|
Being curious about words is difficult to shut off. Even an email can prompt a word investigation.
"What school offers is straightforward though often obfuscated: we promote the long-term flourishing of young people by teaching them toward mastery of the disciplines."
"What is the base of obfuscated?" I wondered.
As you follow this investigation, we will visit synonyms and how they are helpful to authors. We’ll uncover how the suffix <-ed> forms a past participle, and how it functions in sentences. You’ll also see how the suffix <-ate> can give us a clue into a word's etymology. We also will distinguish between derivational and inflectional suffixes and the inflectional paradigm of verbs. Finally, we'll look at some differences in British and American pronunciation.
|
Meaning
What is this word's meaning and how does the word function?
Several synonyms come to mind when I think of obfuscated: confused, befuddled, mystified. The first synonym there even bears a resemblance in the orthography. Each synonym bears a different nuance, or perhaps a different connotation, that causes the writer to select one over another. Why would the author of the email choose obfuscated instead of just confused?
The entry in the Collins dictionary online for obfuscate gives us the student-friendly definition of "deliberately make confusing or difficult to understand." The email I received is suggesting that the purpose of schooling is deliberately kept confusing. With all the ancillary "stuff" that has been built around the process of schooling in America, I'm inclined to agree.
Semantically, the word obfuscated seems to be a more specific form of confusion. The "deliberateness" is what sets it apart and is, perhaps, the reason the author selected the word. Synonyms can enrich our language by suggesting intent and bringing nuance to the topic.
Our word can be a verb in the past tense form.
Schools obfuscated the purpose of schooling for years.
Our word can be a past participle as well. Past participles share or "participate" in forming verbal constructions:
- We have obfuscated our message so our opponents cannot guess it.
- The links were obfuscated to prevent hackers.
Past participles can also modify nouns, functioning as adjectives do.
- The team stayed up all night trying to analyze the obfuscated data.
|
Structure
What are the elements that make up this word's structure?
Knowing this word is a past participle gives me my first clue to its structure. The past participle is often formed with a suffix <-ed>.
obfuscate/ + ed
I'm also familiar with the suffix <-ate> which can form verbs.
obfusc + ate/ + ed
Verbal forms that end in
I am also tempted to peel back a prefix obscure and obstinate.
ob + fusc + ate/ + ed
When I reach this point with students, I'll sometimes ask, "Since every word has or is a base, what do you propose is the base here?" In this analysis, I'm proposing a base of
Let's take a look at Etymonline to find the root for our proposed base. The entry for obfuscate gives us more synonyms of our word, "to darken, bewilder." It also shows us the Latin verb obfuscare, cementing our element
The last "from" points us to a Latin adjective fuscus, "dark." The <-us> can be removed from a Latin adjective to provide us with my proposed base.
The entry also tells us to see dusk. I will often follow these entries, as they may give us more to the story. The entry for dusk ends with a sentence that tells us Old English dox, the potential root of dusk, is from a PIE (Proto-Indo-European) root, and then it shows parentheses with other words that are derived from that PIE root. Our Latin root, fuscus, is included there. When looking at Etymonline entries, it is important to follow the details of the entry, not just accept that roots that are referenced are in the same etymological or morphological family.
|
Relatives
What are the word's relatives and history?
One way you can find relatives for your word under study is to take the root and plug it back into the search engine for Etymonline. Doing this yields several entries I can read to see if they are related.
A word for "dark brown," subfusc, could be included in a matrix with obfuscate. The second paragraph in that entry explained that Latin often used the element to form adjectives of color.
We see the entry for dusk. The word dusk does not share the same spelling with fuscus. However, it is related etymologically if we trace the roots for obfuscate and dusk all the way back to PIE. This is like someone you are related to because you share a great grandparent.
There is an entry, fuscous, which looks as if it can be analyzed as fusc + ous. We can put that in our matrix as well as the entry tells us it's from Latin fuscus.
Of course, we can always use English derivational forms for our matrix as well. We have the noun obfuscation. We have adjectives obfuscatory and obfuscatable. We can even add a prefix to get unobfuscatable. As a verb, we can provide the inflectional paradigm as well: obfuscates, obfuscated, obfuscating.
|
Graphemes
What can the pronunciation of the word teach us about the relationship of its graphemes and its phonology?
One thing I like to do is look at both the British pronunciation and the American pronunciation for words from the entries in the Collins dictionary.
British: ˈɒbfʌsˌkeɪt
American: ˈɑbfəsˌkeɪt
In this case, they are very similar, save the vowel sound in the base. In the British version, it is [ʌ], what we may refer to as a "short " sound. In American English, it is a schwa, or reduced vowel.
The first vowel in the British and American pronunciations also differ. The IPA symbol in the British version is for the open back rounded vowel; the IPA symbol in the American version is an open back unrounded vowel. They differ in one feature, the rounding of the lips.
|
Next Steps
What concepts from this investigation can we explore next to learn more about the English orthographic system?
|
Why would an author choose other synonyms of obfuscate? What nuances of usage can you explore? |
|
Past participles often have an <-ed> form, but some have an <-en> form as well. What do you notice about which ones have the <-en> form? |
|
What derivational word suffixes help form different word classes of noun, verb, adjective, or adverb? Are there bases you can affix to create one of each of these open classes? |
When you finish investigating a word, it is important to go back and plug it into your initial context. How has this investigation aided my understanding of obfuscate? Now that I know its connection to "darken," I can see why I might select this word over others. The author of my email clearly wants me to understand that the ways the process of schooling may muddle its ultimate intent. I'm reminded of how over-focusing on graphemes and phonemes can obfuscate the reasons for a word's orthography. When considering how a word is spelled, we must examine its meaning, structure, and relatives as well as its graphemes and how it's pronounced.
Stay curious,
Brad
Join the community!
P.S. The <-us> on Latin adjectives is the nominative masculine singular ending. This is the form you see listed in Latin dictionaries. Words we borrowed from Latin with this ending include bonus and genius.
P.P.S. How is your understanding of participles now? Do you know anyone else who would benefit from the explanation of participles in this investigation? Forward this newsletter to them.
And if this newsletter showed up in your inbox because someone passed it along to you, you can go here to subscribe so you can be refreshed about orthographic concepts each week.
|
|
|
|
