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Topic: How do you build your vocabulary?
| Author | Message |
| Ilike2right | Posted – 8/1/2007 9:12:22 AM | show profile | email poster I am seeking advice/tips/thoughts about vocabulary building. I?m years past studying for SATs & GREs and I sometimes have difficulty deciphering words while reading the paper and magazines; and it?s getting kind of embarrassing. Reading a mag with a dictionary on my lap isn?t very efficient, and I?ve signed up for those ?word of the day? e-mails, but the new definition never carries through lunchtime. What do you think? |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 8/1/2007 9:44:41 AM | show profile Get a word of the day calendar instead- then you might see it off and on all day instead of seeing it once in an e-mail and deleting. |
| dsquared | Posted – 8/1/2007 9:59:49 AM | show profile | email poster Even though reading a magazine with a dictionary on your lap is a hassle - do it. The hassle part is what will make the new word and definition stick. :) Pretty soon, you won't need the dictionary with you and you can fly through your reading again. |
| HisGirlFriday | Posted – 8/1/2007 10:06:16 AM | show profile I'll second the dictionary nomination - When writing or reading I sometimes find myself using or reading a word and I'm not quite sure if I've got the correct meaning. (Like, I'll start out writing the word "tacit" and then think "Wait ... Does this mean exactly what I really think it means?") But once I look it up, I'll remember the next time. Hey, no one is perfect - that's what the dictionary is for ... |
| catlondon | Posted – 8/1/2007 10:35:19 AM | show profile Pick a word and work it to you conversation for a week (not a day, you need to reinforce the meaning by using it for awhile) and try to choose one that's fun to say. For instance, this week's word could be one of my favorites, capricious, which means impulsive or unpredictable. There nothing like looking someone in the eye and saying soberly, "I feel that decision was made capriciously" or "The weather today is very capricious." You really have to fold a word into your vocabulary to be able to retain it's meaning and ten-dollar words are really one the few refuges of the underpaid and undervalued wordsmith. |
| Stephanerd3 | Posted – 8/1/2007 11:16:21 AM | show profile | email poster You may already do this anyway, but the way I built my vocabulary was pretty organic, and somewhat osmosis-like. I read constantly (self-identified booktard) and also do lots of crossword puzzles. After reading words and phrases over and over again, you can't help but internalize their meanings. This may require you to crack open the dictionary once in awhile, but I tend to be able to catch on to the meanings of things solely through the context the words is being used in. I figure you need to be a reader to be a writer... Friends have always been telling me I "speak like an English major." I don't know whether to be dorkishly flattered or horrified. ------ steph - contains multitudes, yet still spends most of her time with the copy machine. www.stephiswrite.com |
| JerzyGirl | Posted – 8/1/2007 11:21:17 AM | show profile Read with a pen and paper nearby, make a list of words you don't completely get, then look them up immediately after and go back and reread the section and viola, it makes sense. Next, challenge yourself to use that word in your writing several times in the next few days or week and soon it becomes part of your personal vocabulary. Pick writers who have a great facility with language. When revising your writing, highlight a few of the boring, tired, predictable words and challenge yourself to find better ones, especially verbs; try out some of the online Thesaurus sites and find one you like. Good luck. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 8/1/2007 3:22:34 PM | show profile | email poster Reading profusely as a young person put me in a good place vocab-wise, but I have a good memory for words. The good thing about SAT prep books like Up Your Score etc. is that they teach you about the Latin roots that make words tick and help you see trends, so you can learn a new word by associating it with other ones in the same families. Otherwise, get clues from context. THat helps -- being sensitive to context. How the word is used within the sentence, etc. And never be afraid to use a dictionary. A thesaurus is cool too because you can learn a batch of words at the same time -- look up one, and you'll find several others, and make the connection. Good for you for wanting to boost your word power. |
| linjohn | Posted – 8/1/2007 4:59:17 PM | show profile Like another poster suggested, reading a lot helps. But I've also started checking dictionary.com as soon as I come across a word I don't recognize. Yes, that works best when I'm already online, but otherwise I make a mental note to look it up the next time I'm on the computer. (Which is pretty frequently.) |
| Ilike2right | Posted – 8/1/2007 5:51:07 PM | show profile What about an electronic dictionary? Would help out looking words up while commuting or traveling? Anyone use on? Thanks for the great suggestions. I wish we?d all forget about creating the ?fat pill? and work on a ?vocab pill.? How great would that be! |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 8/1/2007 7:24:45 PM | show profile READ. A lot. Try at least a book a month, outside of the required reading for your job. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 8/5/2007 7:04:26 AM | show profile words are cheap Maybe it's worth noting that while it's fun to throw expensive words around (I love the idea of assigning words values like $50 word ...) much of the world's most powerful writing is done with cheap words. It's better to be able to craft a dynamite sentence from words in your vocabulary already than to rely on the importation of a nice long one to make it a stunner. I was struck by the genius within this descriptive paragraph by ALbert Einstein. "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." |
| Mr Media | Posted – 8/8/2007 2:20:52 PM | show profile I know this sounds kind of nerdy but I like learning new words or discovering new ways to use language. So I think have the dictionary handy. Its so much fun learning new words. |
| BurbGrrl | Posted – 8/8/2007 8:50:39 PM | show profile I second Stephanerd3 on crossword puzzles. (Esp. the NY Times) I've learned so many words I never knew before, plus all sorts of interesting facts. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 8/22/2007 11:09:40 AM | show profile So I'm looking at the Google word of the day for the past few days, and I'm realizing that even though I knew what these words meant (okay, manumit took some thinking) they were an inadvisable extravagance in the budget of an everyday sentence. manumit: to free from slavery or servitude. indurate: to make hard; to harden. The only one of the three I could see using (especially on MB!) was: faction: a usually contentious group or party; also, internal dissension. It may occur to a writer once in a while to slip a big word in there. It's literacy's equivalent of name-dropping. I know someone big and powerful and hard to spell. When it comes to words, a favorite writer once suggested we keep the cookies on the lower shelf, where people can get at them. |
| sd2la | Posted – 8/22/2007 11:30:12 AM | show profile I agree with all of the above posters. I just started studying for the GRE, and there are a ton of vocabulary words listed. Even if you don't want to take the GRE, and have some extra time and 20 bucks, I recommend getting the GRE verbal book. I have been studying for a few weeks and I swear my vocabulary has increased threefold in that time period. |
| ebh | Posted – 8/22/2007 3:40:01 PM | show profile Ilike2right, I'm all for an electronic dictionary. I actually have one synced to my Palm. I usually read on the train and by the time I get home I forget the words I wanted to look up. So it makes life a lot easier to have the dictionary in a mobile format. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 8/22/2007 4:05:40 PM | show profile I agree with reading a lot and keeping a dictionary handy, though not in your lap (especially the Oxford--it could cut off your circulation). This doesn't mean accumulating the $10 words that are useless in most situations. They don't impress most people, and more often alienate. (I've found that liberal writers are most often guilty of using the obscure words just to show off--the adult equivalent of bragging about SAT scores.) But to expand your vocabulary, read, read, read. I also like the word of the day desk calendar idea. And there was a book around when I was a pup called Word Power Made Easy. I'm sure it's still out there. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 9/6/2007 7:35:11 AM | show profile | email poster Love this Stephen King quote on words Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. - Stephen King |
