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: 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 …
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 …
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: epiphenomena…. When a word is similar to a better known cousin, sometimes it’s harder rather than easier to discern the meaning of …
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: hortatory…. When I read the word hortatory in a June 3/19 New Yorker piece, my mind immediately went to my French homework. …
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 …
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 …
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 has been one of my favourite memoirs this year. You …
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: badinage… When I read the word badinage I could guess at its meaning from context. It appeared in the highly-praised new novel …
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: birl… The contemporary definition of the word birl, refers to a boy(ish)-girl or girl(ish)-boy. In other words, it is someone who falls …
