Make Your Point > Archived Issues > ROSETTA STONE
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pronounce
ROSETTA STONE:
Say it "ro ZET uh STONE."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
Today we're digging up a precious stone. Not a ruby or a diamond, but a gem in our vocabulary: Rosetta Stone.
Don't you just love a good stone metaphor?
See if you can match the ones below (1 through 5) to their definitions (A through E):
1. A capstone is...
2. A keystone is...
3. A lodestone is...
4. A millstone is...
5. A touchstone is...
A. any finishing touch or crowning achievement.
B. something that powerfully attracts people toward it.
C. the most important part, uniting and supporting all the other parts.
D. something that lets you test or judge how valuable something else is.
E. a burden, or a powerful thing that seems to crush people or other things.
I'll list the answers down at the bottom of this issue, or you can just click on any word to check its meaning. How'd you do?
definition:
In case you're unfamiliar with the Rosetta Stone, I'll share its story.
There's a city in Egypt called Rashid but also known as Rosetta, the name that the French gave to it. Fun fact: the Arabic name Rashid means "guide," or "rightly guided," and that is totally appropriate because it was in this city that the Rosetta Stone was discovered: an artifact that became an important guide to understanding ancient Egyptian language and culture.
It was in 1799 when some soldiers in Napoleon's army were (probably) the ones who discovered the Rosetta Stone. It's a slab of stone with the same message carved in it three times: once in hieroglyphs (a priestly script), once in Demotic (a script for everyday people), and once in Ancient Greek. Since we knew Ancient Greek already, the Rosetta Stone basically taught us how to read the hieroglyphs--and once we could read hieroglyphs, we learned all kinds of things about ancient Egyptian history and culture. Awesome, right? You can see the Stone today in the British Museum.
Thanks to the Rosetta Stone's fame, we now use the term "Rosetta stone" (often with the lowercase "s" in "stone") to mean, more generally, anything that helps you understand, decode, or unlock something that had been mysterious.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech: noun, the countable kind, and the proper kind--so you always capitalize it: "it's the Rosetta stone in our field," "they hope to find their Rosetta stone."
Other forms: You can capitalize the "s" in "stone," or not.
how to use it:
If you're talking about something that unravels a mystery, provides an exciting key, or helps you decode or translate something complex, then feel free to call it a Rosetta stone. People will know what you mean: the Rosetta stone is on familiar territory to most of us. (Like, say, the Holy Grail, Anne Frank's diary, and the popemobile.)
You might talk about discovering, hiding, using, appreciating, or sharing a Rosetta stone.
Or, you might talk about cracking, decoding, or translating a Rosetta stone. Here's Courtney Brockman with Science Daily: "Carlson, Templeton and Greene shared an interest in trying to crack the Rosetta Stone of how birds communicate."
examples:
"The spectrum of the hydrogen atoms has proved to be the Rosetta stone of modern physics: once this pattern of lines had been deciphered much else could also be understood."
— Scientific American, March 1979
"The two committees in April issued subpoenas to Deutsche for its records related to the Trump and Kushner accounts—everything from personal financial information to any records related to suspicious activity reports tied to the accounts. In the hands of congressional Democrats, the materials could become a Rosetta Stone to unlock Trump's innermost financial secrets."
— David Enrich, Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction, 2020
has this page helped you understand "Rosetta stone"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "Rosetta stone" without saying "guidebook" or "key to a mystery."
try it out:
I bet you're familiar with Rosetta Stone, the software company. They make programs that help you learn other languages.
Here's their logo:
Talk about why they chose that name: what ideas and feelings are they trying to inspire in consumers by calling themselves, and their products, "Rosetta Stone"? Why is the logo shaped like that, and why the two white stripes? If you've ever tried their programs, do you think they deserve the name Rosetta Stone, and why or why not? If you haven't tried them, talk about what those programs would have to do, in your opinion, to deserve the name Rosetta Stone.
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
This month, our game is called "Fix the Grand Spell which was Cast by Short Words."
(Or, in monstrously inflated terms, the game is called "Rewrite the Extraordinary Incantation which was Executed by Monosyllabic Vocables.")
In each issue, I'll offer a familiar quote that I've heartlessly hypertrophied with polysyllabic transplants. You'll restore the quote to its original version, with each word just one syllable long.
That is to say, I'll share a fat, fake draft of a famed quote; you'll say the trim real one.
For example, if I say "Exploit an opportunity while the situation allows," then you say, "Make hay while the sun shines." If I say, "Durations remedy every laceration," then you say, "Time heals all wounds."
From the previous issue:
"I hold dominion over the cosmos!" --> "I'm king of the world!"
Try this today: "May the anima mundi accompany you."
Say that, but in words of one beat each.
Clues:
Where it's from: a movie.
The year we first heard it: 1977.
review this word:
A. TOOLKIT.
B. ENCODER.
C. FLASHLIGHT.
2. According to the Verge, researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine are developing what they hope will be a Rosetta stone for _____.
A. allergy sufferers: a medicine that stops sniffles forever
B. mice squeaks: a program that finds patterns and meaning in them
C. introverts: a training program that helps them find joy in social interactions
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
Today we're digging up a precious stone. Not a ruby or a diamond, but a gem in our vocabulary: Rosetta Stone.
Part of speech: noun, the countable kind, and the proper kind--so you always capitalize it: "it's the Rosetta stone in our field," "they hope to find their Rosetta stone."
If you're talking about something that unravels a mystery, provides an exciting key, or helps you decode or translate something complex, then feel free to call it a Rosetta stone. People will know what you mean: the Rosetta stone is on familiar territory to most of us. (Like, say, the Holy Grail, Anne Frank's diary, and the popemobile.)
"The spectrum of the hydrogen atoms has proved to be the Rosetta stone of modern physics: once this pattern of lines had been deciphered much else could also be understood."
Explain the meaning of "Rosetta stone" without saying "guidebook" or "key to a mystery."
I bet you're familiar with Rosetta Stone, the software company. They make programs that help you learn other languages.
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
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