ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by shouting.

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It's the internet's version of talking.

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Yeah. I can haz cheezburger.

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All right, check out the following sentence.

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He was very careful to temper his response by not shouting.

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The word "temper" most nearly means what?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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Now, there are Tempera paints,

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the Tempurpedic Swedish Sleep System,

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and temper, just by itself.

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The word temper has multiple meanings, but only one of which

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is appropriate here. It can mean A - anger,

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as in "That bratty kid had quite the temper."

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But here it's being used as a verb,

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not a noun, and the meaning's different.

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Just by context clues you can deduce that C - worsen isn't right.

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Not shouting isn't likely to make a situation worse.

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Just ask anyone who's worked in retail.

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Yeah.

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And it doesn't make sense that someone would D - complete

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his response by not shouting.

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Usually we complete statements with periods,

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not the absence of noise.

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Temper in this context means to moderate

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or soften. He softened his response

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by not screaming like a banshee.

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So option B is the correct answer.

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[ shouting ] See, isn't vocabulary awesome?

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Sorry, we may need to temper our enthusiasm for vocabulary.

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