Make Your Point > Archived Issues > SILVER-TONGUED
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connect today's word to others:
Strike something silver, and hear how beautiful it sounds.
I think Edgar Allan Poe was trying to turn that sound into words here in the first stanza of "The Bells:"
Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Lovely, right? Words like these that sound as sweet as ringing silver are silver-tongued.
And words that sound as sweet as flowing honey are me______ous.
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
make your point with...
"SILVER-TONGUED"
When you strike something made of real silver, it rings out in a clear, beautiful tone, like a bell. And so, silver-tongued people and things seem to be speaking in a clear, musical, beautiful way.
Pronunciation:
SILL ver tungd
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 silver-tongued speech" or "a silver-tongued speaker."
2. After a linking verb, as in "It was silver-tongued" or "He was silver-tongued.")
Other forms:
none
How to use it:
Talk about silver-tongued people and voices, silver-tongued words and descriptions, and silver-tongued ads, speeches, essays, films, etc.
And you might say that a speaker or writer has a silver-tongued style or manner.
Although silver-tongued words are often pure and lovely, they can also be sneaky, smooth, practiced, slippery, tricky, or wily. So you might talk about silver-tongued conmen, swindlers, politicians, salespeople, recruiters, etc.
examples:
She was buying her first car at age nineteen and wasn't exactly a silver-tongued negotiator. She wound up paying the sticker price.
Whatever people's passions are, that's what I love to hear them talk about: the topics that turn them into silver-tongued cataloguers and storytellers, the topics that light up their whole faces with joy.
study it now:
Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. You’ll know you understand what "silver-tongued" means when you can explain it without saying "melodious" or "eloquent."
try it out:
Fill in the blanks: "(A certain actor or actress) plays the silver-tongued (character) (in a certain movie, or on a certain show)."
Example: "Tom Hanks plays the silver-tongued professor in The Ladykillers."
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. "ankylo-" means "bent, fixed, or closed."
2. "phaco-" means "lens or lens-shaped."
3. "reticulo-" means "net or net-shaped."
4. "scypho-" means "cup or cup-shaped."
5. "xipho-" means "sword or sword-shaped."
Try this last set today. It's about substances:
1. "amylo-" means _____.
2. "lacto-" means _____.
3. "saccharo-" means _____.
4. "sito-" means _____.
5. "vitro-" means _____.
Answer bank:
A. food
B. glass
C. milk
D. starch
E. sugar
review today's word:
1. The opposite of SILVER-TONGUED is
A. INARTICULATE.
B. KIND-SPOKEN.
C. BOMBASTIC.
2. In an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa learns that her town's founder had a prosthetic silver tongue and, appropriately enough, had _____.
A. tamed a wild bear by dancing near it
B. talked his way out of infamy
C. taken a vow of silence
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. A
2. B
Strike something silver, and hear how beautiful it sounds.
"SILVER-TONGUED" When you strike something made of real silver, it rings out in a clear, beautiful tone, like a bell. And so, silver-tongued people and things seem to be speaking in a clear, musical, beautiful way. Other forms:
She was buying her first car at age nineteen and wasn't exactly a silver-tongued negotiator. She wound up paying the sticker price.
Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. You’ll know you understand what "silver-tongued" means when you can explain it without saying "melodious" or "eloquent."
Fill in the blanks: "(A certain actor or actress) plays the silver-tongued (character) (in a certain movie, or on a certain show)."
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. The opposite of SILVER-TONGUED 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. |