Make Your Point > Archived Issues > INCULPABLE

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explore the archives: You might recall that culpa is Latin for "crime, fault, blame, guilt, or error." If you're inculpable, then you're not culpable or guilty: you're innocent and can't be blamed for the crime or error at hand. But if you're apologizing for some error that you do accept the blame for, then you might say "___ culp_." make your point with... "INCULPABLE" Someone culpable is guilty: deserving blame, or deserving punishment. So, someone or something inculpable is innocent and shouldn't be blamed or punished. Pronunciation: in KULL puh bull 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 "an inculpable thing" or "an inculpable person." 2. After a linking verb, as in "It was inculpable" or "He was inculpable.") Other forms: culpable, culpably; inculpate, inculpated, inculpating, inculpatory; inculpableness How to use it: Pick this word instead of "blameless" when you need to be formal or serious--or when you need to be especially sharp in your humor or sarcasm. Talk about people being inculpable in certain situations, people being inculpable for certain bad outcomes, people being inculpable of or in certain crimes or mistakes, people being inculpable victims of something, or people escaping inculpable from certain situations. Although we usually say that people are inculpable, you might also say that people's words or actions are inculpable. Or, be more abstract and talk about inculpable ignorance, inculpable childhood, an inculpable goal or desire or intention, etc. A note about related words: To inculpate people doesn't mean to make them innocent; on the contrary, it means to incriminate them, or to blame them for a mistake or a crime. The reverse is to exculpate people: to free them from those charges or accusations. So, notice that "inculpate" and "inculpable" are extremely different. In those words, the same prefix, "in," means two different things: for "inculpate," "in" means "inward, toward," but for "inculpable," "in" means "not." Is that crazy, or what? Let's break it down: "Inculpate" literally means "to (bring) blame in," while "inculpable" literally means "not worthy of blame." examples: If I try hard enough to sympathize, I can imagine at the root of every crime some inculpable desire for fairness or for survival. Reading the first Hunger Games book the first time through, I had hoped that Katniss would somehow emerge from the games inculpable. But this hope ignored all the foreshadowing: her skills and ruthlessness as a hunter, her eagerness to protect Prim at any cost, her willingness to drown a sick animal and to shoot a beautiful lynx. study it now: Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. You’ll know you understand what "inculpable" means when you can explain it without saying "beyond reproach" or "innocent." try it out: Fill in the blanks: "Punishing (someone) for (something that wasn't the person's fault) amounts to blaming the inculpable (bystander, victim, whistle-blower, etc., or just leave this blank)." Example 1: "Punishing addicts for seeking taxpayer-funded treatment amounts to blaming the inculpable victim." Example 2: "Punishing girls for wearing clothes that 'distract' their classmates amounts to blaming the inculpable." 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. Our game this month is called "Cousins or Strangers?" Consider two pairs of similar-looking words, and figure out which pair are truly related, like cousins, and which pair are unrelated, like strangers. "Related," of course, is a relative concept (ha ha). We're interested in closeness: "compute" and "computer" are sisters, or variations of the same word; "vision" and "video" are cousins, sharing the same Latin root; but "compute" and "video" are strangers. From our previous issue: Pair A: QUART and QUARANTINE. These are the cousins. Words like "quart" and "quarter" trace back to the Latin quattuor, "four," and, surprisingly, so does "quarantine." Originally, Quarantine was a place where Jesus was said to have fasted for 40 days, and a quarantine was also a 40-day period in which a widow was allowed to stay in the house owned by her deceased husband. Pair B: HANG and HANGNAIL. Sure, a hangnail seems to hang off near the nail, but "hangnail" probably derives from the Old English word for a corn on the foot: agnail or angnail. Let's do this one last time! Ready to check out the final two pairs? Remember, one pair will be cousins; the other, strangers. Which is which? Pair A: SECOND (as in "first, second, third") and SECOND (as in "second, minute, hour") Pair B: MAN and HUMAN review today's word: 1. The exact opposite of INCULPABLE is CULPABLE, but another opposite of INCULPABLE is A. REPREHENSIBLE B. MODIFIABLE C. INEFFABLE 2. Hanlon's razor is one name for the following principle: that when someone wrongs us and we're wondering why, we should first consider an inculpable cause--like _____-- rather than a _____ one. A. greed .. dangerous B. anger .. premeditated C. ignorance .. malicious Answers are below. a final word: To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact Liesl at Liesl@HiloTutor.com Disclaimer: Word meanings presented here are expressed in plain language and are limited to common, useful applications only. Readers interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words are encouraged to check a dictionary. Likewise, word meanings, usage, and pronunciations are limited to American English; these elements may vary across world Englishes. Answers to review questions: 1. A 2. C