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: 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: shambolic…. When I read the word shambolic in the new memoir by Steve Jobs’ daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, I knew immediately what she …
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: serried…. My husband is reading the 1950 book Escape to Adventure, by Fitzroy Maclean. Not quite my cup of tea, the 419-page book …
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: daedal…. You might know Daedalus as the prisoner who fashioned wings of feathers and wax to escape from the island of Crete …
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: rick…. My father grew up on a farm but I was born a city girl. As a result, I had never heard …
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: prelapsarian…. It was the headline that grabbed my attention. “How to Write a Bestseller,” promised the blog post written by Adam O’Fallon …
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: tignon… If you had said the word tignon to me, I wouldn’t have been able to guess its meaning. But, encountering it …
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: pentimento…. Like many people, I’ve become obsessed with the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings and the riveting testimony of Christine Blasey Ford. …
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: belfry…. Of course, I know that a belfry is the part of a bell tower or steeple in which bells are housed. …
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: farrago…. I’ve heard the word farrago many times but had never thought to question either its meaning or its origin until discovering …
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: Gaeltacht…. An Irish writer of literary fiction, Colum McCann was born in Dublin but now lives and works in New York. I was …
