Prefixes in Reports on Student Protests

01American college students have been protesting the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel.

02In this week's Everyday Grammar, we look at a few of the prefixes and words people are using to talk about the protests.

03The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says a prefix is a letter or group of letters that is added at the beginning of a word to change its meaning.

04Sometimes we see the prefix separated by a hyphen before the following word.

05At other times, there is no hyphen.

06This is often true of words that are often used with a prefix.

07Here are some very common prefixes.

08Let us begin with the prefix pro.

09This prefix comes from the Latin language.

10It means forward or before.

11The word protest combines this prefix with the root word test.

12One form of the word test comes from a Latin verb testare, meaning to witness.

13You can think of protesting as speaking in front of the public.

14When we combine pro with another word in English, it means to be in favor of that thing.

15Let us take a look at some examples.

16The recent student protests started at Columbia University in New York City.

17In April, the Associated Press, or AP, reported, New York Police removed a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia University on Thursday and arrested more than 100 demonstrators.

18The students said they are pro-Palestinian because they are calling attention to the situation of the Palestinians in Gaza.

19One demand of these students is a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.

20Students at some schools have held pro-Israel events and reminded the protesters of the October 7th attack on Israel.

21You may have noticed another prefix in our example.

22The protesters had set up tents or cloth shelters on an open green space of the school grounds or campus.

23Because these tents are used for camping, the reports call them an encampment.

24This is a noun formed by adding the prefix en or n and the suffix ment to the verb camp.

25The prefix en means to cause to be.

26The suffix ment makes it a noun form.

27You may have seen this prefix before in words like enlarge and enrich.

28Before the letters B, M, or P, it is spelled E-M as in empower and embed.

29Our next prefix is anti, which means against someone or something.

30It is sometimes pronounced anti or anti.

31The United States has had a long history of anti-war protests and the recent student protests follow that tradition.

32But another use of this prefix is related to these protests.

33On April 23rd, the AP reported that New York University, or NYU, said it learned of reports of intimidating chants and several anti-Semitic incidents.

34Anti-Semitic is a term that describes hatred of Jewish people.

35P.J.

36Yun, a student taking part in the protests at NYU, said, Anti-Semitism is never okay.

37That's absolutely not what we stand for.

38And that's why there are so many Jewish comrades that are here with us today.

39Jewish students at other campuses said they were intimidated or fearful of the protesters.

40This brings us to a similar prefix, counter, which means as a reaction against.

41There have been a number of counter-protests in favor of Israel.

42At the University of California at Los Angeles, or UCLA, on April 30th, counter-demonstrators attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment.

43The AP reported that UCLA President Carol Fultz said, This week, Alumni Park became unsafe.

44The prefix un- means the opposite of the word that follows it.

45So unsafe is not safe.

46Our final prefix is di-i or di-i, which can mean divided into two or separate from.

47Another of the students' demands is that the university divest its financial ties to Israel or companies that help support the war.

48You have probably seen the word invest, which can mean to gain ownership interest in a business.

49Divest has the opposite meaning, to take away or sell interest in a business.

50The AP reported that, At Brown University in Rhode Island, administrators agreed to consider a vote to divest from Israel in October, apparently the first U.S.

51college to agree to such a demand.

52In this lesson, we have looked at the prefixes pro, en, ante, counter, un, and di.

53The verbs in our examples included protest, camp, and divest.

54Write to us about protests you have experienced using one or more of these prefixes and the words that follow.

55Email us at learningenglish at voanews.com or write to us in the comments.

56And that's Everyday Grammar.

57I'm Jill Robbins.