The truculent oppidan lickspittle.....
To me truculent and lickspittle mean opposites. I understand it as a kind of person who is meek and yet defensive. So, how do you say that in 4th grade words??
Thanks for the advice ladies, I certainly know what the exercise is and am completely capable of looking them up. I did not need to actually, because a.) its her homework, not mine b.) I already knew what they meant. My problem was in translating the language to something she understood and that made sense at that level. Machiavellian is also a hard concept to translate. Completely clear to me, hard to translate down. I could grasp the concept of a sniveling yet aggressive person, what I was failing at was helping my 9 year old do so. So thanks for the help all who pitched in.
4th grade.....Heck I've never even heard of those words before!! I guess I'd have my child look them up on the dictionary and go from there.
S.
Is this an exercise in dictionary lookup? I've never heard of these words. And I taught 5th grade! HA!
Just look up each word and break it down:
truculent - aggresive, savage, violent
oppidan - someone who live in town
Lickspittle - brown noser, someone who kisses up for their own gain etc.
I don't think they are opposites. To me, this describes a dangerous devious person who lives in town.
Thank you S. :)
I learned two new words today. Yeah, truculent is familiar to me - I live with a teenager. LOL
It is hard to explain definitions sometimes when the defining words are complicated - when we go too far down the word chain we lose the nuance of the meaning of the word.
Ah, love the English language.
That could describe lots of people in Washginton :)
- a lobbyist
- a politician running for election - reelection
- an agent for a pro-athlete
- a starving musician trying to get signed
4th grade terms
- the teacher's pet
- the popular kid in class
- the kid trying to be friends with the popular kid in class
Well a lickspittle is a brown noser, butt kisser, take your pick, it is someone who sucks up to the boss. Truculent is most likely aggressive in this context. What I don't get is the use of oppidan which is a city dweller. So I can see someone saying an aggressive butt kisser but I can't see why you would say aggressive city dwelling butt kisser but whatever...
