GRE Word Roots, Part II: Double Vision

Word roots can be sneaky. Like, really sneaky. Like PLAIN. SIGHT. SNEAKY.

Now that I either have your attention or have lost it forever, let me direct your attention to the word attention. Double t. Huh. Okay, pause that.

I know that sometimes the vocabulary the GRE employs can be a source of suffering for — hold on. Double f? Pause on that, too.

What I’m trying to say is that it can be tough to acclimate to the — gee whiz! Double c? What is going on?

Take a look at attention. How can we break this up? Where does on root end and another begin? Is it just one piece? Let me ask you this: have you ever seen a word in ANY language outside of Star Trek that starts with a double t? You haven’t. But you HAVE found the seam in this word.

See, our mouths don’t work as fast as our brains, and sometimes we struggle to get all the sounds out even when we don’t realize it. This is how The Black Eyed Peas can release a song called “Imma Be” and have everyone understand what they mean. For another example, try saying “going to” without saying “gonna.” See how much work that is?!

Since our mouths have always been abacuses (abacuses, abaci — whatever suits your fancy) attached to supercomputers, this natural slurring inevitably creeps into the language. At this point let me introduce you to our root friend AD. AD can mean a lot of things — near, to, at, about — but all of these carry a general meaning of “motion toward.” Let’s put AD in front of TENT, which means “stretch” or “aim.” After we add -ION to show it’s a noun, we’re left with ADTENTION, and, since that’s hard to say, we end up after a century or so with ATTENTION. Phew.

Take SUB (”under”) and FER (”bear, carry”) and make SUBFER (”undertake”). Tough on the tongue, huh? Well, SUFFER isn’t!

AD and CLIM (”region”), after we make them easier, give us ACCLIMATE (”to approach [one's comfort] region”).

This process is called ASSMILIATION, itself an assimilated form of AD and SIMILAR. Neat, huh? “Turtles all the way down,” as they say (look it up).

One of the most important skills in word dissection (after building your database of roots, of course) is the ability to see where one root ends and another begins. Knowing about assimilation will save you valuable seconds by keeping you from asking what ACC- or ALL- mean. And, for that matter, it will reduce the temptation to see the ALL- in ALLITERATION as the English/Germanic word all. Of course, mixing languages in one word is mostly a no-no, anyway, but that’s a topic for another day.

(Written by: Beau Henson-Kaplan test prep)