Monday, January 21, 2008

Possible Side Effects (week 7 post A)

vocab:

Festering (255)- To generate pus; suppurate

Austere (256)- severe in manner or appearance; uncompromising; strict; forbidding


Similes:

" I was horribly spoiled, like mayonnaise left out in the summer sun".

" I'd never been in in a pickup truck before and this one smelled exotic: like wet dog aftershave".

Possible Side Effects (week 6 post A)

Similes:

"Visiting Amah after visiting Carolyn was like swallowing a handful of broken glass after having a slice of banana cream pie".

"And she lived not in a mansion like Carolyn, but in a brick house surrounded by bamboo patches and rattlesnakes".

"But when I showed her my hands, picked at, dry, etched with deep cracks that almost looked like rivers of lava, she was alarmed".



Vocab:

Negligees (226)- A woman's loose dressing gown, often of soft, delicate fabric

Arthritic (226)- a person afflicted with arthritis.

Possible Side Effects (week 5 post A)

Similes:

"Nonetheless, she could extend her tongue and then roll the edges inward, like a tortilla, creating a point at the end".

"I began chewing the gum. It had a strong, chemical taste. And then a moment later, it slightly burned. Like pepper".

"It's totally chomp, chomp, chomp gonna make my jaw fall off like Lucy Grealy".


Vocab:

Pilgrimage (219)- a journey, esp. a long one, made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion

Median (219)-
noting or pertaining to a plane dividing something into two equal parts, esp. one dividing an animal into right and left halves.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Possible Side Effects (week 4 post A)

Vocab:

Pretentious (page 136)- full of pretense or pretension.
Insurmountable (page 140)- incapable of being surmounted, passed over, or overcome; insuperable: an insurmountable obstacle.

Simile:

"You look like a girl who eats a double helping of carrots".


Metaphor:

"By the time he was a year old, KittyKitty was the size of a Labrador".

Possible Side Effects (week 3 post A)

Vocab:

Mortifyingly (page 90)- to humiliate or shame, as by injury to one's pride or self-respect.
Horrifically (page 90)- causing horror.



Similes:

"You're pretty, like me".

"It's like modern art, right there in a magazine".

Possible Side Effects (week 2 post A)

Vocab:
Pathological (page 54)-of or pertaining to pathology.
Hysteria (page 54)-an uncontrollable outburst of emotion or fear, often characterized by irrationality, laughter, weeping, etc.


Similes:

"the card felt like a body I had stashed in the closet..."

"I would happily spit all my broken teeth into a steel pail and walk around the rest of my like smiling like a crazy person and gumming steamed apples".

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Possible Side Effects (week 1 post A)

Garnish (page 21)- to provide or supply with something ornamental
Debris (page 22)- the remains of anything broken down or destroyed

Examples of figurative language:

"I thought she was beautiful, like a movie star".

"The pit, that ached and tasted metallic, like blood".

both of those quotes are similes because the author uses like