Ultimate Vocabulary – Vocabulary Building Software

Is There a Dictionary in Your Man Cave?

August 19, 2012

The list of new words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is a real game changer this year! Over the last few years, people have found new ways to decorate their homes, express themselves, and refuel, and English dictionaries around the world have to keep up with the new words and phrases society’s come up with to describe them. If you haven’t put “improve my vocabulary” on your bucket list yet, what are you waiting for?

earworm
Helicoverpa zea is a moth whose larvae are known by various names, depending on what plant they’re eating: cotton bollworm, tomato fruitworm, and corn earworm. However, unless you’re a farmer, you’re probably more familiar with the “musical” earworm, a song or melody that gets stuck in your head, gnawing pathways through your brain like larva chewing through corn kernels, that you just can’t get rid of. The concept’s been around for over 150 years, but only recently found a name of its own.

gastropub noun
From fast food to fine French dining, authentic regional cuisine to molecular gastronomy and beyond, the world of food, like the world of words, is constantly changing. Given the current trend towards “back to the farm” simple, hearty cooking, and the fact that the global economic problems have made dining out a luxury, it’s not surprising that the gastropub is a growing trend. In the past, bar food was often limited to a bowl of peanuts or a run-of-the-mill sandwich, but these days there are gastropubs everywhere that combine inexpensive but high-quality and innovative cooking with the friendly ambiance of your local pub.

copernicium
523 years after the birth of the famous astronomer and mathematician Nicholas Copernicus, a group of scientists in Germany managed to create – briefly – several atoms of the highly radioactive element now called copernicium (coh-per-NEE-see-um). It’s now officially element 112 on the periodic table, and one of several substances that don’t really have any application (or in fact any existence, so far as we know) outside the laboratory, along with roentgenium, ununpentium, and darmstadtium.

One of the world’s worst earworms can be found at this link – click it if you dare!

Break Through Vocabulary Barriers With Compound Words

August 15, 2012

When you’re looking at a new vocabulary word, it’s important that you pay attention to where and how it’s classified as a part of speech. That is, is it a noun? an adjective? a verb? In some cases, there will be one unique classification, but other words can be used as several different parts of speech. In addition, when two single words are combined into one compound word, the classification of the compound word might be completely different from either of its original components. By studying parts of speech as part of your vocabulary program, you’ll be able to learn more about how words are used, and how they can be used together to make compound words that build your vocabulary twice as fast.

A compound word can be made of several combinations. Here are some of the most common:

noun + noun

When you’re looking at this category, keep in mind that the meaning of the compound word won’t always come directly from the two nouns taken in order. For example, the word airplane doesn’t mean “a plane that is made of air” but rather “a plane that travels in the air.” It’s the same with the word lightbulb, which is “a bulb that produces light” rather than “a bulb that is made of light.” Notice that the word light can also be an adjective, but in this case that’s not the sense being used. If you broke the compound word into two, a light bulb might be an undersized dormant tulip, using the adjective form of the word.

adjective + noun

When you do combine adjectives and nouns into compound words, you’ll often create a new noun that describes a specific item. Many schools still have blackboards at the front of the classrooms upon which teachers write in chalk, but there could be any number of things built out of black boards that have nothing to do with lessons.

adjective + verb

Similarly, the adjective/verb combination often results in a compound word with a specific meaning. To whitewash something means to cover it over or hide it, metaphorically. The noun “whitewash” refers to a substance made out of calcium hydroxide and chalk, often used in agriculture or as an inexpensive paint, and the literal meaning of “cover with a white coating to hide what is underneath” led to the new meaning of the verb.

verb + preposition

Be careful to note when the compound word is classified as a completely different part of speech from either of its component words, and be sure to note the proper times to use those word combinations in a sentence, either separately or as a compound word.

“A chick uses something called an ‘egg tooth’ to break through its shell on hatching.”
“The invention of the electron microscope led to many scientific breakthroughs.”

“Will you please take out the garbage tomorrow morning?”
“An estimated 25% of Americans eat takeout food for lunch or dinner every day.”

Mix up new compounds and add more substance to your vocabulary study today!

If We Were Really Living in the 18th Century …

August 13, 2012

… then some words we’re used to using regularly wouldn’t mean the same thing at all. In the last post we talked about how spelling and pronunciation have changed in English over the years, but you need to be aware that definitions have changed as well. Sometimes those differences are subtle, but sometimes they give a sentence a completely different meaning to our modern eyes. It’s just something to keep in mind when you’re reading texts that were written more than fifty years ago. Granted, the meanings of words can change quite quickly when you’re talking about slang (today’s use of sick to mean “good, excellent” being one example), but in general most written English texts correspond to the vocabulary of their times, and it generally takes more than two generations for a word to really vary in its meaning. Here are some examples:

propaganda
This word comes from the Latin verb propagare and originally shared its meaning of “to spread, to send out” (information or instructions) in a positive sense. However, after World War I, the word came to mean the spread of false or misleading information.

enthusiasm
The Greek roots of this word translate as “possessed by a divine spirit” and in the 16th century, the more sober and pragmatic Puritans used it as a negative word to describe someone who was overly emotional. Today, we use the word to mean a strong positive sense of or liking for something.

manufacture
With today’s rush to return to a simpler time and hand-crafted goods, it’s easy to forget that this word is based on the Latin word manus, or “hand.” In fact, originally all manufactured goods were made by hand! Since the Industrial Revolution, though, we have associated something “manufactured” as something “made by machines.”

amuse
In the 16th century, something designed to amuse was meant to cause a person to muse, or to stare with fixed attention at one thing. This would allow the person doing the amusing to fool, trick, cheat, or steal something while the other’s attention was diverted. After the 18th century, an “amusing” person was enjoyable to watch, not someone to avoid.

Are We Still Living in the 18th Century?

August 11, 2012

We often get comments from readers about the difficulty they have when studying Shakespeare’s plays, due to the differences in vocabulary and spelling. It’s true that orthography (the way a word is spelled) has changed over the years, but by the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the way words were spelled had more or less stabilized, mostly due to the increased use of printed text, rather than hand-written text.

Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press that used movable type, which allowed the printers to use individual letters (or sometimes two letters together of common combinations such as TH or CH) to set up each page in a document, rather than creating a carved or cast image of the page, or hand-writing all of the pages individually. When clerks or monks hand-wrote pages to make copies, there were always errors, and in addition each person used his own idea of how words were to be spelled. With the standardization provided by the printing press, spelling rules were established gradually, and the orthographies of what we now call “early modern English” were developed. However, we modern English speakers probably still would have a hard time understanding lines like this:

“And man ought to byleue that the fayth of this artycle is deed that bereth not here the fruyte of this werke.” – from a religious text dated around 1500 CE

Note the use of the letter U where we now have a V in the word “believe” (the 5th word) and of Y instead of I (see the 8th and 11th words) and the additional E at the end of “work” (the last word). Many of these spelling changes occurred because people were beginning to develop a more “English” pronunciation of words that originally came from Greek, Latin, or German.

By comparison, look at this text from a work by Shakespeare:

Tut! she’s a lamb, a dove, a fool, to him.
I’ll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest
Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,
‘Ay, by gogs-wouns’ quoth he, and swore so loud
That, all amaz’d, the priest let fall the book;
And as he stoop’d again to take it up,
The mad-brain’d bridegroom took him such a cuff
That down fell priest and book, and book and priest:
‘Now take them up,’ quoth he ‘if any list.’
– William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew” Act III Scene II (1591)

In this excerpt, the spelling is more recognizable, but there are still instances where the pronunciation differs. Take a look at the last two lines, which end in the words priest and list. Today we’d pronounce those words differently, as PREEST and LIHST, but it’s probable that when this play was first staged, the actor would have said PRIHST and LIHST.

By the 18th century, both pronunciation and spelling were generally uniform across the English-speaking world, and only some vocabulary words from that period would now strike us as outdated. For example, look at the formal use of thee and thou in this passage from the late 1700s:

“Sir Knight, whoever thou art, I bid thee welcome. If thou art of mortal mould, thy valour shall meet its equal: and if thou art a true Knight, thou wilt scorn to employ sorcery to carry thy point.” – from “The Castle of Otranto” by Horace Walpole (1764)

Though some texts from past centuries may seem difficult at first, most material written in English over the last 400 years should be fairly easy for you to read after a bit of practice. Remember, our modern English would be just as difficult for Shakespeare to read!

Cross-posted at the Ultimate Spelling blog.

Get Ten Times the Vocabulary Power in One Easy Step

August 5, 2012

If you’ve ever read fairy tales to children, you’ve probably heard of “seven-league boots” – a pair of boots that give a person the ability to leap forward seven leagues (21 miles, or about 34 kilometres, in today’s measurements) with each step. That magical ability allows an ordinary boy to escape from a giant and travel great distances with little effort (like the boy in Charles Perrault’s fable “Le Petit Poucet” or the 16th-century English folklore hero Jack The Giant Killer). We’ve always been attracted to things that help us accomplish more and go farther with less work. Just think of all the time- and labor-saving devices that we use every day, like telephones, dishwashers, and microwaves. Wouldn’t it be great if you could find a way to make such rapid advancement, and save so much time, in your vocabulary study?

You can, of course, and here at The Vocabulary Builder’s Blog we’ll share all the magic tricks we know to make your vocabulary improvement program easy and rewarding. The “seven-league boots” we’re talking about today are synonyms, words that have the same or similar meaning. While you might be focused on a particular set of words that you need or want to learn – for example, if you’re studying for an SAT test – you’ll find that you can make greater strides forward if you take a few moments to include each word’s synonyms as well. By learning synonyms, you’ll expand your ability to use words precisely, because each synonym has its own particular nuance.

Take the word nuance, for example. If you look in a dictionary, the main definition will probably be something like “a slight difference in tone or meaning.” Some synonyms include shade, variation, and subtlety. Here’s an example:

The vocabulary words you select allow you to communicate nuances of meaning appropriate to your situation and audience.

Another definition of nuance is “underlying message” and the synonyms in this instance include innuendo, undertone, and implication. Try using each of these words, as well as the main word, in the blank spot in this sentence:

Her tone of voice gave a sinister _____________ to her message that the words themselves did not convey.

You can also define nuance as “refinement,” although in this case you’re more likely to see it as the adjective nuanced. In this case, synonyms are discrimination and finesse.

Glenn Gould was known for his nuanced performance of works by Bach; he was able to bring out melodic lines that other pianists rarely even noticed.

Finally, a common alternate meaning for nuance is “a small amount.” For this definition, use the synonyms hint or vestige.

The nuance of flavor that results from using just a small amount of anchovy in your mayonnaise will please your guests – even those who hate fish!

And there you have it – your verbal seven-league boots have given you not one word, but ten. Not only that, but you’ll be able to pick and choose from these ten words to express exact meanings with precision and subtlety, and that’s a magical vocabulary skill in itself.

Zebra Crossings and Broadsheets: Why English Isn’t Always Black and White

August 1, 2012

In a previous post we talked about how easy it is to assume you know the meaning of a word in one language because it seems to be identical to a word you know in another language. For example, when you’re first learning German, you might be pleased if your teacher gives you box marked “Gift” – until you realize that in German, the word “Gift” means “poison”! These pitfalls aren’t limited only to words from different languages. There are many places in the world where English is spoken, but although the words may be the same, the meaning of those words is not. When you’re traveling, or speaking with someone from another country, don’t assume that you’ll always be understood, even when you’re speaking the same language. You might think that the United Kingdom and the United States, being so closely linked in language and history, would be exempt from this problem, but here’s a list of words you’ll need to watch out for, no matter which side of the Atlantic you call home:

bomb
In the UK, something that’s a bomb is a great success, but a show that “bombs” in the US is a a total failure (however, the current slang phrase “that’s da bomb” refers to something really good).

cider
Parents traveling with children need to know that a glass of cider isn’t always the best choice for their kids, because in the UK “cider” is an alcoholic drink, not the simple pressed apple juice found in the US (in the US, “hard cider” means the alcoholic version).

entrée
You might think that because this is a French word meaning “beginning” that all English-speaking countries would agree on the same translation, but if you’re in the US, you’re talking about the main dish and largest portion of a meal, while in the UK it’s a starter or appetizer.

jumper
When getting dressed in the summer, an American girl might select a jumper (a sleeveless short dress) but a London lass will wear her jumper (a warm knitted sweater or pullover) when the temperature drops in winter.

paraffin
Although there are fewer things that run on this fuel these days, a paraffin lamp in the UK would be called a kerosene lamp in the US, where paraffin refers to wax.

pavement
When you’re walking on the pavement in the US, you’re running the risk of getting hit by a car, because “pavement” is what the automobiles use, and a “sidewalk” is where the pedestrians need to be – but be sure to stay on the pavement in the UK!

Translating from British to American English, a “zebra crossing” is a pedestrian walkway across a street, and a “broadsheet” is a newspaper.

How to Get a Cutting-Edge Vocabulary

July 30, 2012

To get the best vocabulary, you need to stay sharp. While it’s possible to pick up new words by chance, if you’re determined to improve your vocabulary, you’ll need to focus on a solid program of vocabulary development. This is especially important if you’re a professional moving into a new field and need to be up to speed on unfamiliar terminology. There’s a lot of advice out there on the best way to learn vocabulary, and sometimes sifting through all of the material in print and on the internet is like trying to find the one true diamond in a bucket of glass beads. But don’t worry – here at The Vocabulary Builder’s Blog, we have the information you need to support your study program so you’ll get the high ratings you deserve.

Focus and intent are the key to achieving many things, including a top-notch vocabulary. One way to make it easier to concentrate on a program of study is to set a goal, or a series of goals, so that you’re clear about your purpose. Many people find it helpful to write down their goals and chart out the steps they plan to reach those goals. Think about your reasons for wanting to improve your vocabulary, and make a list of the advantages you anticipate gaining with your new skills, the problems you think you might have along the way, and any deadlines you need to meet. Don’t forget to make a note of the resources you have available to you, including on-line tools, classes, friends, and instructors. By writing all of this down, you’ll be able to identify your assets and your liabilities, and start your studies by being fully prepared.

Focusing on your goals also helps you remain adamant in your determination to succeed. A good way to stay focused is to learn as much as you can about every word you add to your vocabulary. The more details you have, the more interesting you’ll find the learning process. It will also be easier for you to remember and use the word in the future. Take the word adamant, for example. You could just learn the definition of this word (“refusing to change direction, unyielding”) and stop there, but that’s not a good way to maximize your study. The meaning of the word will be more clear in your mind if you add things like synonyms (determined or inflexible) and antonyms (like changeable or wavering), because the additional vocabulary will create more connections between the word and its uses.

Stay focused, stay sharp, and stay on track, and you’ll be rewarded with valuable vocabulary.

These Five Words Will Make You Super-Smart

July 26, 2012

The changes to English vocabulary are tracked and evaluated by the editors at the Oxford English Dictionary, a task that’s been going on since the 19th century. They look at words that have come into current use, words that have changed in meaning, and words that have fallen out of common conversation, and revise and update the OED four times a year. Right now they’re focusing on words that begin with the letter “S” and have added many new words and definitions, like supermom, superbad, supervillain, and superfund.. Take a look at these five official additions to the English language, and supersize your vocabulary today!

superglue (verb)
Cyanoacrylate is the scientific name for the fast-acting and very strong glue, or adhesive, that we’ve called “superglue” since the 1950s. Through the process of verbification (turning nouns into verbs) this word is now commonly used as both a noun and a verb. Example: “Emily was so intent on fixing the broken vase that she accidentally superglued her fingers to the tablecloth.”

supervolcano
In 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia exploded violently, throwing over 150 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, which altered weather patterns around the world for the next few years. There was so much ash that it lowered temperatures in the Northern hemisphere, causing crop failures in Europe, North America, and China, with snow falling even in June, and freezing temperatures throughout the summer. Mount Tambora is classified as a VEI-7 event – now imagine a VEI-8 event, the minimum size for a supervolcano eruption. New Zealand had one over 25,000 years ago that formed Lake Taupo, and scientists are studying the zone underneath Yellowstone, which has the potential for great destruction as well.

apatosaur
Volcanic eruptions may have helped cause enough climate change to lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs. One dinosaur’s name is becoming extinct as well: the brontosaur is now known more correctly as the apatosaur. These immensely large, long-necked and long-tailed vegetarians were four times the size of an elephant, and lived during the Jurassic Period, around 150 million years ago.

cybercast
Moving from the distant past to something that just a few decades ago seemed far in the distant future, web-based or downloadable programs like podcasts and other digital files are all classified under the term cybercast now. The prefix cyber- is often attached to words these days to add the meaning of “computer-based” or “robotic” (i.e. cyberspace, cyberpunk).

paywall
Here at The Vocabulary Builder’s Blog, we don’t charge a fee for access to these informative posts about English vocabulary, but many sites do require a payment or subscription in order to see full articles. Newspapers and magazines in particular have started charging for online viewing of their print publications, in part to make up for the reduced number of subscribers for the paper-based versions. You can break through the paywall easily, as long as you have a credit card.

You can find more new and updated words here.

Are You Being Misled By False Friends?

July 24, 2012

You know the type: they look so innocent and easy to understand; you’d never suspect them of trying to fool you (or worse, trying to make a fool out of you!); and they seem to get along perfectly with others you know inside and out. Why wouldn’t you trust them to tell you the truth?

Well, if you’re talking about the false friends that many linguists know, it’s not surprising that your trust has gotten you into trouble. In vocabulary terms, a “false friend” is a word in one language that seems to match exactly with a word in another language, but which has a completely different meaning. Although we at The Vocabulary Builder’s Blog encourage everyone to learn a second language because of the additional English vocabulary skills that can be gained – as well as the social, international, and business benefits it provides – we also want to point out that it’s a mistake to assume that two similar words have the same definition.

For example, if you’re perusing the titles of books on the shelves at a French librairie and find one that’s interesting, you won’t be able to borrow it for a week or two to read it. A librairie isn’t a library, but rather a bookstore. You might also become embarrassed if you try to use the German word bekommen or the Spanish embarazada. Bekommen means “to get” (not “to become”) and embarazada means “pregnant.” And when you’re traveling, don’t be afraid of a demande in French – that’s just a request or a question.

That’s just a sample of the problems you might encounter with similar-seeming words in different languages, so if you have any doubt about the meaning of a word you’re using, be sure to check a dictionary in one or both languages. Learning English vocabulary definitely includes learning those terms based on loanwords from other languages, but watch out for those tricky words that might lead you astray.

We haven’t even touched on the problems that arise with tonal languages like Chinese. Pity the poor fast food executive who approved the advertising phrase “eat your fingers off” thinking that the Chinese characters matched the popular fried chicken brand’s slogan!

10 Words We Need to Add to the English Language

July 22, 2012

Sometimes even the thousands of words in English aren’t adequate to precisely describe something we feel, or see, or think of. New words and phrases are created all the time to fill such gaps (think of the now-common term text message, which would have been meaningless thirty years ago). In addition, we can look to other languages for expressions that say what we want to say, even if there’s no English equivalent. Here are some of the ones we like best:

das Wanderjahr (German): A year of traveling around the world before settling down to a job after university; sometimes also occurring between graduation from secondary school and beginning university classes (the British refer to this as a “gap year”).

Pochemuchka (Russian): Someone with the habit of asking too many questions.

Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan): According to the Guinness Book of World Records, who list this word as “the most succinct” word ever created, mamihlapinatapai means “a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves.” Yaghan is a South American language with only one remaining native speaker, a woman named Cristina Calderón.

Waldeinsamkeit (German): The peaceful feeling one gets when wandering alone in the words. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem by this name in 1858 that includes the lines, “Or on the mountain-crest sublime / Or down the oaken glade / O what have I to do with time? / For this the day was made.”

Sobremesa (Spanish): The lazy, relaxed time after the midday meal when you sit around the table and chat with friends long after you’re done eating.

Glas wen (Welsh): Literally “blue smile,” this expression refers to a smile that isn’t friendly, but instead insincere and mocking.

Lagom (Swedish): Precisely the right amount of something.

Meraki (Greek): Putting your heart and soul into what you’re doing, especially if it’s something creative.

Iktsuarpok (Inuit): After meraki has helped you set up a gorgeous dinner table, you might use this word to describe the feeling of anticipation you have when you keep going outside to see if your guests are coming yet.

Wabi sabi (Japanese): The beauty of imperfection.

One of the beauties of the English language is that it never stops growing, so perhaps someday we’ll bring these words into common use and add to the richness of English.