It’s been a while since we looked at the “Word of the Day” articles on the New York Times Learning Network! Let’s look at one together today.
The word this time is “fallible,” an adjective which means “liable to make mistakes and be wrong.”
This is the example sentence from the article:
Ofri reminds you, on every page, that doctors are people, too: fallible, overwhelmed but doing their best.
Ofri 在每一頁都提醒你：醫生也是人，也會犯錯，也會不勝負荷，但仍然在盡力而為。
Here, the meaning context is that doctors are often thought or expected to be “superhumans” in tirelessly caring for their patients -- but this book’s author, who is a doctor herself, writes about real daily experiences that give readers a sense that doctors are “fallible” and can make mistakes also.
Like I stress in my “Boost Your Vocabulary” course, it is essential for us to make all sorts of connections between words -- etymological, semantic, even thematic -- when we encounter them in order to systematically expand our vocabulary.
What simple connections can we make with the word “fallible”?
A simple etymological one (in word form) is that the word ends in the adjective suffix “-ible,” which has the same meaning and pronunciation as “-able.” It carries the meaning of “able to do (the word root in front).”
In this case, the word root “fall-” is a Latinate one meaning “make mistakes” or “trip,” so the whole word “fallible,” an adjective, means “able/liable to make mistakes.”
You can make a connection between this “-ible” word with all the other “-able/-ible” words you know already: “edible,” “desirable,” “respectable,” “doable,” “manageable,” etc. This helps you strengthen your understanding of all these words and remember the new word “fallible” more easily.
Now, the adjective “fallible” has a direct antonym -- “infallible.
Even if you didn’t already know this word, when you encounter it in real life in the future, you will be able to learn it easily because all it is is “fallible” with the negating prefix “in-” added in front.
“Infallible” has the opposite meaning to “fallible” -- as in, “unable to make mistakes” or simply “never wrong.”
The word “fallible” most commonly appears in meaning contexts about “humans” and their behavior -- like the above example about doctors.
The word “infallible,” in contrast, often appears in contexts about beings that are “super-human,” like god (or else it appears in negated form to describe humans, like “not infallible”).
For example, in the Catholic Church, there is a doctrine called “Papal Infallibility,” which means that the Pope is protected from error -- or is “infallible” and “cannot be wrong” -- when he officially defines a teaching on faith or morals for the whole Church.
The name of this doctrine brings us to a further point in terms of word form -- you can use this example to strengthen your understanding of the noun suffix “-ibility/-ability” as well. Namely, “fallibility” and “infallibility” are the noun versions of the adjectives “fallible” and “infallible.”
What we have done in this email is the kind of vocabulary-building habit that we practice inside the course “Boost Your Vocabulary.”
The point is not just to memorize one isolated word at a time but to learn how to make systematic connections between words: through word roots, prefixes, suffixes, meanings, opposites, and the kinds of contexts where words naturally appear.
When you build vocabulary this way, every new word you learn can also help you strengthen many other words around it. That is how your vocabulary stops being a pile of scattered words and starts becoming a connected, expandable system. Learn more about our “Boost Your Vocabulary” course now:
很久沒有和大家一起看 New York Times Learning Network 的「Word of the Day」文章了！我們一起來看一篇。
這次的單字是「fallible」，是一個形容詞，意思是「有可能犯錯、會出錯」。
以下是文章中的例句：
Ofri reminds you, on every page, that doctors are people, too: fallible, overwhelmed but doing their best.
Ofri 在每一頁都提醒你：醫生也是人，也會犯錯，也會不勝負荷，但仍然在盡力而為。
在這裡，意思上的語境是：醫生經常被想像、甚至被期待成「超人」，好像可以不知疲倦地照顧病人；但這本書的作者本身也是醫生，她寫的是日常生活中真實的醫療經驗，讓讀者感受到醫生也是「fallible」的，也同樣會犯錯。
就像我在《Boost Your Vocabulary》課程裡強調的那樣，當我們遇到單字時，很重要的一件事，是要在單字之間建立各種連結：字源上的、意思上的，甚至主題上的連結。這樣，我們才可以有系統地擴展自己的詞彙量。
那麼，對於「fallible」這個字，我們可以建立甚麼簡單的連結呢？
一個簡單的字源連結，是它的字形結尾有形容詞後綴「-ible」。這個後綴和「-able」意思相同，發音也相同，帶有「能夠做（前面字根所表示的那東西）」的意思。
在這裡，字根「fall-」是拉丁語的字根，意思是「犯錯」或「絆倒」。所以整個字「fallible」作為形容詞，就是「會／有可能犯錯」的意思。
你可以把這個「-ible」字，和你已經認識的其他「-able/-ible」字連結起來，例如「edible」、「desirable」、「respectable」、「doable」、「manageable」等等。這樣做，可以幫你加深對這些字的理解，也可以幫你更容易記住新學到的「fallible」。
接著，形容詞「fallible」有一個直接反義詞，就是「infallible」。
即使你本來不認識這個字，將來在真實英文中遇到它時，也會比較容易學懂，因為它其實就是在「fallible」前加上否定前綴「in-」。
「Infallible」和「fallible」相反，意思是「不會錯；永遠正確」。
「Fallible」這個字最常出現在關於人類和人類行為的意思語境中，就像上面醫生的例子那樣。
相反，「infallible」就經常出現在關於「超越普通人類」的存在的語境中，例如關於神的論述中；又或者會以否定形式出現，用來形容人類，例如「not infallible」。
例如，在天主教裡，有一個教義叫做「教宗無誤（Papal Infallibility)」。意思是，當教宗正式為整個教會界定關於信仰或道德的教導時，他是「不會出錯」的。
這個教義的名稱，也帶我們去到字形上的另一點：你可以用這個例子去加深自己對名詞後綴「-ibility/-ability」的理解。也就是說，「fallibility」和「infallibility」分別就是形容詞「fallible」和「infallible」的名詞版本。
我們在這 email 裡做的，就是「Boost Your Vocabulary」這個課程裡會訓練的詞彙建立習慣。
重點不是一次只孤立地背一個單字，而是學會怎樣有系統地在單字之間建立連結：透過字根、前綴、後綴、意思、相反詞，以及單字自然出現的語境。
當你用這種方式建立詞彙量，你每學一個新字，也可以同時鞏固它周圍許多其他相關的字。這樣，你的詞彙就不再是一堆零散的單字，而會開始變成一個互相連結、可以不斷擴展的系統。