Make Your Point > Archived Issues > AMALGAMATION

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connect today's word to others: Do you like to cook in a Crock-Pot? All the flavors seep into each other, turning your dish into an amalgamation. An amalgamation is a specific kind of blend or a mixture: the kind where the individual pieces have melded together into one new whole. In other words, an amalgamation is a well-blended soup of various things, a well-combined stew of different elements. So that makes it slightly different from an agg____ation, which is a messy, disorganized mixture of things--things that haven't smoothly blended but have tangled up together like a knotted ball of yarn. Could you recall that word? And could you give an example of some literally or figuratively immiscible things that can never meld into one amalgamation? (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) make your point with... "AMALGAMATION" Originally, an amalgamation was a blend of two metals. Imagine two metals melting, softening, and forming a completely new substance. That's the idea to keep in mind, because in general, an amalgamation is a well-blended mixture of different things. Pronunciation: uh MAL guh MAY shun Part of speech: Countable noun. (Countable nouns, like "bottle," "piece," and "decision," are words for things that can be broken into exact units. You talk about "a bottle," "three pieces," and "many decisions." Likewise, talk about one amalgamation or multiple amalgamations.) Other common forms: amalgamations; amalgamate, amalgamated, amalgamating How to use it: We usually talk about an amalgamation of things: an amalgamation of languages, an amalgamation of cultures, an amalgamation of several companies, an album that's an amalgamation of musical styles, a massive data set that's an amalgamation of hundreds of others, etc. The verb, "amalgamate," is both transitive and intransitive, so you can talk about amalgamating different things into one thing, about amalgamating one thing with another thing, or about things that amalgamate on their own (often into other things, or with other things). examples: As readers we're curious about which real-life person inspired this character or that one--who's the real-life Hazel, John Green?--but so often they turn out to be amalgamations of multiple people, with bits of pure fiction melted in. The three suburbs to the south of the city had slowly amalgamated into one long stretch of cupcakeries, Super Targets, and McMansions. study it now: Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. You’ll know you understand what "amalgamation" means when you can explain it without saying "homogenous blend" or "consolidation." try it out: Fill in the blanks: "(A result or a whole) is (its parts), amalgamated into one." Example: "Les Miserables is history and fiction, and hope and despair, amalgamated into one." before you review: Spend at least 20 seconds occupying your mind with the game below. Then try the review questions. Don’t go straight to the review now—let your working memory empty out first. "Bits & Pieces." This month, we're playing with affixes and combining forms, the bits and pieces of our language, matching them to their meanings. The more of these bits and pieces you know, the better you are at decoding unfamiliar words, which is sooo satisfying! I'll share the answers in each subsequent issue. Here are the answers from our previous issue: 1. "calli-" means "beautiful." 2. "pachy-" means "thick." 3. "stego-" means "covered or roofed." 4. "tauto-" means "same." 5. "xeno-" means "foreign or strange." Try this set today. It's about substances: 1. "galacto-" means _____. 2. "glyco-" means _____. 3. "oeno-" means _____. 4. "oleo-" means _____. 5. "xylo-" means _____.    Answer bank:       A. sugar       B. wine       C. wood       D. milk       E. oil review today's word: 1. The opposite of AMALGAMATED is A. COORDINATED. B. SEPARATED. C. CURATED. 2. The Glass Menagerie is a memory play, "dimly lighted" and "sentimental," its scenes less like precise _____ than misty amalgamations.  A. incidents B. emotions C. movements Answers are below. a final word: Make Your Point is crafted with love and brought to you each weekday morning by Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From Liesl's 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. Answers to review questions: 1. B 2. A