steerpike
Amativeness

At a recent speech competition in China, the contestant was asked to speak about amativeness. As an english speaker I think I have a wide vocabulary but this word completely threw me. Some of the topics were not spelt correctly and I assumed it was a mistake. Later I looked it up and it is an English word.

The young student did not appear worried and commenced her talk and I am not sure if she understood it or not. If she did, she knew at least some English words I did not.

Perhaps the answer lies in textbooks created by non-native speakers. Once a word is included, it is repeated from textbook to textbook even though it may be far from mainstream English.

Anyone know the meaning without looking it up? Anyone else surprised by an English word used by learners?

Jul 19, 2014 9:24 AM
Comments · 32
1

am·a·tive

/ˈæmətɪv/ Show Spelled [am-uh-tiv] Show IPA adjective disposed to love; amorous.

 

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  I never even saw the word before.  However,  because I can recognize the Latin Root  AMO or AMOR in the word,  I also could discuss the word by generall  guesswork.

 

  I would say that Amativeness is expressed by acts of kindness and that also amativeness can be expressed by touching, or kissing or hugging  and so forth.

 

    I would turn the subject into an oral essay about charity in general.

July 19, 2014

"Shroff" is a word I came across in HK.

June 7, 2016
Bingo! Finally come across the word amativeness in a book today where the woman is diagnosed as having strong amativeness because of her thick neck. Phrenology. I have been checking the bumps on my head ever since.
June 5, 2016

Googling "amative"+"CS Lewis" seemed like a good idea...

" Into absurdity evaporates the High-Church celibate C. S. Lewis reverenced at meetings of the C. S. Lewis Society in Oxford. In fact, argues Mr. Wilson, Lewis was a heavy-smoking, hard-drinking, argumentative man with a detectable sadomasochistic streak. He was deeply hurt by the death of his mother when he was 9 years old, and he spent the rest of his amative life compensating for that hurt, first by secretly living with a woman who was 26 years his senior, and then by marrying a highly aggressive pen pal from America. With neither of these women was C. S. Lewis celibate, Mr. Wilson argues. "

July 28, 2014

Hmm... so amative doesn't so much pertain to romantic love as it does to eros.. I guess low amativeness = asexuality

~

" His amative enthusiasm, at which he is himself laughing, and his clever, imaginative, humorous ways, contrast strongly with the sincere tenderness and dignified quietness of the woman."

--George Bernard Shaw, The Philanderer

July 27, 2014
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