学习词根---Unit 7.4
昨天的答案：
1. a 2. e 3. b 4. f 5. c 6. g 7. d 8. h
今天学习SENS和SOPH两个词根。
SENS comes from the Latin nous sensus, meaning "feeling" or "sense." Sense itself obviously comes straight from the Latin. A sensation is something you sense. And if you're sensitive, you feel or sense things sharply, maybe even too sharply.
sensor. A device that detects a physical quantity (such as a movement or a beam of light) and responds by transmitting a signal.
例句：The outdoor lights are triggered by a motion sensor that detects changes in infrared energy given off by moving human bodies.
室外的灯由运动传感器触发，该传感器检测人体移动时释放的红外能量的变化。
Sensors are used today almost everywhere. Radar guns bounce microwaves off moving cars. A burglar alarm may use a photosensor to detect when a beam of light has been broken, or may use ultrasonic sound waves that bounce off moving objects. Still other sensors may detect pressure (barometers) or chemicals (Breathalyzers and smoke detectors). Stud finders, used by carpenters to locate wooden studs under a wall, may employ magnets or radar. Wired gloves, which relay information about the position of the fingers, are used in virtual-reality environments. A cheap car alarm may be nothing but a shock sensor, in which a strong vibration will cause two metal surfaces to come together.
desensitize. To cause (someone or something) to react less to or be less affected by something.
例句：Even squeamish nursing students report becoming desensitized to the sight of blood after a few months of training.
据报道，即使是易受惊的护理学生，在几个月的训练后，也会对见到血变得不再敏感。
Physical desensitizing is something that biologists have long been aware of. Basic training in the armed forces tries to desensitize new recruits to pain. We can desensitize ourselves to the summer heat by turning off the air conditioning, or become desensitized to the cold by walking barefoot in the snow. But desensitize is more often used when talking about negative emotions. Parents worry that their children will be desensitized to violence by playing video games. Soldiers may become desensitized to death on the battlefield. Desensitizing may be natural and desirable under some circumstances, but maybe not so good in others.
extrasensory. Not acting or occurring through any of the known senses.
例句：A kind of extrasensory capacity seems to tell some soldiers when danger is near.
一种超感知能力似乎能警醒某些士兵危险正在靠近。
Since extra means "outside, beyond"), extrasensory means basically "beyond the senses." Extrasensory perception, or ESP, usually includes communication between minds involving no obvious contact (telepathy), gaining information about something without using the normal senses (clairvoyance), or predicting the future (precognition). According to polls, about 40% of Americans believe in ESP, and many of them have had personal experiences that seem to prove its existence. When someone jumps into your mind months or years after you had last thought of him or her, and the next day you learn that the person has just died, it can be hard to convince yourself it was just coincidence. Still, scientific attempts to prove the existence of ESP have never been terribly successful.
sensuous. (1) Highly pleasing to the senses. (2) Relating to the senses.
例句：Part of what audiences loved about her was the delight she took in the sensuous pleasures of well-prepared food.
观众喜欢她的一部分原因是她准备的食物会给人带来愉悦的感官享受。
Sensuous and sensual are close in meaning but not identical, and sensuous was actually coined by the poet John Milton so that he wouldn't have to use sensual. Sensuous usually implies pleasing of the senses by art or similar means; great music, for example, can be a source of sensuous delight. Sensual, on the other hand, usually describes gratification of the senses or physical appetites as an end in itself; thus we often think (perhaps unfairly) of wealthy Romans leading lives devoted to sensual pleasure. You can see why the Puritan Milton might have wanted another word.
SOPH come from the Greek words meaning "wise" and "wisdom." In English the root sometimes appears in words where the wisdom is of the "wise guy" variety, but in words such as philosophy we see it used more respectfully.
sophistry.(诡辩) Cleverly deceptive reasoning or argument.
例句：For lawyers and politicians, the practice of sophistry from time to time is almost unavoidable.
对于律师和政治家来说，屡屡诡辩的做法几乎是不可避免的。
The Sophists were a group of Greek teachers of rhetoric(雄辩) and philosophy, famous during the 5th century B.C., who moved from town to town offering their teaching for a fee. The Sophists originally represented a respectable school of philosophy, but some critics claimed that they tried to persuade by means of clever but misleading arguments. The philosopher Plato wrote negatively about them, and the comic dramatist Aristophanes made fun of them, showing them making ridiculously fine distinctions about word meanings. We get our modern meanings of sophist, sophistry, and the adjective sophistical mostly from the opinions of these two men.
sophisticated. (1) Having a thorough knowledge of the ways of society. (2) Highly complex or developed.
例句：In Woman of the year, Katharine Hepburn plays a sophisticated journalist who can handle everything except Spencer Tracy.
在Woman of the year中，凯瑟琳·赫本饰演一位老练的记者，除Soencer Tracy以外，她可以处理所有事情。
A sophisticated argument is thorough and well-worked-out. A satellite is a sophisticated piece of technology, complex and designed to accomplish difficult tasks. A sophisticated person, such as Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, knows how to get around in the world. But sophistication isn't always admired. As you might guess, the word is closely related to sophistry, and its original meanings weren't very positive, and still today many of us aren't sure we really like sophisticates.
sophomoric. Overly impressed with one's own knowledge, but in fact undereducated and immature.
例句：We can't even listen to those sophomoric songs of his, with their attempts at profound wisdom that just demonstrate how little he knowns about life.
我们甚至无法听他的那些一知半解的歌曲，他们试图用深刻的智慧来证明他对生活知之甚少。
Sophomoric seems to include the roots soph-, "wise," and moros, "fool" (seen in words such as moron(笨蛋)), so the contrast between wisdom and ignorance is built right into the word. Cambridge University introduced the term sophomore for its second-year students in the 17th century (though it's no longer used in Britain), maybe to suggest that a sophomore has delusions of wisdom since he's no longer an ignorant freshman. In America today, sophomore is ambiguous since it can refer to either high school or college. But sophomoric should properly describe something--wit, behavior, arguments, etc. --that is at least trying to be sophisticated.
theosophy. A set of teachings about God and the world based on mystical insight, especially teachings founded on a blend of Buddihist and Hindu beliefs.
例句：He had experimented with a number of faiths, starting with Buddhism and ending with a mixture of Eastern and Western thought that could best be called theosophy.
他曾经有过一些信仰，从佛教开始，结束于一种结合东西方思想并且最好称为神智学的学说。
The word theosophy, combining roots meaning "God" and "wisdom," appeared back in the 17th century, but the well-known religious movement by that name, under the leadership of the Russian Helena Blavatsky, appeared only around 1875. Blavatsky's theosophy combined elements of Plato's philosophy with Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu thought (including reincarnation), in a way that she claimed had been divinely revealed to her. The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 to promote her beliefs, still exists, as does the Anthroposophical Society, founded by her follower Rudolf Steiner.
Quiz:
Match the word on the left to the correct definition on the right:
1. theosophy a. immaturely overconfident
2. extrasensory b. detector
3. sensuous c. doctrine of God and the world
4. sophomoric d. pleasing to the senses
5. sophistry e. false reasoning
6. desensitize f. not using the senses
7. sophisticated g. make numb
8. sensor h. highly complex
