Suffixes that Do
Four suffixes are commonly used to indicate action: -ate, -ify, -ize, and, less frequently, -en. Read the following passage and circle each word that ends in one of these suffixes. What does each word mean? Check yourself by reading the remainder of this lesson.
Memorandum
TO: All Hourly Employees
FROM: Payroll Administration
SUBJECT: New Time Cards
DATE: November 4, 200X
In order to simplify the reporting of employee working
hours, the firm will standardize the daily time cards.
Each card will identify an employee and specify a work
schedule. The format of the cards will facilitate
recording of hours; however, you still will calculate
the total hours worked each day. We will activate the
new computer program to handle the cards next week.
Please utilize the new system immediately. If you have
any questions, we shall be happy to listen to them.
-ate
The words ending in -ate in the memo are activate, facilitate, and calculate. Often the -ate suffix indicates "to make" or "to cause to be."
Activate means to "make active" or "cause to be active"; the memo refers to activating the computer program, meaning to make it active or to begin it.
The root of facilitate is an adjective, facilis, meaning "easy." The new cards will facilitate the recording of hours; they will make the recording easier.
The third -ate suffix is part of the word calculate. The root of calculate is a Latin word for "pebble," referring to pebbles once used for counting. To calculate, therefore, is to "cause to be counted." While it may be easier in this case to simply remember that calculate means "count" or "compute," analysis such as this will give you an advantage in figuring out meanings of many unfamiliar words, especially those with more familiar and logical roots.
How would you define aerate (root = "air"), coordinate (root = "order"), and concentrate (root = "center")?
-ize
Two words with the suffix -ize were used in the memo: standardize and utilize.
Like -ate, -ize means "to make" or "to cause to be." To standardize the time cards, therefore, means to make them standard, to give them a similar format. (The implication is that there had previously been various formats of cards.)
The root of utilize is uti, which means "to use." Utilize, therefore, means to "cause to be used" or, more simply, to "use."
How would you define regularize, sympathize, and systematize?
-ify
Simplify, identify, and specify appeared in the memo. As you now expect, simplify means "make simple" and specify means "make specific" or "give the details of."
Analysis of identify is not as straightforward. The root is idem, meaning "the same." We think of identical as meaning "the same," but you probably think of your individual identity as being your own and only yours. This is the sense of the root as it is used in identify: "one and the same, the very same, the only." Each card will cause an employee to be the one and only person for that card. (Identify is a case like calculate: Analyzing its components may be more difficult than learning its meaning from experience. The process is, nonetheless, a valuable one.)
-en
This suffix is not nearly as common as the others mentioned, but it may be more interesting. The meaning of -en, like the other suffixes discussed, is "to make." Deepen means to "make deep"; harden, to "make hard"; and tighten, to "make tight." The root hlyst means "hearing," so listen means "to make hearing." What do strengthen and fasten mean?
What makes -en special is that this suffix and the words it ends are derived from Old English. The roots for the preceding words are from Old English. Some descriptive words and some plurals also use the -en suffix and are from Old English, such as woolen, waxen, flaxen, oxen, and children. Experts in language and culture and history use these clues to learn about the past.
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