Figuration of English Words in Outlook and Sound

Introduction

       The idea had been in my brain for more than 20 years to example words before I published it on my blog on 22th Sept. 2007. The list of letter meanings is the central body of the idea. The 26 letters each has its own meaning based on its outlook or on a derivation summarized from thousands of words. However, the meaning of a letter shows flexibility, and letter O, for example, looks not only a round blur puzzle but also a circle area and a ring to link two parts into a new word as well. We need the flexibility to figure out the meaning of million words individually.

       The list also shows the meanings of only some two-letter groups because meanings of the other groups as word have been defined in common dictionaries or as word fixes in textbooks. The meaning of each group has a typical way of flexibility: one comes from the list and the other is comes from the meanings of its constitutional letters. Cu, for example, means “cumulate” in the list. Cu can also mean “cut down” because C means “cut” and U means “down” in the list. It is generally not necessary to define meanings of any letter groups having more than three letters because you can find their meanings out of a dictionary.

       The idea is that you may like to hold a copy of the list in one of your hands to figure out meaning of any a word in your own story of figuration. After some days you will not need the list any more except a few occasional checks because the list is easy to remember. You may need to know that meaning of consonant letters plays a more important role than the vowels and a vowel letter usually behaves like an emphasis to the meaning of the consonant or consonants in front of it without much its own meaning, i.e. a vowel with its preceding consonant or consonants usually makes only one meaning. A very important skill is to break a word into letter groups. A consonant with its next following vowel should be a group but how to break connected consonants and vowels, and even to separate sub-word groups are optional. There are no rules but skills. Sometimes, you need to add or to take off a letter in letter groups to explain a word because people did so when they create words for shortness or good look. For example, dispirit=dis+spirit; distress=dis+stress; account=a+count and applause=a+plause.

Let us begin with the word “love”. Why is “love” consisted of these four specific letters? Why love means to load venom or change to your heart or to others? Is it the real story that the word “love” was invented many many years ago in that way? It does not matter but the figuration may be interesting and helpful to remember it.

Do you believe that the idea is a miracle? You can find that the idea and the list work well for thousands and thousands words. It is even true that your stories of figuration for many words are exactly the same as they are in the textbooks of word origin in prefixes, suffixes and stems from Greek, Latin and European colloquies including old English or in a text book of etymology. The principle is that any word came to its present meaning in its reason of formation or figuration and shall we find it? The history lost the figuration and shall we discuss and make an agreement to define it now? The idea is intended to supply people a way to remember words easily and funnily. However, who cares about your stories of the figuration being true or not in history of word origin provided they help you to remember words and they are interesting.

Your word stories may not the same as mine or you may be surprised to find out yours are exactly the same of mine. However most importantly, if you share them with people, you may find that you are special and genius. If you share the stories of figuration from one of your friends to compare with yours, you may find out that your friend is special and he/she is a friend of yours in sake of nature and personality. To exchange stories of a specific word or a group of words would be an interesting game in an intimate circle of friends confidentially.

You will remember words in your own best way by the figuration learning and practice. A word looks no longer hard and tedious but active, affective and interesting. Every one will become a writer to author a personal word storybook like a diary book and it may be published soon.

If you would like to join my work, especially a native English speaker and a language specialist, if you would like to help me or join me to publish a book of the word stories in a form of a dictionary, would you please feel free to contact me by email: ypzong@mail.neu.edu.cn or feed back on my blog? Thank you!