Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root tract. It means draw and pull. You will recognize this as a particularly productive root in English: attract, contract, detract, extract, and retract all grow from this root, and all are included in this document (and I haven’t mentioned distract–to pull attention away from–which is not on this worksheet).

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Here is a worksheet on on the Greek word roots soph and sophy. They mean wise and wisdom. As you probably see, these are productive roots in English that yield words such as sophisticated, theosophy, sophistry (a good word, I would argue, for high school graduates to know in our intellectually benighted age) and, of course, philosophy.

In fact, philosophy is one of those exemplars of ancient Greek culture, containing both sophy and philo, which means love, attracted to, affinity for, and a natural liking. Philosophy, then, means “love of wisdom.”

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.