Tag: Using Music to Learn Vocabulary

Using Music to Learn Vocabulary: Part 5

April 25, 2012 / aftertheshow

“Using Music to Learn Vocabulary” is back with its fifth installment!

(Refresh your memory with parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, then read on below).

1. Maudlin: “Eighth Avenue” by Hospitality

Maudlin means self-pityingly or tearfully sentimental.

2. Rubbernecker: “Ambulance” by Eisley

A rubbernecker is a person who stares or gapes inquisitively, especially in a naive or foolish manner.

3. Super Trouper: “Super Trouper” by ABBA

Super Trouper is the registered trademark name of a brand of huge spotlights used in stadium concerts.

4. Degausser: “Degausser” by Brand New

A degausser is a device that neutralizes a magnetic field or erases information.

5. Cantilever: “You’re the Runner” by Mitten

A cantilever is a projecting structure, such as a beam, that is supported at one end and carries a load at the other end or along its length.

Using Music to Learn Vocabulary: Part 4

February 6, 2012 / aftertheshow

Even more good vocabulary words are in the 4th installment of “Using Music to Learn Vocabulary”!

1. Treacle: “Black Treacle” by Arctic Monkeys

Treacle means cloying speech or sentiment. In Britain, treacle also refers to molasses.

2. Myna: “Indian Myna” by Ben Lee

A myna is a type of bird native to Asia. The myna is an omnivorous bird with a strong territorial instinct that has adapted extremely well to urban environments. The myna is also an important motif in Indian literature.

3. Halcyon: “Halcyon” by Orbital

Halcyon is an adjective that describes a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

4. Matador: “Matador” by Maria Taylor

A matador is a bullfighter whose job is to kill the bull.

5. Synesthete: “Synesthete Song” by Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band

A synesthete is someone who experiences synesthesia, the condition of perceiving sounds as specific colors or colors as specific sounds.

6. Tundra: “To Tundra” by Los Campesinos!

Tundra refers to a treeless area that has a permanently frozen subsoil and supports low-growing vegetation like mosses, shrubs, and lichens.

Using Music to Learn Vocabulary: Part 3

November 11, 2011 / aftertheshow

Part 3 of After The Show’s “Using Music to Learn Vocabulary” has arrived!

1. Vagrancy: “Difference is Time” by Jason Boesel / Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band

Vagrancy is the state of wandering the land of an itinerant person without a home or regular employment.

2. Apocryphal: “Smarter” by Eisley

Apocryphal means erroneous or fictitious; of questionable authorship or authenticity; false.

3. Jonestown: “Highs and Lows of Being Number 1” by Jenny and Johnny

Jonestown, or the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, was a cult led by Jim Jones. In November 1978, 918 people in Jonestown died in a mass-suicide / mass-murder.

4. Garish: “Get Well” by Noise Addict

Garish means obtrusively bright and showy, loud, or gaudy.

5. Watershed: “Watershed” (an unfinished, unreleased demo) by Hanson

A watershed is a ridge of high land dividing two areas that are drained by different river systems; a critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning point.

Using Music to Learn Vocabulary: Part 2

July 1, 2011 / aftertheshow

“Using Music to Learn Vocabulary” (read part 1 here) is back with a second installment.

1. Jackalope: “We’re All Stuck Out In the Desert” by Johnathan Rice

A jackalope is a mythical animal of North American folklore described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns or deer antlers and sometimes a pheasant’s tail (and often hind legs).

2. Polystyrene: “Something Borrowed, Something Blue” by Ben Lee

Polystyrene is a rigid clear thermoplastic polymer that can be molded into objects or made into a foam that is used to insulate refrigerators.

3. Carpetbagger: “Carpetbaggers” by Jenny Lewis

A carpetbagger refers to a northerner who went to the South after the Civil War to profit from the Reconstruction & refers to a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections.

4. Aztlán: “New Yorker Cartoon” by Jenny and Johnny

Aztlán refers to the mythical ancestral home of the Nahuas, one of the main populations in Mesoamerica.

5. Tucker Telephone: “I Don’t Mind” by Phantom Planet

Tucker Telephone refers to a torture device used at Arkansas’ Tucker State Prison Farm in the 1960s. The device, designed using parts from an old-fashioned crank telephone and batteries, administered electric shocks.