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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > VANGUARD

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pronounce VANGUARD:

VAN gard
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connect this word to others:

Let's add the word vanguard to our collection of military metaphors, which also includes these words:

1. To organize things so they can be used, as if they're troops getting ready for a battle, is to m__sh__ them.

2. The rigid way that people (or things) stick close together as they move, like soldiers in a tight formation, is called lo__st__.

3. A powerful, tightly-organized group of people or things that reminds you of an orderly, well-armed array of soldiers is a ph____x.

4. Things or people who are easily targeted, easily attacked, or easily gotten rid of, as if ready to be "eaten" by cannons in battle, are cannon ____er (two words).

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)  

definition:

"Vanguard" comes from a French term, avant-garde, which means "front guard." That's what a literal vanguard is: the section of an army that's out in the very front, leading and guarding the others, whether on a march or into battle.

In a figurative sense, people or groups who are in the vanguard of some movement are at the forefront of it: they're leading it, so they're among the first people to make progress in it.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Noun, usually the uncountable kind: "They were in the vanguard;" "She was at the vanguard of YouTubers who launched their own products."

Sometimes the countable kind. Here's the Guardian: "Martin Scorsese and Robert de Niro, the vanguards of a new American cinema."

Other forms: 

Some writers have used "vanguard" like an adjective, as in "vanguard spirit" and "vanguard art."

how to use it:

When you want to strike a formal, positive tone as you compare some kind of new, progressive movement to a military battle, whether it's in art, literature, science, technology, medicine, or any other field, you can point out the people who are at or in its vanguard, or who are part of its vanguard.

You might say, for example, that a specific researcher, program, university, or company is in (or at, or part of) the vanguard of some new technology.

Just keep in mind that when you refer to a movement's vanguard, you're suggesting that the movement is like some sort of fight, battle, challenge, or aggressive venture into new territory.

examples:

"I was among white and Indian intellectuals of my own generation, young men who would form the vanguard of the most important political movements of the next few years."   
  — Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 1994

"Ballet commentators back in Russia were irked by Western reviews of the Stravinsky-Nijinsky ballets, which used adjectives such as 'barbaric', 'primitive', 'wild' or 'savage' in almost every paragraph... Given that Russia was at this point at the very vanguard of modernism it was a bitter pill to swallow, and understandably so." 
   — Howard Goodall, The Story of Music, 2012

has this page helped you understand "vanguard"?

   

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.


study it:

Explain the meaning of "vanguard" without saying "forefront" or "spearhead."

try it out:

In Cosmos, Carl Sagan compared spaceships to vanguards:

"In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries you could travel from Spain to the Azores in a few days, the same time it takes us now to cross the channel from the Earth to the Moon. It took then a few months to traverse the Atlantic Ocean and reach what was called the New World, the Americas. Today it takes a few months to cross the ocean of the inner solar system and make planet-fall on Mars or Venus, which are truly and literally now worlds awaiting us... Our present spaceships, with their robot crews, are the harbingers, the vanguards of future human expeditions to the planets."

That was written in 1980!

In your opinion, do we as humans still have anything (or anyone) in the vanguard of "future human expeditions" to other planets? In other words, are we still making meaningful advances toward visiting other planets? Talk about why you'd say "yes," "no," or "sort of."




before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Words On Words On Birds."

Use your knowledge of vocabulary to answer questions about the terminology describing names for birds.

Try this today:

Which term below is substantive?

A. Woodpecker
B. Picus viridis
C. Picidae
D. Picus

Need a hint? Highlight the hidden text: Take a guess at the meaning of "substance" in a grammatical or semantic sense.

To see the answer, scroll all the way down. 

review this word:

1. In a literal sense, the opposite of VANGUARD is REARGUARD. But in a figurative sense, opposites of VANGUARD, the adjective, could be

A. HARSH, VIOLENT, and AGGRESSIVE.
B. MEEK, FOLLOWING, and REGRESSING.
C. BOLD, EXPLORATORY, and PROGRESSIVE.

2. In Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, the narrator describes an overgrown lawn: "Nettles were everywhere, the vanguard of the _____," implying that nature had _____.

A. spring .. brought the dead lawn back to life
B. army .. executed a hostile takeover of the lawn
C. fairy .. reclaimed the lawn for the world's mystic beings




Answers to the review questions:
1. B
2. B

From the game:

Which term below is substantive?

A. "Woodpecker" is the correct answer.
B. Picus viridis
C. Picidae
D. Picus

If you weren't sure, maybe you got to the answer by playing "which one of these things is not like the other!"

"Substantive" terms are the unscientific, non-binomial names for species. They're traditional English nouns, meaningful to people who speak the language but not very scientific: they can refer to a single species or a whole genus or family. Other examples of substantives include "crane," "eagle," and "hummingbird."

Choice B is the scientific binomen for the European green woodpecker and literally means "green woodpecker;" choice C is the name of its scientific family; and choice D is the name of its scientific genus.


a final word:


I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.


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A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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