02Book 03 · Chapter 02 of 07· 5 min · Clusters — the right neighborhood, the wrong house
Nearby is related
Fruit words form a cluster. City words form another. A fluent wrong capital is often the wrong pin in the right neighborhood.
On the map, apple, orange, and fruit sit in one patch. Canberra, Sydney, Hobart, and city sit in another. Those patches are clusters. Think neighborhoods. The fruit neighborhood does not vote in the city election.
A pronoun like “it” sits on a street corner where several neighborhoods are walkable. The rest of the sentence drags it toward one of them. “The capital of Australia is....” drags toward cities. “The cat sat on the....” drags toward furniture. Same pin-type. Different tug.
That is why “Sydney” is a more common mistake than “sofa” for a capital question. Sydney is next door. Sofa lives across town. The cluster was right. The pin was not.
Closest to “Canberra”: city, then Sydney. City pins sit together. Sydney is next door to Canberra — which is why a fluent miss often names the neighbor.
Quiz
6 questions
Before moving forward, test your knowledge of what you’ve just learned!
1.A cluster is:
2.A fluent wrong capital is often:
3.“It” can reach several clusters because:
4.Scoring a wrong city as excellent teaches:
5.Relatedness here means:
6.Tap a word on the map to see:
0 of 6 answered
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