Week Thirty-Five [Guest Post!]: Word to the Wise

Modern life DOES demand verbal knowledge. True dat.

This week we have a Guest Post written by that rakish gentleman Wild Particle, with the help of his trusty copy of Norman Lewis’s 1979 magnum opus “Word Power Made Easy”. Word power means success! Teach us, W!

This week it is time to level-up your vocabulary!

Why, I hear you ask?

Well, the reasons are multitudinous, manifold and magnificent and a couple of them are coming right up.

1.) Because Plain is Boring.

Spice up your conversation with a tasty sprinkling of interesting adjectives and delicious verbs.  Increasing your vocabulary means you can communicate with extra confidence and flair. There is considerable pleasure in taking a microsecond to scan your brain-banks and then deploying the word that means precisely what it is you mean to say.

An Example – Earlier this evening, as Lizbt was punching me repeatedly in the chest in a good-natured manner, I remarked that she was quite a pugilist. Yes, I could have said boxer. But it just wouldn’t have had the same Victorian-era Sherlock Holmes-esque connotations, and it definitely wouldn’t have been as fun.

2.) Language is How You Think, Buster.

Here’s the thing – the more words you have to make fine distinctions among your own observations of the world, the feelings you have, and the experience of living, the more you can become a fully aware and perceptive human being. How can you think it if you don’t know the word for it?

So lets get to it!

Read books, periodicals,  listen to BBC audio dramas – try to find something that is going to be on the leading edge of your vocabulary. You don’t have to jump straight into Shakespeare’s Complete Works, but your local newspaper is probably aimed at a 13-year old reading level and might not be the best place to start.

Perhaps pick up a Penguin Classic at your local library or bookstore and when you come across a word you don’t recognise, make a note of it so you can look it up later.

Also you could take a look at these sites:

• http://www.wordia.com
• http://wordie.org
• http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday
• http://www.freerice.com (help the hungry AND improve your wordi-ness)

Research suggests that an average ten year old child has learnt a minimum of 5000 words every year since they were six years old, so I don’t think it is aiming too high to learn at least FIVE shiny new words this week!

Get to it linguaphiles.