Disobedience Vocabulary [Effortless English DVD1 > LV3 > 02]

Hello and welcome to the Effortless English vocabulary for Disobedience.

Ok, I’m goanna talk about the word “just”. “Just” is an important word. It’s a different meaning than the word “just” when you say, “I just want to go to sleep.” In that case,”just” means “only”, right? I only want to go to sleep. But in this case, in this article, “just” means good or fair. It comes from the word “justice”. Ok, so it means goodness, or to be good, fair, correct. That’s what just means.

All right! Little bit later, I use in that same, the first paragraph, Thoreau, in the Thoreau quote, I use the word “admirable”, or he uses the  word “admirable”.

“Admirable” means should be admired. And “admire” means to think good things about someone, to think someone is good. So if someone is admirable, it means you should think they’re good: “Wow, he’s a good person!”; “He is an admirable person.”

All right, I use the phrase “against their wills”, or “against your will” or “against his will”.

“Against your will” means against your choice. It means you do something but you don’t want to do it. Maybe you must do it, but it’s against your will. You don’t really want to.

All right, these… There’s a word here: conscience.

“Conscience” in this case with a “c”, “s-c-i-e-n-c-e”.Your “conscience” is your feeling for right and wrong. What is right and what is wrong. It’s how you decide. You think, “Oh, no, this is bad. This is good.” That’s your conscience. You say, “He has a strong conscience.” It means he always thinks about what is right and what is wrong. He never wants to hurt people. That’s “conscience”.

All right, in of that first paragraph, you’ll see the word “unscrupulous”. An unscrupulous man in power.

“Unscrupulous”, we use it to describe people usually, maybe a company. And “unscrupulous” means you don’t care about right or wrong. It means you do not have a conscience. You only care about power. That’s all you care about. “Unscrupulous”.

All right, the next paragraph, you’ll see the phrase “the State”. “The” is important here.”The State” means the Country or the Nation.

All right, in the next sentence, you’ll see the phrase “standing army”.

“A standing army” is a permanent army. That means an army that’s always, always ready. So America has a standing army. It’s a professional army. It’s not temporary.

All right, you’ll see the word “manufactured” in that paragraph. “Manufactured” means made. The verb “to manufacture” means to make something.

Right! You’ll see the phrase “lump of dirt”.

“A lump of dirt” is a round piece of dirt, like a ball, ball of dirt. “A lump” is something that’s kind of round, a small round thing. We call that a lump. If I hit you on the head with a rock, your head will get a lump on top of it.

Ok, next, so that’s the end of the quote. Next paragraph, I use the word “abominable”. I see many of the abominable problems in the world. “Abominable” means terrible, horrible, really, really bad. “Abominable”.

“Obedience”, is an important word for this article. “Obedience” is a noun. The verb is “to obey”. “Obedience” means you do what other people tell you to do. All right. You follow other people. You follow your boss, or you follow your parents, or you follow the president. That’s obedience.  That’s a noun. The action is actually called “to obey”. All right, “obey”.

All right, the next sentence I use the word “moan”. “Moan” is this sound. (…urrrrrr… urrr….).It’s a sound you make when you are hurt. You are hurt. (ohrrr…ohrr..). And it also sometimes has the idea of criticizing, criticizing someone. Right. “Oh, he’s terrible. Oh, she’s horrible. She’s bad.” You’re moaning.

Ok, I use the word “solely” in that paragraph. “Solely responsible” that means only, only responsible. Right! “Solely” means only.

At the end of that paragraph, I use the word “abandoned”. “These people have abandoned their conscience”. “To abandon something” means to leave it, leave it forever, or to get rid of it. If a mom, a mother abandons her children, she takes her children; she puts them somewhere, and she goes away; she never sees her children again. She has abandoned her children.

All aright, next page of the learning guide, you see the word “soldiers”. Of course, “the soldier” is someone in the army, an army man or army woman.

Talk about “pulling the trigger”. “A trigger” is part of a gun. It’s a part you pull.You pull the trigger that little piece of metal, and then (….), the gun shoots.

I use the word “torturing”, comes from the verb, verb: to torture.

“To torture” is to hurt someone. You try to hurt someone. But it means to hurt someone who has no power. They’re helpless, maybe a prisoner or a child or something. So you hurt them; you hit them; you beat them; you do terrible things to them, that’s called “torture”. It’s a noun or verb.

All right, and then at the end of that part - at the end of that paragraph, I use the verb “to refuse”, “to refuse an order”. To refuse something means to say no. someone asks you to do something or tells you to do something, but you say no, “I won’t do it.” That means you are refusing. Right, I refuse, I will not do it. So refuse is a little bit like a word in the next paragraph, which is “disobey”. “Disobey”, it has a similar meaning, a close meaning. It means, “disobey” means not obey. Do not do what someone tells you to do. You do not follow orders.

And you see the word “unjust”. “Unjust” is the opposite of just. So, “unjust” means bad. “An unjust law” is a bad law. It’s a law that hurts people. So, Thoreau, and Gandhi and Martin Luther King, they all said “disobey unjust laws. Do not follow bad laws.”

Ok, and these people (are)… were rebels. You see in the same paragraph the word “rebels”. “A rebel” is a person who fights the government. They go against the government. Martin Luther King was a rebel. Gandhi was a rebel. Many famous people were rebels. They fought against the government at some time.

All right, at the end of the same paragraph, you see the phrase, “the Vietnam War resisters”.

“A resister” is a person who resists. Of… of course. (hah hah). And “to resist”, the verbs, means… It’s a little like “refuse”, but it has the idea of going against something, fighting against something or trying to stop something. So Vietnam War resister is a person who tried to stop the Vietnam War. An Iraq war resister is someone who’s trying to stop the Iraq war.

Next paragraph, I say that “these people, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Thoreau, they were always condemned in the present”, means during their life, people condemn them. “To condemn” means to criticize, to say very bad things about someone, to blame them, to say they are wrong. Right! So, when Gandhi was alive, the British, many British people especially the government, they said “He’s bad. Gandhi is terrible.” The same thing, Martin Luther King. Many people in the 1950s, they said “Martin Luther King is a bad guy. He’s terrible.”

All right, and I say they’re vilified. These people are vilified.

To "vilify someone” is to describe them as being evil. You say they’re evil, terrible people. That’s “vilify”. So Martin Luther King was vilified during his life. Gandhi was vilified by some people, Thoreau also.

All right! But I say “During the 1950s, Martin Luther King was vilified as a radical.”

A "radical” is someone who wants very big changes. They want to change a lot of things, especially the government. Now it has a little bit of negative meaning. It has the idea of someone might be violent. Of course Martin Luther King was not violent. So, you know, was he a radical? I don’t know. He did want big changes, but he was not violent. So “a radical”: someone who wants big changes.

All right. And then I say, next paragraph, “The authorities he resisted are now viewed as scum.”

“The authorities”, you need “the (/ði/)” or “the (/ðə/)” in front. Those two together, means, usually it means the government, it means people with power. The authorities.

And scum is an insult. It’s a bad word. Don’t call someone a scum unless you hate them. A scum is a low class person, a really bad person, maybe a criminal, maybe someone with no education, is very terrible, bad person. “Scum”.

Alright! And finally the word “lifetime” means, of course, the time that someone lived. Martin Luther King’s lifetime, he lived in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Gandhi lived in, (you know), late 1800s, 1900s through World War II, etc. Thoreau lived in, you know, 1840s and 1850s, etc.

Ok, that’s it for today’s vocabulary. I went fast today. So if you don’t understand the first time, listen again. That’s the magic of Mp3s. you can listen many many times, repeat this many times. The repetition, the repeating will help you a lot. It’s… It’s easier than trying to memorize and study so hard. Alright! Just relax and listen again. No problem. If you don’t remember, so what? Listen again. It’s really easy.

Ok, after you finish this a few times, listen to the mini-stories, that might also help you. Ok see you next time. Bye bye.

  

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