You can read your way to a more powerful vocabulary

When you were a child learning to speak, you seized each word as if it were a shiny toy. This is how you learned your language, and this is how you can expand your word stock.

The best way to learn new words is through reading. Read for pleasure. Read for information. Read everything you can find on any subject that interests you. Read short stories. Read novels. Read nonfiction. Read newspapers. Read magazines. Read online. Soak up words like a sponge. The more words you know, the better you will be able to communicate — and think.

This wisdom and counsel is scientifically backed by brain-scan imagery used in recent studies by the Reading & Literacy Discovery Center of Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital. The pictures provide neurobiological evidence for the benefits of reading and the detriments of excessive screen time on a preschool child’s brain development.

As our local and national treasure Dr. Seuss puts it, in single syllables:

The more that you read,
The more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
The more places you’ll go.

Here are some ways that you can discover the meaning of a new word from its setting and thus expand your vocabulary and improve your writing and speaking:

Infer meaning from context. A word that stands by itself offers fewer clues to its meaning than does a word that is related by sense to other words in a sentence or paragraph. These surrounding words make up the context (from Latin contextere, “to weave together”) in which the unknown word is used. Detectives use clues to help them make deductions and solve cases. You can become a word detective and deduce the meaning of an unknown word by taking into account the words that surround it and the situation being talked or written about.

a. Situation. “Paradoxically, the more scientists learn about what’s going on at Thwaites Glacier, the more divergent the latest climate models have become about its future.” Paradoxically means _______.

b. Examples and illustrations. “Critic, essayist, historian, travel writer, diarist, Edmund Wilson was a protean man of letters, one of his era’s representative figures.” Protean means: _______.

c. Restatement. “One of our finest poets, at the height of his power, he brings together and coalesces tendencies that might have divided opposing poets into separate elements.” Coalesces means: _______.

d. Contrast. The advent of television eventually swept away the huge, grandly ornate movie palaces of the 1920s and left in their place small, utterly functional, faceless theaters.” Ornate means: _______.

Answers

a. contradictory but true; b. displaying great variety; c. joins together separate elements; d. elaborate, richly decorated

Acquire the dictionary habit. Mark Twain, the quintessential American storyteller, once wrote, “A dictionary is the most awe-inspiring of all books; it knows so much. ... It has gone around the sun, and spied out everything and lit it up.” Comedian Steven Wright adds a modern twist: “I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”

The practice of using the dictionary, whether real-world or online, is essential in acquiring a mighty and versatile vocabulary. Whenever you run across a word that you are not sure of, look it up, a process that will probably take you no more than 30 seconds. Then record the word and its meaning on your personal word list.

Use your new words. As soon as you have captured a new word in your mind, use it in conversation or writing. Tell your parents how much you venerate them. Compliment your children and grandchildren on their altruism when they stoop to share the remote with you. Congratulate your business associates on their enthralling and edifying presentation. Explain to Tabby that she shouldn’t be so intractable about consuming her cat food. And remind yourself not to procrastinate about acquiring and using new words. Make vocabulary growth a lifelong adventure.

* * *

The Winter Olympics will soon skate into our homes. Listen to how the commentators pronounce the name of the host city, Bejing. The proper sounding is Bay-jing, not Bay-zhing, with the j sounding like the z in azure.

* * *

No. 1-ranked tennis star Novak Djokovic has been banned from the Australian Open because he refused to be vaccinated. Should we now call him Novaxx JokeCovid?