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: apogee…. I’ve seen the word apogee dozens of times in my reading. I knew, vaguely, that it meant the height or high …
What does ‘apogee’ 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: mesallinace…. Craig Brown’s book, Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, is enormous fun, even for people who aren’t fans of the royals. A kind …
What’s a ‘mesalliance’? 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: uxorious…. When I encountered the word uxorious in Patricia Hampl’s very fine non-fiction book The Art of the Wasted Day, I had …
What does ‘uxorious’ mean? Read More »
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: hajj…. Some writers are clearly well educated and deeply literate and when I picked up Patricia Hampl’s book The Art of the …
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: teasel… I keep a Word document containing all the new and interesting words I encounter in my daily reading. When I collected …
What is a ‘teasel’? 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: caesura…. When I saw the word caesura, I knew it meant a gap or a pause and I assumed the term to …
What’s a ‘caesura’? 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: halitotic…. When I read the word halitotic in a recent New York Times Book Review piece, I was pretty sure I knew …
What does ‘halitotic’ mean? Read More »
Reading time: Les 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: fetid…. My daughter plays soccer and ultimate (she didn’t get her athleticism from me — it comes from her dad) so I …
What does ‘fetid’ 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: hew…. I learned the verb “to hew” when I was in grade school — as a result of the country I was …
What does ‘hew’ 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: euchred…. The sad, cautionary and yet deeply funny story of Lee Israel is one of my favourite memoirs. You may be more …
What does ‘euchred’ mean? Read More »
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