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.
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: hobbledehoy… I thought I knew the meaning of the word ‘hobbledehoy,’ but it turns out I was only partly right. I encountered it recently in the delightful […]
What does ‘hobbledehoy’ mean? Read More »
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: augury…. Sometimes, if I’m struggling with a word, I’ll stop to see if there’s anything in the root of it that seems vaguely familiar to me. This
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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: lambrequin… One of the great — and simultaneously annoying — aspects of historical novels is that they may use words no longer part of the common lexicon.
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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: catamount…. I had heard or seen the word catamount, before I read it recently, but I had never taken the time to learn its meaning. Now, I’m
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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: cicatrix…. I had heard extremely positive reviews of a new novelized account of the meeting of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, written by noted American writer Louis
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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: deimatic… I was sick with a bad cold last week so I took the chance to watch lots of mostly bad Netflix and luxuriate in the opportunity
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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: masstige… I would never have predicted that fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi would give me more than one new word in his chatty and somewhat catty memoir, I.M.
What’s the meaning of ‘masstige’? Read More »
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: brindle…. Todd Haynes is an American independent film director, screenwriter, and producer. He first gained public attention in 1987 with his controversial film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter
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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: marled…. My adult children tease me about being a fashion disaster. Sure, I can “clean up” for speeches and meetings with clients, but I have little interest
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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: bawn When I read the book The Innocents by Newfoundland writer Michael Crummey, I sometimes felt as though I was reading a work written simultaneously in two
