inextricable (adv.: inextricably)
This word refers to knots, mazes, puzzles, and difficult situations. Inextricable means “so intricate or complicated that no means of exit can be discovered” (OED online). Also, “incapable of being cleared up or put straight” (OED).
Whereas abstruse refers to a text that's difficult to understand – a wordy paragraph, a vexing math problem -- inextricable refers to the unresolvable condition of challenging problems or situations. Sample sentences: “In the years leading up to the Civil War, American policy towards slavery was in a state of inextricable confusion.” “The long and winding forest road seemed inextricable to all but the most experienced guides.” Poet John Donne (Yemi’s poet!) wrote, “There is no perplexity in thee, my God; no inextricableness in thee.”
didactic (adj.) (Greek: didaktik – ‘apt to teaching’)
In its simplest form and derivation, didactic means “having the manner or character of a teacher” (OED online). In 1860, however, Ralph Waldo Emerson – a great teacher himself – inadvertently launched the negative (i.e., pejorative) sense of didactic when he said (much to the chagrin of teachers everywhere): “Life is rather a subject of wonder, than of didactics.”
So… didactic can also mean ‘preachy’ or, worse, boring (because something is preachy). Thus, it is a great tone word for texts or statements that overexert themselves in their efforts to teach. “The didactic air of this essay on vocabulary words is putting me to sleep.” Or… “Mr. Bratnober told us that Toni Morrison is a fine author, but some of us found her elevated diction and syntax to be didactic: she's working too hard to teach us anything useful or memorable!!” (P.S. An auto-didact is someone who is self-taught.)
omniscient (adj.)
Omniscient means ‘all-knowing’ – the exact same thing that its Latin roots would preordain. “The omniscient narrator of Lord of the Flies seems to understand what each of the boys experiences on the island.”
warble (v.)
To warble is obviously something that a bird does. (“The robin warbled in the nearby tree.”) However, warble is also a great word to use when human beings make certain sounds. It’s been used as a word for singing: – “Emmy…began to warble that stanza from a favorite song…” (Thackeray). It’s also been used as a synonym for poetic speech: “Or would you have me turn a sonneteer, And warble those brief-sighted eyes of hers?” (Tennyson).
Warble is also used to characterize the sounds of high-pitched human voices, especially in crowds: “...[G]irls are there warbling his name, and, just as he promised, he's delighted to dish out the autographs.” (See also, the word 'chirp'!!) (Dictionary site online.)
instigate (v.)
This is a strong synonym for foment, an earlier AP vocabulary word. Just like foment, instigate means “to initiate,” or “to cause.” (OED: “to spur” or “to stir up” or “to provoke.” ) Sample sentences: “He instigated a riot with his inflammatory speech.” “It was spring – in fact, it was the last day of school – when the 8th graders instigated a food fight in the cafeteria.”
invert (v.)
This means “to reverse the position” (OED) of something -- to move something from outside-in to inside-out. It often means to reverse something from its familiar or expected position. Sample sentences: “Yoda inverts familiar syntax in English when he says things like, ‘Strong am I in the Force’ or – memorably – ‘When nine hundred years you reach, look as good, you will not’.” In a visual context: "the number 9 looks like an inverted number 6."
covert (adj.)
Covert means ‘secret’ or ‘stealthy’. “The U.S. Special Forces' covert mission to assassinate Osama bin Laden infuriated the Pakistani government.”
elegiac (adj.)
This is another good tone word. Elegiac refers to the tone of a eulogy – a funeral speech or sermon. It’s also used to connote something is that or mournful or respectful or earnest or spiritual in tone.
Sample sentences. “The King, posing as Harvey Wilks, tried to achieve an elegiac tone with his remarks about the ‘diseased’.” “Part of the tension in Elizabeth Bishop’s brilliant poem, “One Art,” derives from the speaker’s resistance against sharing an elegiac voice – instead, she does her best to sound nonchalant in the face of her losses, both trivial and profound. It is only when she makes the demand of herself to “(Write it)” that readers recognize how devastated she has been by the ‘disaster’ of personal loss.” “The sad, earnest music near the end of the piece reinforces the elegiac mood.”
laudatory (adj.)
Laudatory means filled or imbued with praise. (“Expressive of praise” – OED) “Mr. Bratnober’s laudatory comments gave me hope that I’d do OK on the AP exam.” “An artist is not apt to speak in a very laudatory style of a brother artist” (Hawthorne); but “Mr. Bratnober has an unapologetically laudatory view of student writers in the Woodbury Class of 2013!!”
