WORD LISTS

"The Other Wes Moore" by Wes Moore, Introduction–Part I

Tue May 12 19:31:38 EDT 2015
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
Two children, both named Wes Moore, grew up in similar circumstances in Baltimore, but one ended up in prison while the other won a Rhodes Scholarship and became a respected business leader. In this book, author Wes Moore explores the challenges and choices that led him and the other Wes Moore to have two radically different fates.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Introduction–Part I, Part II, Part III–Epilogue
presumptuous
I was sure that I’d made a mistake, that I’d been self-indulgent and presumptuous and insulting, and that I’d never hear back from him.
heinous
We definitely have our disagreements — and Wes, it should never be forgotten, is in prison for his participation in a heinous crime.
accountability
Rather, this book will use our two lives as a way of thinking about choices and accountability, not just for each of us as individuals but for all of us as a society.
idiosyncrasy
She’d always pull back enough in her interactions with her classmates to give herself room to quietly observe them, so that when she got home she could practice imitating their accents, their idiosyncrasies, their style.
patois
The melodic, swooping movement of her Jamaican patois was quickly replaced by the more stable cadences of American English.
insatiable
Armed with an insatiable desire to succeed — and aided by his natural gifts, which included a deeply resonant voice — he made his dream come true soon after finishing up at Bard College in 1971.
askance
The hospital looked at him askance, insulted him with ridiculous questions, and basically told him to fend for himself.
gregarious
Kenneth, usually a gregarious and fun-loving person, also fought the demons of alcoholism.
tirade
He loved his brother but had learned to ignore his occasional “do as I say, not as I do” tirades.
affluent
The diversity of the borough is extraordinary: areas like the Italian-immigrant-settled Country Club neighborhood were among the most affluent of the city but were only minutes away from the poorest congressional district in the nation.
diaspora
They spent many hours talking together about the changing world and the dawning of independence and liberation movements across the African Diaspora.
cohort
The basketball court is a strange patch of neutral ground, a meeting place for every element of a neighborhood’s cohort of young men.
condone
We increased our pace; neither of our mothers would condone us coming home late.
lambaste
A few months into his administration, Mayor Schmoke was lambasted for saying, “I started to think, maybe we ought to consider this drug problem a public health problem rather than a criminal justice problem.”
vulnerable
Wes joked about it, putting on a charade around his friends, but it was the most uncomfortable and vulnerable he had ever felt.

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