the power of words - a presentation for my son's fourth grade class

1. WORDS ARE PIXELS
THE POWER OF WORDS
CLASS 405, NOVEMBER 30, 2015

2. Pixels are the little dots on
a screen that together make
an image
The word “pixels” is short for
“picture elements” - the smallest
controllable element that makes
up a picture on a screen
What are pixels?

3. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac lead the pointillist movement, branching off from the impressionists.
The pointillists discovered in 1886 that when you
look at dots from a distance, they blend together

4. The more pixels you have, the more clear things are.
Chuck Close discovered this again in the 1980s, as part of a movement called Photorealism.
Lucas 1, 1986-87, Chuck Close

5. fewer pixels,
less clear

6. With enough pixels, you can’t see them at all.
Apple introduced the retina display in 2010.

7. Words are like pixels. Each word is a unit of thought.When you put words
together, you can create new ideas and new feelings that didn’t exist before, just like
you can create new colors and shapes when you put pixels together.
The more words you know, the more clearly and precisely you can express yourself.
There are over a million words in the English language, and you use less than
1,000 of them in your daily life.That’s just one tenth of 1% (.01%).
That would be like having a box of 1,000 jelly beans,
each a different flavor, and only tasting one.
1,025,109, to be precise according to the Global Language Monitor on January 1, 2014. Currently there is a new word created every 98 minutes or about 14.7 words per day.

8. WORDS ARE POWER
Words, used carefully, give you the
power to change people’s minds.
Everything that matters in life requires persuading
other people.
The size of your vocabulary is more
correlated with success than anything other
measure, including IQ. And the good news is that
you can learn them!
Knowing more words may even help you not only
describe the world more clearly but understand
the world more clearly.

9. Maybe.
If you know more words, can you think more clearly?
Words are also
shorthand for feelings,
sentiments, ideas,
people and things.They
make it easier to
remember and
understand a complex
world, which means you
can think more
powerfully if you know
more words.

10. If you are anything like Declan, a lot of things you want involve persuading your
parents to do things. Lots of kids are really really good at this.They train their parents
like circus elephants (just because parents are bigger does not mean they can’t be trained).
The more words you know, and the better you use them, the better you will get at persuading
your parents. If you really want something, try writing an essay!
Everything that matters requires persuasion.
Persuasion requires words.

11. Are you ready for a few of
my favorite words?
?????????

12. ONOMATOPOEIA
hiss
murmur
pop
splat
buzzhum
tweet

13. a ringing or tinkling sound
TINTINNABULATION

14. SUSURRUS
whispering, murmuring, or rustling."the susurrus of the stream"

15. PULCHRITUDINOUS
used of persons only; having great physical beauty

16. a florid brilliant style; a show of daring or brilliance
BRAVURA

17. SHIBBOLETH
“a word or custom whose variations in pronunciation or style can be used to
differentiate members of ingroups from those of outgroups.”
Words can be used to INCLUDE or EXCLUDE
Etymology —“And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go
over; that the men of Gilead said unto him,Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to
pronounce it right.Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.”

18. PALIMPSEST
a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing
has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces
remain.
something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier

19. Are you ready for a few of
your favorite words?
?????????

20. HEY DUDE
How did the term “dude” evolve from the song
“Yankee Doodle Dandy”?

21. AWESOME
1590s, "profoundly reverential” —>1670s “inspiring awe” —> 1980s,“cool”
variations: awesomely, awesomeness, awesomify, awesome sauce (more awesome than awesome)

22. OMG
First used in a letter from John Fischer to Winston Churchill in 1917
variations — zOMG, OMGz (emphatic)

23. THE POWER OF PRONOUNS
WE versus I

24. A MILLION WORDS OUTTHERE,
ANDYOU USE LESSTHAN 1,000!
• That’s just 1% of the words at your disposal … that would be like
only tasting one jelly bean in a box of 100.
• The number of words in the English language is: 1,025,109.8. This
is the estimate by the Global Language Monitor on January 1, 2014.
• The English Language passed the Million Word threshold on June
10, 2009 at 10:22 a.m. (GMT). The Millionth Word was the
controversial ‘Web 2.0′. Currently there is a new word created
every 98 minutes or about 14.7 words per day.

25. WORDS ARE PLIABLE