Make Your Point > Archived Issues > MIDDLING
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connect today's word to others:
Like a movie you watched but promptly forgot about, something middling is just good enough, but not great or amazing: it's ser____able.
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
make your point with...
"MIDDLING"
This word comes from Scottish. Originally, in situations where goods came in three levels of quality--low, medium, and high--"middling" described the goods on that middle level.
So, someone or something middling is medium, moderate, or just okay--in size, skill, or quality.
Pronunciation:
MID ling
Part of speech:
Adjective.
(Adjectives are describing words, like "large" or "late."
They can be used in two ways:
1. Right before a noun, as in "a middling thing" or "a middling person."
2. After a linking verb, as in "It was middling." or "He's middling.")
Other forms:
middlingly, middlingness
How to use it:
Because it's less common than "moderate," "mediocre," "passable," "adequate" and so on, our word "middling" can help you describe something blah or meh in a fresh, surprising, even funny way.
Talk about middling performances; middling productions and creations; middling art, music, and fiction; middling resumes, job performances, and careers; middling slogans, products, services, and companies; and so on, or even a middling period of time: "it's been a middling season for this team," "the faculty overcame a middling decade and published a great deal this year."
You can also talk about middling people, like middling soccer players or middling local bands, or maybe a middling middle manager. :)
Finally, you can call things middling when they reflect how unimpressive other things are: middling reviews and results, middling scores and assessments, a middling reception or middling attention from the public or the media, etc.
examples:
College Humor's video "Second Cheapest Wine" pokes fun at all of us who are perfectly content with middling wine.
National Treasure earned a middling 44% on RottenTomatoes.com, but that score alone doesn't tell you how hilariously, wonderfully bad it is.
study it now:
Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. You’ll know you understand what "middling" means when you can explain it without saying "not special" or "underwhelming."
try it out:
Fill in the blank: "_____ had been abysmal. Now (it's/they're) respectably middling."
Example: "My sense of direction had been abysmal. Now it's respectably middling."
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. "bathy-" means "deep."
2. "cis-" means "on the near side."
3. "-cline" means "to lean or bend."
4. "sinistro-" means "to the left."
5. "trans-" means "across or beyond."
Try this set today. It's about the body:
1. "chaeto-" means _____.
2. "haemo-/hemo-" means _____.
3. "hidro-" means _____.
4. "lachrymo-" means _____.
5. "myo-" means _____.
Answer bank:
A. blood
B. muscle
C. hair
D. sweat
E. tears
review today's word:
1. One opposite of MIDDLING is
A. TEMPTING.
B. INTRICATE.
C. OUTSTANDING.
2. He did earn admission to the school; luckily, his _____ grades _____ the middling test scores.
A. stellar .. outshone
B. passing .. paled next to
C. poor .. didn't matter in light of
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. C
2. A
Like a movie you watched but promptly forgot about, something middling is just good enough, but not great or amazing: it's ser____able.
"MIDDLING" This word comes from Scottish. Originally, in situations where goods came in three levels of quality--low, medium, and high--"middling" described the goods on that middle level. Other forms:
College Humor's video "Second Cheapest Wine" pokes fun at all of us who are perfectly content with middling wine.
Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. You’ll know you understand what "middling" means when you can explain it without saying "not special" or "underwhelming."
Fill in the blank: "_____ had been abysmal. Now (it's/they're) respectably middling."
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.
1. One opposite of MIDDLING is
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. |