<p>i don't even know if it does. it just sort of came to me when i was thinking about the word "occlude," and i described it as "closing off." something just struck me. then i looked back at "include," "exclude," and "seclude," and it seemed like "clude" might basically mean "close" in each of them. just a hunch. (by the way, i just looked it up on dictionary.com and apparently i was right--"occlude" comes from the latin verb "claudere," which means "to close." who knew?)</p>
<p>i want to be clear, though, that the "close" thing was a hunch. i played around with it and it seemed to make sense. if it had been a bad hunch, playing around with it wouldn't have gotten me anywhere. that's the nature of hunches. you have to get used to playing with them.</p>
<p>like i've said elsewhere, to use this technique (if you can call it a technique) takes practice. i prefer practicing this to memorizing vocabulary. for non-native speakers, though, it may sometimes prove more challenging than for native speakers. (on the other hand, this doesn't have to be the case either. sometimes when you're analyzing a language that isn't your own it's easier to see certain things than when you've grown up with them your whole life.)</p>