VAUGHAN'S VOCAB

Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) was an influential US political columnist and foreign affairs analyst.

Lippmann’s 1922 work Public Opinion begins with a chapter titled “The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Head” in which he wrote that individuals will trust the pictures in their heads. Whatever we believe to be a true picture, we treat as if it were the environment itself.

The chapter opens with a story about an incident of 1914 on an island in the ocean where a few Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans lived. No cable reached the island; the British mail steamer came but once in sixty days. When the whole colony assembled at the quay to meet the captain, they learned that the English and the French had been fighting on behalf of the sanctity of treaties against the Germans. For six weeks, the islanders had acted as if they were friends, when in fact they were enemies.

1. quay (KEY)

A. a type of ship

B. a structure built parallel to the bank of the waterway for use as a landing place

C. a holy hill

D. None of these

2. caliph (KAY-lif)

A. an islander

B. a spiritual leader of Islam, claiming succession from Muhammad.

C. old news that is new to one person or a group of persons

D. an antagonist

The words I’m quizzing you on are from Lippmann’s Public Opinion. No. 1 is B. Thanks to Merriam-Webster for quay’s definition.

No. 2, caliph, is B. Thanks to Dictionary.com for caliph’s definition. Lippmann wrote, “A caliph, obeying what he conceived to be the will of Allah, burned the library at Alexandria.”

3. No man is a hero to his A. wife.

B. ego.

C. valet.

D. priest.

E. islanders.

4. portraiture (por-truh-CHUR)

A. calumny

B. stereotype

C. a cherished memoir

D. the art or an instance of making portraits

Lippmann pointed out that great men, even in their lifetime, are usually known only through a fictitious personality, hence the modicum of truth in the old saying that no man is a hero to his valet. There is only a modicum of truth, for the valet, and the private secretary, are often immersed in the fiction themselves. C is the answer.

Aside from D, portraiture is a formal term for portrait. Lippmann wrote, “The most interesting kind of portraiture is that which arises spontaneously in people’s minds.”