Passion for unicorns? Latin can propel your obsession forward

First link is a set of flashcards to get you comfortable and competent. Quizlet does a great job - you can make your own cards.

https://quizlet.com/16000580/greek-latin-roots-sed-sid-sess-flash-cards/

I'll talk first about -sess

as it came up on Google Plus and Grammarly.com.

Someone's friend has an inordinate passion for unicorns.

The word many people use to describe this inordinate passion is obsess.

In this case sess is a suffix on words you might see such as assess.

http://wordinfo.info/unit/1928

This website - Wordinfo.info tells me that sess is part of a set of Latin roots which mean sitting.

So you sit with your unicorn obsession.

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These words and concepts are not easily learnt phonetically - at least for me.

Even now when I break out a syllable or two ... and it can be very stressful.

Would I say OBsess or obSESS? Or is the SE in the middle and do I say THAT?

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Perhaps the word the person might have been trying to get was abscess.

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Another way I remember how to write obsession is that it has session as its chief. Ob provides emphasis as obvious or obdurate might do.

The way I understood the ob is that an obsession takes you away or into the activity or the behaviour.

Or the thought. An obsession is a set of ideas more than it is one thought - even a thousand thoughts.

Thank you Annabelle Greig and Grammarly.com.

PS: I noticed one of my favourite words assiduous [written like deciduous] is one of the first on the list.