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.
Word count: 244 words Reading time: about 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: obloquy. I have to confess. I’d never heard the word obloquy before reading Salman Rushdie’s autobiography, Joseph Anton. I like to think of myself […]
Word count: 283 words 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: machicolated. I can’t remember where I collected the word machicolated. I think it must have come from a reader because I can’t fathom
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Word count: 243 words Reading time: About 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: caparisoned. I was enjoying a coffee with a friend recently and she mentioned the book The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. Despite having been
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Word count: 213 words 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: otiose. Some words make me eager to learn what they mean. Otiose falls into that category. I discovered it in the book Straphanger by
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Word count: 268 words Reading time: About 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: fulgurating. I can’t remember where I first heard of Junot Diaz but I read the New Yorker each week so perhaps I encountered his
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Word count: 299 words 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: gimcrack. I adore reading. I like well written historical fiction. And I’m particularly fascinated by the Tudor period. Yet for reasons I cannot
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Word count: 361 words 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: anacoluthon. When I was in grade 10, an English teacher tortured our class by requiring us to keep a list of “new words” (for
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Word count: 274 words 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: urtext. Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted in 1979 for the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters. At the time of the murders, MacDonald was a Special
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Word count: 206 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute If you increase your vocabulary you’ll not only help your reading, you’ll also make your writing more precise. Here is my word of the week, tenebrous. I’ve already told you about reading a profile of Christopher Kimball in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. I’ve
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Word count: 354 words Reading time: About 1.5 minutes If you increase your vocabulary you’ll not only help your reading, you’ll also make your writing more precise. Here is my word of the week: anodyne. I’m still reading Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres and I continue to find words that stump me. In
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