Lexicology in theory, practice and tests Study guide Recommended by the Academic Council of Sumy State University Sumy Sumy State University 2015

Sumy State University

Recommended by the Academic Council of Sumy State University

Sumy

Sumy State University

УДК 811.111’373(076)

ББК 81.432.1-3

C-559

The study guide is focused on developing skills of analyzing of specific language material and adequate interpretation of linguistic facts and phenomena. Its goal is to help students learn the basics of English lexicology, make them acquaint with the most important features of structural and semantic construction of English. The given exercises and tests are intended to enrich the active vocabulary of students, to deepen understanding of linguistic phenomena, to encourage their individual study.

The material will be of use for the second-year students with a specialization in "Translation" and to all readers who would like to get some information about the vocabulary of the modern English language, the changes that took place in English lexicology during the period of its historical development.
Навчальний посібник орієнтований на розвиток навичок аналізу конкретного мовного матеріалу та адекватної інтерпретації мовних фактів і явищ. Його мета – допомогти студентам оволодіти основами англійської лексикології, ознайомити їх із найважливішими особливостями структурно-семантичної побудови англійської мови. Запропоновані завдання, вправи та тести спрямовані на те, щоб збільшити активний вокабуляр студентів, поглибити розуміння мовних явищ, заохотити їх до самостійного вивчення.

Посібник буде корисний студентам другого курсу спеціальності «Переклад» і читачам, які цікавляться словниковим ресурсом сучасної англійської мови та змінами, що відбулися в англійській лексикології за період історичного розвитку. Матеріал викладено англійською мовою.

The book is in 8 parts. It includes 8 theoretical chapters, practical assignments for seminars and independent work and twelve tests. There is also a brief list of recommended literature.

The practical assignments are preceded by theoretical notes which contain working definitions of principal concepts. The authors lay stress on the practical aspect of lexicology studies. In most cases, the practical assignments present English words in natural contexts of British and American literature of the 20^th - 21^st centuries. The material of the book may also be used in teaching a course of the Theory and Practice of Translation.

This book does not try to cover everything. The author will be much obliged for any criticism.

The term word denotes the basic unit of a certain language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. Consequently a word is a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit at the same time. It is the smallest unit of a language which can stand alone as a complete utterance. The term word-group denotes a group of words which exists in the language as a ready-made unit, has the unity of meaning and of syntactical function, e. g. the word-group as loose as a goose means “clumsy” and is used in a sentence: He is as loose as a goose - as a predicative.

The general study of words and vocabulary, without taking into account the specific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology. Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (e. g. English, German, Ukrainian, etc.), i. e. the study and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units. Every special lexicology is based on the principles of general lexicology.

There are two principal approaches in linguistic science to the study of language material, namely the synchronic (Gr. Syn – “together, with” and chronos – “time”) and the diachronic (Gr. dia – “through”) approach. The synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time, for example, at the present time. It is special desсriptive lexicology that deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time. It studies the functions of words and their specific structure as a characteristic inherent in the system.

The diachronic approach in terms of special lexicology deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary as the time goes by. It is special historical lexicology or etymology that deals with the evolution of the vocabulary units of a language in the course of time. This branch of linguistics discusses the origin of various words, their change and development.

Lexicology also studies all kinds of semantic groups and semantic relations: synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, semantic fields, etc.

The theoretical value of lexicology becomes apparent if we take into account that it forms the study of one of the three main aspects of language, i. e. its vocabulary (the other two being its grammar and sound system).

Lexicology came into being to meet the demands of many different branches of applied linguistics, namely of lexicography, information retrieval, standardisation of terminology, literary criticism and especially of foreign language teaching. It helps to stimulate a systematic approach to the facts of vocabulary and an organised comparison of the native and foreign languages.

The treatment of words in lexicology cannot be separated from the study of all the other elements in the language system to which words belong. The word is studied in several branches of linguistics and not in lexicology only, and the latter is closely connected with general linguistics, the history of the language, phonetics, stylistics, grammar and such new branches of our science as sociolinguistics, paralinguistics (the study of non-verbal means of communication (gestures, facial expressions, eye-contact, etc.), pragmalinguistics (the branch of linguistics concerned with the relation of speech and its users and the influence of speech upon listeners) and some others.

The importance of the connection between lexicology and phonetics can be explained if we take into account that a word is an association of a given group of sounds with a given meaning, so that top is one word, and tip is another. Word-unity is conditioned by a number of phonological features. Phonemes follow each other in a fixed sequence so that pit is different from tip.

There is also a close relationship between lexicology and stylistics or, more specifically, linguo-stylistics.Linguo-stylistics deals with the study of the nature, functions and structure of stylistic devices, on the one hand, and with the investigation of each style of language, on the other.

A close connection between lexicology and grammar is conditioned by the manifold ties between the objects of their study. Grammar is the study of the grammatical structure of language. It deals with the various means of expressing grammatical relations between words and with the patterns after which words are combined into word-groups and sentences. Even isolated words as presented in a dictionary bear a definite relation to the grammatical system of the language because they belong to some part of speech and conform to some lexico-grammatical characteristics of the word class to which they belong. Words seldom occur in isolation. They are arranged in certain patterns conveying the relations between the things they denote, consequently in addition to their lexical meaning they also possess some grammatical meaning.

The two kinds of meaning are often interrelated. That is to say, certain grammatical functions and meanings are possible only for the words whose lexical meaning makes them fit for these functions, and, on the other hand, some lexical meanings in some words occur only in definite grammatical functions and forms and in definite grammatical patterns.

The ties between lexicology and grammar are particularly strong in the sphere of word-formation which before lexicology became a separate branch of linguistics had even been considered as a part of grammar. The characteristic features of English word-building, the morphological structure of the English word are dependent upon the peculiarity of the English grammatical system. The analytical character of the language is largely responsible for the wide spread of conversion and for the remarkable flexibility of the vocabulary manifest in the ease with which many nonce-words are formed on the spur of the moment.

Language is the reality of thought, and thought develops together with the development of society, therefore language and its vocabulary must be studied in the light of social history. A word, through its meaning rendering some notion, is a generalised reflection of reality. The branch of linguistics, dealing with causal relations between the way the language works and develops, on the one hand, and the facts of social life, on the other, is termed sociolinguistics.

The modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external and the internal structures of the word. By external structure of the word we mean its morphological structure (the following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefixes, the root, the suffixes). The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is referred to as the word’s semantic structure. It is the main aspect of a word.

The definition of every basic notion is a very hard task: the definition of a word is one of the most difficult in linguistics because the simplest word has many different aspects. It has a sound form because it is a certain arrangement of phonemes; it has its morphological structure, being also a certain arrangement of morphemes; when used in actual speech, it may occur in different word forms, different syntactic functions and signal various meanings.

A few examples will suffice to show that any definition is conditioned by the aims and interests of its author. Thomas Hobbes, one of the great English philosophers, revealed a materialistic approach to the problem of nomination. He wrote that words are not mere sounds but names of matter. The great Russian physiologist I. P. Pavlov analyzed the word in connection with his studies of the second signal system, and defined it as a universal signal that can substitute any other signal from the environment in evoking a response in a human organism. One of the latest developments of science and engineering is machine translation. It also deals with words and requires a rigorous definition for them. It runs as follows: a word is a sequence of graphemes which can occur between spaces, or the representation of such a sequence on morphemic level.

Within the sphere of linguistics the word has been defined syntactically, semantically, phonologically and by combining various approaches.

It has been syntactically defined for instance as “the minimum sentence” by H. Sweet and much later by L. Bloomfield as “a minimum free form”. E. Sapir pays attention to the syntactic and semantic aspects when he calls the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated “meaning”, into which the sentence resolves itself”. The semantic-phonological approach may be illustrated by A. H. Gardiner’s definition: “A word is an articulate sound-symbol in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken about”.

A word is the smallest significant unit of a given language capable of functioning alone and characterised by positional mobility within a sentence, morphological uninterruptability and semantic integrity. All these criteria are indispensable because they let us to create a basis for the oppositions between the word and the phrase, the word and the phoneme, and the word and the morpheme.

Summing up our review of different definitions, we can conclude that they are bound to be strongly dependent upon the line of approach, the aim the scholar has in view. For a comprehensive word theory, consequently, a description seems more appropriate than a definition. The word is the fundamental unit of language. It is a dialectical unity of form and content. The word may be described as the basic speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.

The word as well as any linguistic sign is a two-facet unit possessing both form and content or, more specifically, sound form and meaning. Its content or meaning is not identical to notion, but it may reflect human notions, and in this sense may be thought of as the form of their existence. Concepts fixed in the meaning of words are formed as generalised and approximately correct reflections of reality.

When used in actual speech the word undergoes certain modification and functions in one of its forms. The system showing a word in all its word-forms is called its paradigm. The lexical meaning оf а word is the same throughout the paradigm, i. e. all the word-forms of one and the same word are lexically identical. The grammatical meaning varies from one form to another (cf. to take, takes, took, taking or singer, singer’s, singers, singers’). There are two approaches to the paradigm: (a) as a system of forms of one word it reveals the differences and relationships between them; (b) in abstraction from concrete words it is treated as a pattern on which every word of one part of speech models its forms, thus serving to distinguish one part of speech from another. Cf. the noun paradigm – ( ), -’s, -s, -s’ as distinct from that of the regular verb – ( ) ,-s, -ed₁, -ed₂, -ing, etc.

Taking into account the word-structure, words appear to be divisible into smaller units which are called morphemes. A morpheme can be described as an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. It can’t be devided into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the minimum meaningful language unit.

The term morpheme is derived from Gr. morphe “form” + -eme. The Greek suffix -eme has been adopted by linguists to denote the smallest significant or distinctive unit (Cf. phoneme, sememe).

Morphemes may be classified: a) from the semantic point of view; b) from the structural point of view.

a) Semantically morphemes fall into two classes: root-morphemes and non-root or affixational morphemes. Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of morphemes on account of the different roles they play in word-structure.

Roots and affixational morphemes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e. g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, refill, Londoner, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-,-fill, London-, are understood as the lexical centres of the words, as the basic constituent parts without which the words are inconceivable.

The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of a word. It has an individual lexical meaning which doesn’t have any other morpheme of the language. It is necessary to remember that the part-of-speech meaning is not found in roots. The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster, for example, the morpheme teach- in to teach, teacher, teaching, theor- in theory, theorist, theoretical, etc.

Non-root morphemes include inflectional morphemes or inflections and affixational morphemes or affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and, consequently, are significant only for the formation of word-forms, whereas affixes are relevant for building various types of stems. A stem is the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm.

Affixes are subdivided into prefixes and suffixes: a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Affixes possess the part-of-speech meaning and a generalised lexical meaning.

The part of a word, which remains unchanged in all the forms of its paradigm is called a stem: darken in darkens, darkened, darkening. The stem hippie can be found in the words: hippie, hippies, hippie’s, hippies’. The stem job-hop can be found in the words: job-hop, job-hops, job-hopped, job-hopping. Stems have not only the lexical meaning but also grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning, they can be noun stems (girl in the adjective girlish), adjective stems (girlish in the noun girlishness), verb stems (expell in the noun expellee) etc. They differ from words by the absence of inflexions in their structure, they can be used only in the structure of words.

Stems, the same as words, can be simple, derived, compound and compound-derived. Stems that coincide with roots are known as simple stems, e. g. trees, reads, etc. Stems that include one or more affixes are called derived stems, e. g. governments, teacher’s, etc. Binary stems comprising two simple or derived stems are called compound stems, e. g. ex-film-star, schoolboy, etc. Compound-derived stems consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion, e. g. middle-of-the-roaders, job-hopper.

b) Structurally morphemes can be divided into three types: free morphemes, bound morphemes, semi-free (semi-bound) morphemes (see Table 1).

A free morpheme is defined as one that coincides with the stem or a word-form. Root-morphemes are free morphemes, for instance, the root-morpheme friend – of the noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun friend.

A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make part of a word, e. g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ise (-ize), etc., the prefixes un-, dis-, de-, etc. (e. g. readiness, comradeship, to activise; unnatural, to displease, to decipher, etc.).

Bound morphemes can be further subdivided into derivational or inflectional. Derivational morphemes, when combined with a root, change either the semantic meaning or part of speech of the affected word. For instance, in the word happiness, the addition of the bound morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from an adjective (happy) to a noun (happiness). In the word unkind, un- functions as a derivational morpheme, for it inverts the meaning of the word formed by the root kind.

Many root-morphemes also belong to the class of bound morphemes which always occur in morphemic sequences, i. e. in combinations with roots or affixes. All unique roots and pseudo-roots are-bound morphemes. Such are the root-morphemes theor- in theory, theoretical, etc., barbar-in barbarism, barbarian, etc., -ceive in conceive, perceive, etc.

Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes are morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme. For example, the morpheme well and half on the one hand occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and the word-form in utterances like sleep well, half an hour, on the other hand they occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, half-done.
Table 1 ˗- Structural Types of Morphemes

Morphemes

free

semi-bound

Morphemes fall into lexical and grammatical (functional) morphemes. Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free and bound. Free lexical morphemes are roots of words. Free grammatical morphemes are function words: articles, conjunctions and prepositions (the, with, and). Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-), suffixes (-ish). Bound grammatical morphemes are inflexions (endings), e. g. -s for the Plural of nouns, -ed for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs, -ing for the Present Participle, -er for the Comparative degree of adjectives (see Table 2).

derivational

inflectional

Positional variants of a morpheme are known as allomorphs. Thus the prefix in- (involuntary) can be represented by allomorph il- (illegal), im- (impossible), ir- (irregular).

Splinters can be called pseudomorphemes because they are neither roots nor affixes, they are more or less artificial. Splinters have only one function in English: they serve to alter the lexical meaning of the same part of speech, whereas prefixes and suffixes can also alter the part-of-speech meaning, e. g. the prefix en- and its allomorph em- can form verbs from noun and adjective stems (embody, enable, endanger), post- and pre- can form adjectives from noun stems (pre-election campaign, post-war events), the suffixes -er, -ing, -ment form nouns from verbal stems (teacher, dancing, movement), -ness, -ity are used to form nouns from adjective stems (clannishness, marginality).

In the English language of the second half of the twentieth century there developed so called block compounds, that is compound words which have a uniting stress but a split spelling, such as chat show, pinguin suit, etc. Such compound words can be easily mixed up with word-groups of the type stone wall, so called nominative binomials. Such linguistic units serve to denote a notion which is more specific than the notion expressed by the second component and consists of two nouns, the first of which is an attribute to the second one. If we compare a nominative binomial with a compound noun with the structure N+N we shall see that a nominative binomial has no unity of stress. The change of the order of its components will change its lexical meaning, e. g. vid kid is “a kid who is a video fan” while kid vid means “a video-film for kids” or else lamp oil means “oil for lamps” and oil lamp means “a lamp which uses oil for burning”. Among language units we can also mark out word combinations of different structural types of idiomatic and non-idiomatic character, such as the first fiddle, high road and round table. There are also sentences which are studied by grammarians.

Thus, we can draw the conclusion that in Modern English the following language units can be defined: morphemes, splinters, words, nominative binomials, non-idiomatic and idiomatic word-combinations, sentences.

post-impressionists, workmanship, outstay, eatable, illustrate, generations, cliff-hangers, courtroom, incredibly, lifelong, obsession, appreciated, in-depth, research, coastal, wonderful, heartstopper, back-of-the-neck, bedclothes, brilliant, descriptions, superbly, read-in-one-day, pedal-to-the-metal crowd-passer, one-sit thriller, hair-raiser, extremely, interesting, exciting, anyone, marvelous, contemporary, accurate.

playwright, sunflower, shockproof, look, blue-eyed, cup, dusty, homeless, extremely, music, drumbeat, teenager, fantastic, table, hilarious, place, grown-up, read, sisterhood, outstanding, novel, booklist, standard, excellence, science-fiction, footstep, visionary, homelessness, bittersweet, everywhere, portrait, indelible, impression, reaffirming, nowadays, horror, convincingly, detailed, acronym, mile.

1. You and I know that soon Uncle Monty will be dead and the Baudelaires will be miserable. 2. They tried the gate themselves and found that it was unlocked. 3. If you ever planning a vocation, you may find if useful to acquire a guidebook. 4. Klaus frowned at the hand-drown map that was attached to the note with another wad of gum. 5. Enclosed you will find a map of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. 6. During the week that followed, however, the Baudelaires had a wonderful time in their new home. 7. The window curtains somehow made the room even more pathetic, a word which here means “depressing”. 8. But in front of the house was what was truly unusual: a vast, well-kept lawn, dotted with long, thin shrubs in remarkable shapes. 9. Mr. Poe stepped up to the door and rang a doorbell that was one of the loudest the children had ever heard. 10. The dormitory is straight ahead, between the storage shed and the lumbermill itself. 11. And somebody has to slice an enormous length of rope into small, workable pieces. 12. He was in charge of overseeing the orphans’ affairs, so it was he who decided that the children would be placed in the care of a unpleasantness with Count Olaf. 13. Full of drama, full of passion, full of intrigue and heroism. 14. I like it because it is full of suspense and rather adventureful. 15. Greatest little story of power, intrigue, ambition, disregard, corruption and horror.

telecast, abroadcast, townscape, seascape, allergenic, cardiogenic, mediagenic, Green Berets, a devil’s dozen, table lamp, open heart, a pin drop, a double game, talk show, hobby-horse, a lucky star, a kitchen garden, a trial balloon, a pure coin, the last drop, fashion world, a bitter pill, a mean trick, under-water rocks, a snail’s pace, chicken tracks, a camel’s back, a bookworm, a diamond ring.

English words are devided into 4 main structural types:

– simple words (or root words) have only a root morpheme in their structure. This type is widely represented by a great number of words belonging to the original English stock or to earlier borrowings (house, room, book, street, etc.) and in Modern English has been greatly enlarged by conversion (e. g. hand – to hand, pale – to pale, etc.). There are also some shortenings or contractions, which are created by shortening (contraction), e. g. ad, lab, flu, M.P., etc.

– derivatives or derived words consist of a root and one or more affixes. They are produced by the word-building process known as affixation or derivation, e. g. joyful, retell, enlarge, etc. There is an extremely large amount of such words in English vocabulary.

– compounds – in which two or more stems are combined into a lexical unit, e. g. classroom, snow-white, forget-me-not.

– derivational compounds formed by a simultaneous process of composition and derivation. The process of word-building in these seemingly similar words is different: mill-owner is coined by composition, honey-mooner – by derivation from the compound honeymoon. Honeymoon being a compound, honeymooner is a derivative. The ultimate constituents of derivational compounds are: noun stem+noun stem+ -er. The suffix -er is one of the productive suffixes in forming derivational compounds. Another frequent type of derivational compounds are compounds of the type kind-hearted: adjective stem+ noun stem+ -ed. The derivational compounds often become the basis of further derivation.

There are two characteristic features of English compounds: a) English compounds have mainly two-stem pattern; b) both components in an English compound are free stems, that is they can be used as words with their individual meaning.

Compound words in English can be formed not only by means of composition but also by means of:

a) reduplication, e. g. too-too, and also by means of reduplicating combined with sound interchange, e. g. tip-top;

b) conversion from word-groups, e. g. to micky-mouse, makeup;

c) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups, e. g. to fingerprint;

d) analogy, e. g. lie-in, phone-in (on the analogy with sit-in).

According to their structure compounds fall into (see Table 3):

a) compound words proper which comprise two stems, e. g. to job-hunt, train-sick;

b) derivational compounds, where besides the stems we have affixes, e. g. ear-minded, hydro-skimmer;

c) compound words consisting of three or more stems, e. g. eggshell-thin, singer-songwriter;

d) compound-shortened words, e. g. V-day, motocross.

Table 3 ˗- Сlassification of compounds according to their structure

three or more stems

proper
e. g. bookshelf,

shortened stems

derivational

There exists a more detailed classification of the structural types of words. The varieties of root morphemes, the positions of affixes as regards the root are taken into account.

1. 
   Simple words.
   

1. 
   R¹ – stop, now, desk;
   
2. 
   R_fr – lab (laboratory), pop (popular);
   

2. 
   Derived words.
   

3. 
   R + S – realize, dancer;
   
4. 
   R_fr + S – combo (combination);
   
5. 
   P + R – depart, subdivision;
   
6. 
   P + R + S – misinterpretation, disagreeable;
   

3. 
   Compound words/
   

7. 
   R + R – time-table, schoolgirl;
   
8. 
   R_fr + R_fr – smog (smoke + fog), brunch (breakfast + lunch);
   
9. 
   R + I + R – gasometer, statesman;
   
10. 
    (R + S) + R – writing – table, safety-belt;
    
11. 
    R + (R + S) – pen-holder, sky-jumping;
    
12. 
    R + F + R – stay-at-home, true-to-life;
    

4. 
   Derivational compounds.
   

news-stand, cupboard, sun-bleached, true-to-life, long-legged, inhabit, speedometer, lip-read, sky, strong-willed, acceptable, hide-and-seek, combo, snow-white, disagreement, vote-catching, smog, fridge, gasometer, schoolboy, retell, pop, wedding-finger, misinterpretation, zoo, small, light-minded, price, mags, unputdownable, unindentified, person, majority, frightening, generation, neck, ads, gym, Anglo-American, exam

decompose, demobilize, decompress, depart, decontrol, degrade, defense; uncomfortable, uncommon, unconditional, unconscious, uncontrollable; discharge, discard, disbud, disbelieve, disbranch, disclose, disafforest, disadvantage, ex-wife, ex-president, exceed, expostulate, exposition, exportation; suborder, subsurface, substratum, substratosphere, substandard, subsoil, substation; boredom, freedom, kingdom; redden, golden, brighten, widen; English, womanish, greyish, stylish; government, development, amusement, abridgement, payment; weekly, monthly, poorly, quickly, slowly, manly; teacher, worker, boiler, Londoner; package, postage, marriage, hostage, breakage.

1. Exciting stuff... Brown certainly does have a knack for spinning a suspenseful yarn. 2. Reading this book is like a holiday – an interlude of pleasure... 3. Unbelievable! I read this book like a hungry cat! 4. Crichton’s sci-fi is convincingly detailed. 5. A madcap mixture of Nord, folk spunk and high elegance and definitely its own space. 6. Push aside the velvet curtain to give a glimpse of the glamorous yet barracuda-like world of fashion... 7. A strikingly accurate depiction of the slightly loony worlds of fashion and high-stakes glamour magazines. 8. I automatically began in-depth research about Garmouth and wartime coastal England. 9. If you like tough cop/police work/serial killer/courtroom drama, this is a good one. 10. Life-or-death cliff-hangers, thrilling cat-and-mouse maneuvers, romance, religion, science, murder, mysticism, architecture, and action. 11. I had never seen this side of her before, not ever. 12. Learn your way around loneliness. 13. Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. 14. Frankly, pure pleasure is not my cultural paradigm. 15. For instance, perhaps I could remain totally celibate except for keeping a pair of handsome twenty-five-year-old Italian twin brothers as lovers. 16. I let myself into my tiny little studio, all alone. 17. Sobbing so hard, in fact, that a great lake of tears and snot was spreading before me on the bathroom tiles, a veritable Lake Inferior (if you will) of all my shame and fear and confusion and grief. 18. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me one more month to live. 19. I set the book down in my lap, shaking with relief. 20. Make a map of it. 21. I remember him calling up about that ad. 22. Purely as a matter of principle I wouldn't inflict my sorry, busted-up old self on the lovely, unsullied Giovanni. 23. As I try to speak logically about my missing box of books, the woman looks at me like I'm blowing spit bubbles. 24. I used to think the 109th bead was an emergency spare, like the extra button on a fancy sweater, or the youngest son in a royal family. 25. That double combo sugar-caffeine rush that made the world go round. 26. This has always been an upscale district. 27. That sounds like an innuendo, but unfortunately it's not.