Word Origins & Meanings

English has borrowed words from many languages over time:

• Greek: tele (far) →  telephone; photo (light) →  photograph

• Latin: aqua (water) → aquarium; dict (say) →  predict

• French: cuisine, ballet, garage

• Indigenous languages: kayak, moccasin, Saskatchewan

Learning Roots, prefixes, and suffixes helps decode new words.

Example: the prefix re- means "again" →  rewrite = to write again

Figurative Language & Tone

• Simile: compares using like or as — “The snow sparkled like diamonds.”

• Metaphor: a direct comparison — “Time is a thief.”

• Personification: gives human qualities to something non‑human — “The wind whispered.”

• Analogy: shows how two things are alike in a deeper way — “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”

• Palindrome: the word, number, or sentence is the same forwards as it is backwards — "racecar" "never odd or even" "yo banana boy!"

• Synecdoche: a part is put for the whole ("I got some new wheels!") or a whole for a part ("Edmonton won the Stanley Cup!")

• Tone: the author’s attitude (serious, funny, hopeful).

• Mood: the feeling the text gives the reader (happy, tense, calm).