For example, let’s take a look at the word
“obliterated” that we saw earlier. In that context the meaning was that the runner
obliterated the world record. And this means that she beat the record so
that it no longer existed. She obliterated the record. “Obliterated” means “beat” but how
do people use this word? We really need to see examples if we’re
going to understand how people use the word “obliterated.” It’s used in lots of different contexts
besides “obliterating the world record.” In the
illustration we see a number of examples
of sentences or parts of sentences where the word “obliterated” has been used. The first one says, "the lecture model will
be obliterated in academic circles." And the second one says, “the camp’s complicated
social hierarchy was obliterated.” “They were waiting to descend the now obliterated
ladder,” is the third one. Another says, “By doing this, the Greenpeaceniks
damaged or obliterated marks and drawings on the ground.” There are lots and lots of con
texts in which
things are obliterated and they don’t always mean “beat.” Those examples of the word “obliterated”
in many different sentences came from the Corpus of Contemporary American English or
COCA, as we call it. We are going to use this Corpus more in this
course and learn more about it. We’ll also talk about how students can use
this resource to get examples for themselves. This is a large collection of American English
texts that are used for linguistic research. Because it is availabl
e on the Internet you
can use it, other teachers can use it, and so can your students.
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