Getting a Fix on Vocabulary

A textbook teaching students of English to understand and use Prefixes, Suffixes, and Compound words in English.

Originally published in 1990, and a long-time best seller for Pro Lingua, 'Getting a Fix' has been transformed with new elements and a new look. New lessons deal with saving a wilderness, international baseball, pandemics, and climate change. As in the first edition, each lesson concludes with a fictitious newspaper article. Now each lesson includes a radio news broadcast (on CD) covering the same story as the newspaper.

The linguistic heart of the first edition, 'The System of Affixation and Compounding in English' has been expanded to include work on bases. The 22 lessons present inflections, compounds, the most common derivational prefixes and suffixes, and common bases. As the first part of the introduction explains:

There are thousands of words in English. Learning these words is a big problem. However, there are ways to solve this problem. One way is to become familiar with the process of word formation in English.

Take for example, the phrase: Underground Explosions -- the word underground is really two separate words, under and ground. This is compounding. The word explosions is formed by a process called affixation. A base (plos) carries the main meaning and affixes (ex-, -ion. -s) add to the meaning. By the end of the 22 lessons, the learners will have encountered dozens of bases, 44 prefixes, and 33 suffixes. These 77 affixes are the most common affixes in English.

The morphological content of the book is enhanced with engaging 'news' stories and dramatic radio broadcasts featuring Cindy Speakwell with The News at Noon, The Evening News with Walter Conrad, The Morning Show with Maria Ventura, and WPLA's fearless roving reporter Jerald Michaels reporting from hot spots all around the globe. Among the stories and reports are a courtroom drama, a political debate, a dramatic rescue, an airplane crash, an earthquake in Kosharam, a strike, a kidnapping, a terrorist threat, student demonstrations, and even an editorial on Poverty, Terror, and Climate Change.