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: bloviate… The term bloviate has long been one of my favourite words. I smiled when I spotted it in the interesting and unsettling novel The Submission by […]
What does “bloviate” 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 words: rames and asperous…. Canadian novelist Michael Crummey writes with a colourful vocabulary. I think this is a result of his Newfoundland heritage, where the vernacular is both
What does the word ‘rames’ 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: skerry…. An award-winning poet and storyteller, Michael Crummey was born in Buchans, a mining town in the interior of Newfoundland. He writes about life in Newfoundland with
What’s a ‘skerry’? 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: loden…. I’m pretty good at guessing the meaning of words, probably as a result of my year of Latin in high school and my many years of
What does ‘loden’ 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: loge…. When I read the very amusing book The White Angel by John MacLachlan Gray, I encountered a word that was new to me, loges. Here is
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: barouche landau…. When I read the book Outline by Rachel Cusk, I encountered a term that was new to me: barouche landau. Here is how Cusk used
What’s a ‘barouche landau’? Read More »
Reading time: Less than one 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: fubsy…. I was reading the Delia Owens’ novel Where the Crawdads Sing when the word fubsy jumped off the page and gave my eyeballs a good shake.
What does ‘fubsy’ 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: fumarole…. I live on the Pacific West Coast, in an earthquake zone. Perhaps that’s why I’m familiar with seismological terms — and mostly unfamiliar with ones related
What’s a ‘fumarole’? 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: mellifluously… Every once in a while in this column, I like to focus on a word I already know. Mellifluously falls into that category. When used in certain
What’s the origin of the word ‘mellifluously’? 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: scagliola… In Rachel Cusk’s plot-free novel Outline, she presents a word I had never before seen, scagliola. Upon using the dictionary, however, I came to learn I
What does ‘scagliola’ mean? Read More »
