In class: Roman numeral review
vocabulary for "The Story of an Hour" (class handout / copy below)- review on Thursday;
quiz on Friday, April 8.
When we read Edith
Wharton’s Ethan Frome, several people asked about using Roman numerals.
You probably had these in elementary school, but, even around Rochester, you
will find buildings with Roman numerals, mostly to indicate when it was
constructed.
With a partner or two, translate the numbers.
The first one is done for you.
Key:
I
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The easiest way to note down a
number is to make that many marks - little I's. Thus I means 1, II means 2,
III means 3. However, four strokes seemed like too many....
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V
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So the Romans moved on to the
symbol for 5 - V. Placing I in front of the V — or placing any smaller number
in front of any larger number — indicates subtraction. So IV means 4. After V
comes a series of additions - VI means 6, VII means 7, VIII means 8.
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X
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X means 10. But wait — what about
9? Same deal. IX means to subtract I from X, leaving 9. Numbers in the teens,
twenties and thirties follow the same form as the first set, only with X's
indicating the number of tens. So XXXI is 31, and XXIV is 24.
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L
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L means 50. Based on what you've
learned, I bet you can figure out what 40 is. If you guessed XL, you're right
= 10 subtracted from 50. And thus 60, 70, and 80 are LX, LXX and LXXX.
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C
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C stands for centum,
the Latin word for 100. A centurion led 100 men. We still
use this in words like "century" and "cent." The
subtraction rule means 90 is written as XC. Like the X's and L's, the C's are
tacked on to the beginning of numbers to indicate how many hundreds there
are: CCCLXIX is 369.
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D
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D stands for 500. As you can
probably guess by this time, CD means 400. So CDXLVIII is 448. (See why we
switched systems?)
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M
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M is 1,000. You see a lot of Ms
because Roman numerals are used a lot to indicate dates. For instance, this
page was written in the year of Nova Roma's founding, 1998 CE (Common Era;
Christians use AD for Anno Domini, "year of our Lord"). That year
is written as MCMXCVIII. But wait! Nova Roma counts years from the founding
of Rome, ab urbe condita. By that reckoning Nova Roma was founded
in 2751 a.u.c. or MMDCCLI.
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The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin vocabulary quiz on Friday, April 9
Note that there are 10 words and 2 idioms.
1. laconic- adjective- person, speech, or style of writing using very few words; brief, concise, terse, succinct, pithy
2. throng-noun- noun- a large, densely packed crowd of people or animals.
3. intrepid-adjective- adjective- fearless; adventurous (often used for rhetorical or humorous effect).
4. to accost-verb- to approach and address (someone) boldly or aggressively.
5. reticent- adjective- not revealing one's thoughts or feelings readily.
6. hapless- adjective- (especially of a person) unfortunate.
7. furtive- adjective-attempting to avoid notice or attention, typically because of guilt or a belief that discovery would lead to trouble; secretive.
8. irate- adjective- feeling or characterized by great anger.
9. plethora- noun- a large or excessive amount of (something).
10. felonious- adjective- wicked, cruel
Idioms
11. the sword of Damocles- if you have a sword of Damocles hanging over you / your head, something bad seems very likely to happen to you
12. Pyrrhic victory- a victory that is not worth winning because you have suffered so much to achieve it
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