Lesson 14. Compounding (of interest).

`Warm-up`

1/ A new book by Berlin-based cultural historian Philipp Felsch, translated from German simply as The Philosopher with the clever subtitle 'Habermas and Us' (Jürgen Habermas is a German philosopher and social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism.), argues that Habermas has always been perfectly in sync with different eras of postwar German political culture. This is a remarkable achievement for someone of his longevity: Habermas turns 95 this year. As Felsch observes, had Michel Foucault (French historian of ideas and philosopher who was also an author, literary critic, political activist, and teacher, died aged 57) lived that long, he could have commented on Donald Trump’s presidency; had Hannah Arendt(erman-American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.) reached that age, she could have extended her reflections on terrorism to 9/11.

2/ It is often forgotten that Habermas’s book tells a story of decline and fall: Capitalism, with its increasing reliance on manipulative advertising techniques, and the rise of a complex administrative state had destroyed a free and open public sphere. Yet, in retrospect,the 1960s would appear to be a golden age of mass media, a point Habermas conceded in a 2022 essay on“the novel transformation of the public sphere.” There, he contrasted our era of supposed “filter bubbles” and “post-truth” with a world characterized by widely respected and economically successful newspapers as well as TV news, around which entire nations could congregate each evening.

3/ Habermas’s endorsement of liberal democratic procedures— often derided by Marxists as merely “formal democracy”— made him hostile to postwar intellectual trends in France, which he suspected of promoting irrationalism and an aestheticized politics that lacked all normative standards. Felsch recounts Habermas and Foucault dining together in Paris in an “icy atmosphere” in the early 1980s...

`Lexis`

Odd prefixes Part II

Compound Words

Compound words are individual words (or phrases that act as individual words) made from two or more words working together. They can be most parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and even prepositions like inside, outside, within, and without.

Compound words are often confused with blended words, also known as portmanteaus, but the two are very different. In compound words, each individual word remains unchanged. However, in portmanteaus, or blended words, only parts of each word are used. For example, the word internet is a portmanteau; it’s a combination of the words interconnected and network. If it were a compound word, it would be something like interconnected-network, with both words remaining whole and uncut.

There are three different types of compound words in grammar: open compound words with spaces between the words (ice cream), closed compound words with no spaces (firefighter), and hyphenated compound words (up-to-date).

1. Open compound words

Open compound words have spaces in between the words, which can make them hard to identify. But despite how they look, open compound words always act like single words. They always appear together, in the same order, and they each have their own unique meanings.

Open compound words are mostly nouns, and they’re used the same as regular nouns. If you want to make an open compound word plural, you usually pluralize only the final word in the group, not all the words.

When open compound words are verbs, they’re more commonly known as phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs have their own special rules, but in general only one of the words in the group is conjugated while the others remain untouched.

However, be careful because sometimes open compound words take a hyphen if they are used as a different part of speech. For example, the compound word test drive is open when used as a noun but hyphenated as test-drive when used as a verb.

Test drives are important. I always test-drive a new car before purchasing.

2. Closed compound words

Compared to open compound words, closed compound words are much easier to remember and to use. There are no spaces between the words, so closed compound words both look and act like individual words.

You can find closed compound words in almost all parts of speech. Adverbs like sometimes or anyday are closed compound words, as are the prepositions inside, outside, within, and without. Even the word cannot, a shortened form of the phrase “can not,” is a closed compound word.

3. Hyphenated compound words

Last are hyphenated compound words, which have hyphens between the words. These can be tricky to spell if you’re unsure whether there’s a hyphen or a space, so it’s best to familiarize yourself with a compound word list to help you learn the individual spellings. Otherwise you can quickly look up the correct spelling with a spell checker.

When hyphenated compound words are nouns, it’s important that you pluralize the right part. Unlike with open compound words, you don’t always pluralize the final word in the group. For example, with the hyphenated compound word mother-in-law, you pluralize mother instead of law.

However, each hyphenated compound word is different, and sometimes the s comes at the end. For example, the plural of merry-go-round is merry-go-rounds.

The merry-go-rounds are my favorite part of any amusement park.

As an adjective, a hyphenated compound word acts the same as a hyphen with compound modifiers.

The twenty-year-old students tried a long-distance relationship.

`Little Practice`

https://speakspeak.com/english-grammar-exercises/upper-intermediate/vocabulary-compound-words

`Time for Miraflores!`

1. Why did Chavez dismiss PDVSA officials?

2. What was the public reraction on massive firings?

3. What is the phenomenon of cacerolazo?

4. What made General Uson stay alert? What actions did he take to calm people down?

5. List the principal reasons that have precipitated the march.

6. Why did Chavez irritate Uson? What were the discrepancies?

`Reading & Discussing`

Buying happiness

https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2409/240926-money-worries.html