Building and Breaking

Eight words for what we build, what we break, and everything in between.

Meet each word one at a time, then take the quiz to lock them in.

1. 1 fragment noun
2. 2 concept noun
3. 3 compose verb
4. 4 abandon verb
5. 5 brittle adjective
6. 6 dense adjective
7. 7 virtually adverb
8. 8 scarcely adverb

Nelson's word

noun

Fragment. A noun, and a careful one, because this word does more than a single job. As a noun I file it under the pieces: a fragment of glass, a fragment of an old song, a fragment of a plate that slipped from the shelf. It is what remains when a whole thing breaks, the part that outlives the pieces around it. But the very same word can be a verb, to fragment, which names the action of breaking apart: the dry rock fragments under pressure. A verb is Vinny's job, not mine. Same spelling, two hats, and we sort the hats in Practice. For now, file it precisely: a fragment is a broken-off piece.

A fragment of glass glinted on the sidewalk where the window had shattered.

Nelson's word

noun

Concept. A noun. I file it under the ideas, the general notions we build inside the mind before a single word reaches the page. Freedom is a concept. Fairness is a concept. The plan for a bridge begins as a concept long before the first beam is set. It comes from a root that means to grasp, and that is exactly what you do: you grasp an idea and hold it. State it precisely: a concept is a general idea formed in the mind, and every invention starts as one.

The teacher explained the concept of gravity before anyone touched the equipment.

Vinny's word

verb

Compose! To take scattered parts and BUILD them into a single whole, that is the verb, and it is mine! The students compose a mural from a thousand paper tiles; a writer composes a story from a heap of loose ideas; a band composes a song note by note until it stands on its own. Look at the front of the word, com, which means together, so to compose is to place together into something new. It is an act of making, and every great work of building is composed, one deliberate piece at a time.

The students compose a mural from a thousand small paper tiles.

Vinny's word

verb

Abandon! To leave a thing behind completely, to give it up and walk away, that is the verb! The sailors abandon the sinking ship; a driver abandons a stalled car on the shoulder; a builder abandons a plan that will never hold. It is a hard action, but sometimes a heroic one, because knowing what to leave behind takes as much courage as knowing what to keep. Do not confuse it with a short break; to abandon is to give up completely, with no plan to return.

The sailors abandon the sinking ship the moment the last lifeboat drops.

Jake's word

adjective

Brittle. Oh, this is a precise one, and it is mine. As an adjective, brittle describes a thing that is hard, yes, but hard in a way that snaps rather than bends: brittle glass, a brittle twig, an old rubber band gone brittle in the sun. Its Frown is flexible, the thing that bends and springs back rather than breaking. Could we be more specific than saying a thing was breakable? We could say it was brittle, which tells the reader it is stiff and unforgiving and will shatter under strain. Same picture, sharper edges. Magnifique.

The brittle old rubber band snapped the instant she stretched it.

Jake's word

adjective

Dense. An adjective, mine, describing a thing so packed and crowded together that little can pass through it: a dense fog, a dense forest, a dense crowd pressed shoulder to shoulder. Its Smile is thick, and its Frown is sparse, the thin and scattered. Could we be more specific than saying the woods were full? We could say they were dense, and let the reader feel how closely the trees grew, how little light came through. Reach for dense when the thing is packed so tightly it becomes hard to see through at all.

A dense fog rolled in, and the far shore vanished entirely.

Benny's word

adverb

Virtually. An adverb, and it belongs to me. It tells you how close a thing came to being total: not quite all the way, but so near that the gap barely counts. The storm virtually erased the sandcastle; the stadium was virtually empty by the ninth inning. Here is the coaching point: virtually means almost, so use it when you want honesty, when a thing is nearly complete but not perfectly so. Say the room was virtually silent, and you have told the reader it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, without claiming a silence that was not truly there. That precision is the whole game.

By dawn the storm had virtually erased the sandcastle from the beach.

Benny's word

adverb

Scarcely. An adverb, mine, and a close cousin of barely. It tells you how little of something happened, how thin the margin was: she had scarcely finished speaking before the bell rang; the light was so dim they could scarcely see. Here is where I push you to sharpen it, and here is how. Scarcely does not mean not at all; it means almost not at all, that narrow sliver between nothing and a little. Choose it when you want the reader to feel how close a thing came to not happening, and the sentence gains an edge that a plain almost never could. You can do better than almost, and scarcely is how.

She had scarcely finished the sentence before the bell rang.