How Our Language Grows

Words in Use (Lesson 32)

• refer
• distress
• diminish
• maximum
• flee
• vulnerable
• signify
• mythology
• colleague
• torment
• provide
• loyalty

Read the following passage to see how the new words are used in it.
  
How Our Language Grows
Many popular* expressions in our language have interesting backgrounds. When we refer to a person's weak spot as his Achilles heel, we are recalling the story of the mighty Greek hero of the Trojan War, Achilles, a warrior of unusual strength and valor.* The mother of Achilles, in whose veins* flowed the blood of the gods, was warned at his birth that her son would die in battle. In great distress, she sought to save her son. In order to diminish his chances of being hurt and to give him maximum protection* in combat, she dipped the infant in the river Styx. The magic waters touched every part of the child's body except the heel that she held in her hand. Thus it happened many years later that as Achilles started to flee from an attack, a poisoned arrow struck him in the heel, the only spot where he was vulnerable. Today, the meaning of Achilles heel is not confined* to a weak spot in the body but it also signifies a weakness in the character of an individual, or in the defenses of a nation, or in the structure of a system. American politics, rather than mythology, provides the explanation for the word bunk. This word came into the language in 1820 when Felix Walker, the representative from Buncombe County, North Carolina, formed the habit of making long, unnecessary speeches in Congress. When his colleagues asked him why he was tormenting them so, he apologized by saying it was his patriotic* duty to put those speeches in the record out of loyalty to his supporters at home. The word "Buncombe" was shortened to "bunk" and came to mean any thought that has little or no worth.