Building a Better Vocabulary

ż The sophists were itinerant teachers in ancient Greece who

taught, among other things, rhetoric, or the art of persuasive

speaking and writing. Sophists were known for their clever but

not necessarily logical arguments.

ż Their detractors claimed that sophists weren’t on a journey

WR¿QGWKHWUXWKLQVWHDGWKH\ZHUHWU\LQJWRSHUVXDGHRWKHUV

by any argumentative trick or intellectual sleight of hand

that would enable them to win. In this light, you can see how

sophist became a term of contempt.

z You can remember sophist by thinking of a related word that you

already know that begins with the same Greek root: sophomore.

Again, sophos means “wise,” and moros means “foolish”; thus,

a sophomore is a “wise fool.” Because sophomores have been in

school just long enough to think they know it all, some consider

“wise fools” an apt description.

Specious (adjective)

Having the ring of truth or plausibility but actually fallacious.

z As we’ve just seen, sophists can be described as clever debaters

who attempt to deceive their listeners with plausible but unfounded

arguments. Specious is an adjective that describes the type of

argument a sophist might deliver: one that seems plausible on the

surface but is fallacious underneath.

z Specious comes from the Latin speciosus, meaning “good looking,”

which came from species, meaning “appearance.” Thus, a specious

argument is one that “looks good” on the surface but isn’t sound.

Specious is also related to the Latin root spec, meaning “look.”

To remember this word, highlight the spec in specious in your

vocabulary notebook and connect it to the root spec.

z As you recall, chunking words that are semantically related is one

of the key principles of vocabulary learning. Thus, it’s useful to