun
y
k, s
re, er
v, ph
j, g
ei, ie
c, ch
u
c, z, sh
ch, sh
tion, sion
i, e
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Syllabication
The second bit of information that the dictionary gives,
also in the boldface entry, is the syllabication of the word.
The syllable divisions help you pronounce a word and also
show you where to hyphenate a word as needed when
writing a paper.
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Pronunciation
The dictionary offers information on the pronunciation of the
word.
Use the pronunciation key in your dictionary as a guide to
pronouncing different vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u).
Find the pronunciation key in your dictionary, and see how to
interpret the symbols, and figure out how to pronounce the words.
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The Schwa
The symbol looks like an upside down e. It is called a schwa,
and it stands for the unaccented sound in words such as
ago, item, edible, gallop, and circus.
More approximately, it stands for the sound uhlike the uh sound speakers may make when they hesitate
in their speech.
Uh could represent the schwa sound, as well as
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Accent marks
Some words contain both a primary accent, shown by a heavy
stroke, and a secondary accent, shown by a lighter stroke.
Parts of speech
The dictionary offers information about the part of speech, using
abbreviations.
v. = verb
n. = noun
adj. = adjective
pl. = plural
sing. = singular
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Principal parts of irregular verbs
Regular word forms add -es, -ed, and -ing to the stem of the verb.
When the verb is irregular, the dictionary lists its principal parts.
Present
tense
Past
tense
Past
Participle
Present
Participle
write
begin
wrote
began
written
begun
writing
beginning
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Plural forms of irregular nouns
Regular nouns form the plural by adding -s or -es
The dictionary supplies the plural forms of all irregular nouns.
apology
wife
passer-by
apologies
wives
passers-by
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Meanings
When there is more than one meaning to a word, the
meanings are numbered in the dictionary.
In many dictionaries, the most common meanings are
presented first.
The introductory pages of your dictionary will explain
the order in which meanings are presented.
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Etymology
Etymology = the history of a word.
Many words have origins in foreign languages, such as
Greek (Gk) or Latin (L).
Such information is usually enclosed in brackets and is more
likely to be presented in a hardbound desk dictionary than in
a paperback one.
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Usage labels
As a general rule, use only standard English words in your writing.
If a word is not standard English, your dictionary may give it a
usage label, such as informal, nonstandard, or slang.
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