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: whiffling…. I’m a big fan of onomatopoeia. As you likely know, this refers to words that sound like the meaning they’re meant to …
What does ‘whiffling’ 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: flummery…. When a friend recommended the book Conclave to me, I thought I was looking for a non-fiction work exploring the selection …
What is ‘flummery’? 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: scrimshaw… Someday soon, I will create a dictionary of the words I’ve seen several hundred times but still have no idea what …
What’s a scrimshaw? 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: riverine…. In reading the New Yorker, I encountered a word I’d never seen before. It appeared an Aug. 21/17 article headlined, “Is …
What does ‘riverine’ 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: doodad…. Of course, I know that a doodad is an ornamental attachment or decoration or a small article whose common name is unknown …
‘Doodad’ – what’s the origin of the word? 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: bricolage…. I like to read the New Yorker not just for the very fine writing but also because it engages me in …
What is ‘bricolage’? 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: skeevy…. I choose today’s word, skeevy, not because I didn’t know what it meant but because I wanted to take the chance …
What does the word ‘skeevy’ 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: fulminating…. When I read the novel Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple, I didn’t expect to find my word of the …
What does ‘fulminating’ 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: inchoate…. I’ve long held a particular fondness for the adjective inchoate. Perhaps it’s the idiosyncratic pronunciation that charms me — the CH sound …
What does ‘inchoate’ 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: precipitous…. Ophelia Dahl (pictured above) grew up in privileged and challenging circumstances. She was the daughter of movie star Patricia Neal and …
What does ‘precipitous’ mean? Read More »
