Have you ever completed the Word Power feature in Reader’s Digest? I’m not much interested in such games – I don’t even do crosswords! – but I am committed to increasing my own vocabulary. Why? Because if I know more words, I’ll be able to read more fluently. But even more important, I’ll be able to write better. Knowing lots of words allows me – and you — to be more precise in writing. In my word-of-the-week feature I share a word with you that I’ve discovered in my own reading.
Word count: 190 words Reading time: less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: palpable. I learned the word palpable in grade 8 when my English class studied the play Hamlet. The […]
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Word count: 209 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: simony. Although Christine Pountney’s writing has been described by the Toronto Star as: “confident, precise and readable,” I
Word count: 242 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: autodidact. Gun stories sadden me. Gun stories that occur on a university campus seem even more deplorable. New
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Word count: 197 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: relict. I’m not usually stumped by natural history signs, but when I was recently wandering the Mojave Desert
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Word count: 254 words Reading time: About 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: desiderata I know I’m dating myself when I admit this, but I had an onionskin copy of the prose poem,
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Word count: 243 words Reading time: About 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: trilby. I had a Danish boyfriend when I was young and I learned a little about the culture but
Word count: 232 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: lèse-majesté . I was in grade 6 when Richard Nixon was elected to office. I was too young for
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Word count: 274 words Reading time: About 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: virescent. I’m re-reading Spunk and Bite right now — a marvellous book on writing by the inimitable Art Plotnik.
Word count: 374 words Reading time: Just over 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: giddy. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo reads like a novel. In fact, it’s a true story —
Word count: 311 words Reading time: Just over 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: scofflaws. In my community paper this week I encountered a word that I know and love. Said the
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