CONSCIOUS, CONSCIENTIOUS; CONSCIOUSNESS, CONSCIENCE

INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL

 

Read and translate the following sentences paying special attention to the words in bold type.

1. Presley was conscious of a confusion of lamentable sounds that rose into the night from out the engine’s wake. 2. When you sat close to him you saw how good his features were, and how cold his face. It was strange when you couldn’t help being conscious of the devastating passion which was in his heart. 3. She hardly knew. She was unconscious when I got back. She wasn’t conscious again. 4. This type of influence is accidental and unconscious, but at the same time it cannot be doubted that some British journalists deliberately ape American style and vocabulary. 5. She gave a little self- conscious laugh. 6. He was a narrow-minded man, painfully conscientious in his statements lest he should be unjust to somebody. 7. Ossie, like the conscientious professional humorist he was, kept a note-book to fall back on when his own native drollery failed. 8. You were likely to see foreigners in places like this, all reading guide-books and looking very serious and conscientious, and exchanging remarks in their fantastic languages. 9. «As Presidential Candidate,» Mrs Smith said, «my husband had the support of conscientious objectors throughout the state.» Vegetarianism and conscientious objection should go together. 10. She told him that Bosnian had recovered consciousness and had made some sort of statement. 11. In their linguistic consciousness «wireless» has nothing to do with «wire» at all. 12. The man was regaining consciousness. He whimpered. 13 Carter Watson had a keen social and civic consciousness. 14. When he thought that the illness might be serious, fear gripped him, and his conscience was seared. 15. «Very deep inside, I had a qualm or two. But I stamped on them, like killing beetles.» «A nice way to describe the pangs of a noble conscience.»16. Rawdon was glad, deuced glad; the weight was off his conscience about poor Brigg’s money. 17. «She’s just gone out to a meeting about the abatement of aeroplane noise.» «Hilda is so altruistic. Always busy serving others.» «She has a social conscience. And that’s partly self-interest after all.»

 

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Conscious adj. 1. Having a feeling or knowledge (of one’s sensations, feelings, facts, conditions, etc.); knowing or feeling; aware, e.g. they were ~ of being (that they were being) watched; ~ of one’s guilt; ~ of pain; a healthy man is not ~ of his breathing. 2. Accompanied by an awareness of what one is thinking, feeling or doing; intentional, e.g. ~ humour, with ~ superiority, a hardly ~ movement. 3. Aware of oneself as a thinking being, e.g. man is a ~ being. 4. predic. Able to feel and think; awake, e.g. he was ~ to the last.

Antonym: unconscious adj.

Derivatives: consciously adv., unconsciously adv., half-conscious adj., half-consciously adv., subconscious adj., subconsciously adv., class-conscious adj. (= realizing one’s class in society and the difference between social classes); self-conscious adj. (= unduly conscious of oneself as an object of notice; awkward or embarrassed in the presence of others); self-consciously adv.

Consciousness n. 1. The state of being conscious, e.g. to recover ~. 2. Being conscious of danger, cold, discomfort, etc. 3. All the ideas, feelings, wishes, intentions, recollections of a person; mind, e.g. national ~.

Antonym: unconsciousness n.

Derivatives: subconsciousness п., class-consciousness п., self-consciousness n.

Conscience n. A feeling or moral sense of right and wrong, with a compulsion to do right; consciousness that one’s actions are right or wrong, e.g. freedom of ~; public ~; to go against one’s ~; to act according to one’s ~; to get smth. off one’s ~; to come to terms with one’s ~.

Conscientious adj. 1. Guided by one’s sense of duty (of persons); honest, e.g. to be ~ in one’s duty. 2. Done carefully and honestly (of actions); according to what one knows is right, e.g. ~ work; a ~ objector (a person who objects to warfare because he believes that it is wrong to kill); especially, a member of any of various religious sects whose tenets prohibit military service.

Derivative: conscientiously adv.

Though the words conscious, consciousness, conscience, conscientious and others belong to different parts of speech and are not synonymous, they are often confused by Russian learners both in oral speech and in writing because of the comparative similarity of their sound-form and a certain proximity in meaning (the latter is accounted for by the fact that all these words can be traced to the same Latin root word, scire, to know). However, the difference between the words under discussion is plain enough, and in the majority of cases no actual difficulty arises when it comes to differentiating between them. Conscious means сознающий, понимающий, сознательный; ощущающий; в сознании; мыслящий.

Consciousness means сознание, понимание, сознательность, самосознание. The main meaning of conscience is совесть.

Conscientious has the following meanings: добросовестный, честный, сознательный, добросовестно относящийся к делу.