Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Vocab Experiment
Quite some time ago, I signed up for Merriam Webster's Word-of-the-Day email. It's a cute little thing that emails me every single day with a vocabulary word. It gives a definition, an example sentence, and a detailed explanation/etymology. I like words, and I like trying to guess the definitions of words I'm unfamiliar with, so I like this little email service. It's the nicest spam I get all day.
Problem is, I usually read the emails in a hurry, think, "Oh, that's a good word," and then forget about it. I don't know that I've ever really added any new words to my working vocabulary as a result of the Word-of-the-Day. That's mostly because I never use them.
So that's where my new goal comes in. This blog is supposed to have the purpose, among many other things, of helping me learn to write better. Part of writing better is building a better vocabulary. And in writing, it's easier to carefully pick your words than in speaking. So I'm going to sedulously try to incorporate each Word-of-the-Day into a blog post somewhere, somehow. I'm not going to say I have to post today's word today, or even that I have to post one vocab word per day. That would get too artificial. Rather, I discovered that some time ago, here on my computer, I started compiling a vocabulary list of words I encountered that I was unfamiliar with. Every day I will add the Word-of-the-Day to that list, along with any other words I encounter that I don't know, or don't use often and would like to. And the goal is to check every word off that list at some point.
And I'm starting with this post. Can you find the vocab word?
Problem is, I usually read the emails in a hurry, think, "Oh, that's a good word," and then forget about it. I don't know that I've ever really added any new words to my working vocabulary as a result of the Word-of-the-Day. That's mostly because I never use them.
So that's where my new goal comes in. This blog is supposed to have the purpose, among many other things, of helping me learn to write better. Part of writing better is building a better vocabulary. And in writing, it's easier to carefully pick your words than in speaking. So I'm going to sedulously try to incorporate each Word-of-the-Day into a blog post somewhere, somehow. I'm not going to say I have to post today's word today, or even that I have to post one vocab word per day. That would get too artificial. Rather, I discovered that some time ago, here on my computer, I started compiling a vocabulary list of words I encountered that I was unfamiliar with. Every day I will add the Word-of-the-Day to that list, along with any other words I encounter that I don't know, or don't use often and would like to. And the goal is to check every word off that list at some point.
And I'm starting with this post. Can you find the vocab word?
Comments: Post a Comment
