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: fossicking…. When I read the marvellous novel Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O’Farrell, I learned a laundry list of new words including scrofulous, flensing and skep. And […]
What does the word “fossicking” 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: hortatory… I read the Ben Lerner novel The Topeka School for three reasons. First, I’d enjoyed his earlier novel, Leaving The Atocha Station and found it be
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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: mullein… In addition to being a best-selling writer, Barbara Kingsolver is also a biologist. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the Congo in her
What does ‘mullein’ 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: scrofulous… The marvellous historical novel, Hamnet and Judith, by Maggie O’Farrell contains a veritable dictionary of interesting words. One of them is scrofulous, a word I’d heard
What does ‘scrofulous’ 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: flensing… When I read the marvellous historical novel Hamnet and Judith — which tells the (imagined) story of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, who died as a young man
What does ‘flensing’ 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: pishogues…. I always enjoy reading books by authors from different countries. Almost inevitably, their language or expressions are quite different from my own, and I end up
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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: percipience…. When I read the marvellous novel, This is Happiness by Niall Williams, I knew I was going to learn a host of new words. Like many
What does ‘percipience’ 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: tantara…. When I encountered the word tantara in the remarkable novel This Is Happiness by Niall Williams (one of my favourite books of 2020), I immediately thought
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Despite the pandemic, I hope you’re able to take some time off for yourself, even if you’re unable to see many family members or friends. Last night my family went for a walk in a light-filled neighbourhood across town. We all wore masks and friends walked us by several blocks of homes with the most
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: skep…. As a fan of the writer Maggie O’Farrell, I was excited to learn she had a new novel published this year. Titled Hamnet and Judith, the
