The Meanings and Connotations of Junior and Senior

The Meanings and Connotations of Junior and Senior The Meanings and Connotations of â€Å"Junior† and â€Å"Senior† The Meanings and Connotations of â€Å"Junior† and â€Å"Senior† By Mark Nichol Aside from their literal meanings, junior and senior have an array of connotations related to hierarchy. Junior, from the Latin term juvenis, from which juvenile is also derived, refers to someone younger than another. It also applies to a young person or, more specifically, a son. Until well into the twentieth century, a boy or a young man might be addressed as Junior (though it was generally considered derogatory or at least condescending when directed at an adult), and the tradition persists of appending the abbreviation Jr. (no intervening comma is necessary) to the name of a male child who shares his father’s exact name. Junior also applies to academic standing; in a four-year collegiate or secondary school system, a junior is someone in the third of four years of study. Schools for students in grades seven through nine (formerly grades seven and eight) in a K–12 system are often labeled â€Å"junior high schools.† The word can also refer to someone of inferior rank (â€Å"lieutenant junior grade,† for example, as opposed to a full lieutenant, or â€Å"junior account executive†) or, in fashion, a clothing category for slender women and girls. As an adjective, junior means â€Å"younger,† â€Å"youthful,† â€Å"more recent† (with a connotation of inferiority or subordination), â€Å"lower in rank,† or â€Å"on a smaller scale.† It also applies to class standing or, as part of the phrase â€Å"junior varsity,† an athletic team subordinate to the varsity, or the primary team. Senior, borrowed directly from Latin and meaning â€Å"older,† is related to senile and senescence but has usually more positive connotations than those cognates. It refers to someone older than another or of higher rank. A senior in college or high school is in the final year of study, and senior might also refer, in an academic context, to a high-ranking fellow at a university. The abbreviation Sr., following a name (again, with no intervening comma), indicates that the man so named has a son with the exact same name. As an adjective, senior designates someone or something as having been born, or established or enrolled, before another, or being of higher rank. (Some military hierarchies have, for example, senior captains, who rank above captains.) Senior has also become a synonym for elderly with what is widely considered a more positive connotation; it’s a truncation of â€Å"senior citizen.† It’s applied in phrases such as â€Å"senior center† and â€Å"senior rights.† Like junior, senior can have a derogatory connotation, though, as in â€Å"senior moment,† a light-hearted reference to forgetfulness as a symptom of aging, it is usually not meant to insult. But take care with using either term to note, respectively, someone’s youth or inexperience or their age. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:16 Substitutes for â€Å"Because† or â€Å"Because Of†Body Parts as Tools of MeasurementDouble Possessive

The History of Life on Earth

The History of Life on Earth The Carboniferous Period is a geologic time period that took place between 360 to 286 million years ago. The Carboniferous Period is named after the rich coal deposits that are present in rock layers from this time period. The Age of Amphibians The Carboniferous Period is also known as the Age of Amphibians. It is the fifth of six geologic periods that together make up the Paleozoic Era. The Carboniferous Period is preceded by the Devonian Period and followed by the Permian Period. The climate of the Carboniferous Period was quite uniform (there were no distinct seasons) and it was more humid and tropical than our present-day climate. The plant life of the Carboniferous Period resembled modern tropical plants. The Carboniferous Period was a time when the first of many animal groups evolved: the first true bony fishes, the first sharks, the first amphibians, and the first amniotes. The appearance of the amniotes is evolutionarily significant because of the amniotic egg, the defining characteristic of amniotes, enabled the ancestors of modern reptiles, birds, and mammals to reproduce on land and colonize terrestrial habitats that were previously uninhabited by vertebrates.   Mountain Building The Carboniferous Period was a time of mountain building when the collision of the Laurussian and Gondwanaland land masses formed the supercontinent Pangea. This collision resulted in the uplifting of mountain ranges such as the Appalachian Mountains, the Hercynian Mountains, and the Ural Mountains. During the Carboniferous Period, the vast oceans that covered the earth often flooded the continents, creating warm, shallow seas. It was during this time that the armored fish that had been abundant in the Devonian Period became extinct and were replaced by more modern fishes. As the Carboniferous Period progressed, the uplifting of landmasses resulted in an increase in erosion and the building of floodplains and river deltas. The increased freshwater habitat meant that some marine organisms such as corals and crinoids died out. New species that were adapted to the reduced salinity of these waters evolved, such as freshwater clams, gastropods, sharks, and bony fish. Vast Swamp Forests Freshwater wetlands increased and formed vast swamp forests. Fossil remains show that air-breathing insects, arachnids, and myriapods were present during the Late Carboniferous. The seas were dominated by sharks and their relatives and it was during this period that sharks underwent much diversification. Arid Environments   Land snails first appeared and dragonflies and mayflies diversified. As the land habitats dried, animals evolved ways of adapting to the arid environments. The amniotic egg enabled early tetrapods to break free of the bonds to aquatic habitats for reproduction. The earliest known amniote is Hylonomus, a lizard-like creature with a strong jaw and slender limbs. Early tetrapods diversified significantly during the Carboniferous Period. These included the temnospondyls and the anthracosaurs. Finally, the first diapsids and synapsids evolved during the Carboniferous. By the middle the Carboniferous Period, tetrapods were common and quite diverse. The varied in size (some measuring up to 20 feet in length). As the climate grew cooler and drier, the evolution of amphibians slowed and the appearance of amniotes lead to a new evolutionary path.