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: anomie… Steven Heighton is a Canadian novelist, short story writer and poet. I’ve never read any of his books — the most famous of which is Afterlands (2006) currently being […]
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: miasma… Inspired by a mostly positive review on NPR, I recently read the novel The Devil and Webster, by Jean Hanff Korelitz. Described by some as a “thriller,” I found it more of a
What is a ‘miasma’? 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: hectic… I recently enjoyed a very fine piece of historical fiction, The Gustave Sonata, by Rose Tremain. Set in Switzerland, largely during the Second World War (the end
What does ‘hectic’ 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: pantheistic… As a writer and editor, I’m fascinated by issues of taste. People often ask me whether a particular book is any “good” and I try to
What does ‘pantheistic’ 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: cusp…. I was reading an interview with fiction writer Emma Richler (pictured above) this week when I stumbled across the word cusp. Here is how she used it (in answering
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: euphoria… I was flipping through a book on my shelves this week and encountered a favourite word of mine: euphoria. Here is how author Daniel Goleman used it
What is ‘euphoria’? 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: murmurous…. Today’s word comes from a book of short stories, The Shell Collector, by Anthony Doerr. Published in 2002, it predates his spectacular, Pulitzer Prize winning novel, All
What does ‘murmurous’ 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: gamboling… If you had asked me what the word “gamboling” meant, I would have told you, correctly, that it refers to running or jumping about playfully. I might even have
What does ‘gamboling’ 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: zeugma… My favourite television show of all time remains the West Wing a political drama (1999 to 2006) about the fictitious Democratic presidency of Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen). The stories are fascinating and complex and
What’s a ‘zeugma’? 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: saturnine… I chose to read John Lahr’s profile of the actress Viola Davis (pictured above) — in the Dec. 19 & 26/16 New Yorker — because I think she’s
What does ‘saturnine’ mean? Read More »
