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: 290 words Reading time: Just over 1 minute If you increase your vocabulary you’ll not only help your reading, you’ll also make your writing more precise. Today, my word of the week is sessile. I like to think I have a large vocabulary but there’s one part of my brain that’s so empty […]
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Word count: 215 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. When I read Cal Newport’s book So Good They Can’t Ignore You last month, I scribbled a note to myself
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Word count: 266 words Reading time: About 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: prolixity. One of the many great things about reading The New Yorker is that it allows you to become informed about
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Word count: 281 words Reading time: Just over 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. I like understanding medical terminology. It somehow makes me feel as though I’ve infiltrated a secret society. What I find
Word count: 222 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. My friend Marcelle, sent me a link to a public radio post because she liked one of the words so
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Word count: 248 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. Richard Wagamese is an author and journalist from the Ojibway Wabasseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario. His charming and heartfelt novel, Ragged Company,
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Word count: 239 words Reading time: About 1 minute If you build your vocabulary, you’ll not only benefit your reading, you’ll also become more precise in your writing. Here is my word of the week. As a former journalist, I am immeasurably cheered to see fellow scribes write novels. I remember when I heard that
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Word count: 191 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute If you build your vocabulary, you’ll not only benefit your reading, you’ll also become more precise in your writing. Here is my word of the week. I’ve never encountered any of Regina O’Melveny‘s poetry but, this summer I read her first novel, The Book of
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Word count: 233 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute If you build your vocabulary, you’ll not only benefit your reading, you’ll also become more precise in your writing. Here is my word of the week, liminality. When I read liminality, an image of a doorway floated through my brain. Here is the sentence in which
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Word count: 293 words Reading time: Just over 1 minute If you build your vocabulary, you’ll not only benefit your reading, you’ll also become more precise in your writing. Here is my word of the week, carapace. When I started reading the novel The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff last month, I was enthralled
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