Ultimate Vocabulary – Vocabulary Building Software

10 Words You’re Using – and Misusing

June 25, 2012

Hopefully,* the tips you read on The Vocabulary Builder’s Blog give you not only a good understanding of what words mean, but also the knowledge of how to use them correctly. Unfortunately, many words are similar in appearance, sound, and usage, and can be easily confused. In fact, we’ll bet that there are several words you’ve been using confidently for years, unaware that the correct English usage of those words isn’t exactly what you think it is. It’s understandable to follow popular language trends and speak like those around you, but it’s important to know when you’re speaking less than precisely. To help you with this problem, we’ve identified five commonly misused word pairs, and explained the nuances that you need to know to be able to communicate with the utmost clarity.

fewer vs. less
Both of these words describe a diminished quantity of something (often in comparison to something else). In general, you should use fewer when you’re talking about things you can count, but less when you’re referring to an “uncountable” object. Here’s an example:

After the severe winter storms, there’s much less sand on the beach this year.
If a beach is too rocky, fewer people go there on the weekends.

In this case, “sand” is a collective noun, where it’s considered as a whole (i.e. the entire beach).

poisonous vs. venomous
Venom is a toxic liquid that some creatures inject into enemies or prey by biting or stinging, so venomous really just means “producing venom.” Poison is also toxic, but it doesn’t have to be injected to harm you. Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) is a poisonous mushroom, South American rocket frogs are poisonous because of a toxic secretion on their skin, and the sap of poison ivy causes itchy rashes.

nauseous vs. nauseated
Traditionally, the word nauseous has had the definition “causing or creating nausea” and nauseated has meant “suffering from nausea.” Nausea itself is the uneasy sick-making feeling you might get if you’re feeling dizzy or unwell. Therefore, you might be nauseated after going on the nauseous carnival ride called the “Tilt-a-Whirl.” The word nauseating can be used instead of nauseous, but more often is used to mean “causing a feeling of disgust or revulsion.”

continuous vs. continual
Although both of these words mean “ongoing,” the difference between the two words can be determined by thinking about whether or not there are any breaks in whatever it is that’s ongoing. For example, an alarm may make a continuous shrill sound until someone shuts it off, but there is no break in the sound up to that point. By contrast, a child may continually ask questions of her father; this doesn’t mean that she never stops talking, but rather that she is constantly asking questions – perhaps one a minute, or every ten minutes, but in a continual fashion over the course of the day.

fortunate vs. fortuitous
If you’ve come across The Vocabulary Builder’s Blog through a fortuitous click of the mouse, then you’re fortunate to have discovered a good resource for English vocabulary study. Random chance – not necessarily good luck or even bad luck – results in fortuitous happenings. If you have good luck, then you’re fortunate, or lucky.

* While “hopefully” is now commonly used to mean “in a hopeful manner,” it really means “it is hoped that …” – and we’ll talk about the difference in the next post.

Essential Traveler’s Tip: Learn Your Vocabulary Words!

June 21, 2012

One of the joys – and difficulties – of travel is learning the language of the area you’re going to visit. Of course, if you’re going to another country, it’s wise to learn at least a few useful phrases before you go, so that you can find your way around the city, locate the bus terminal, or order a meal in a restaurant. You might think that if you’re taking a trip within your own country, you don’t have to bother with learning new words or phrases, but you’d be wrong. Every area has its own regional dialect, with words used in different ways, or entirely new words you’ve never heard before. Once you get familiar with the lingo of the land, though, you’ll be able to explore the cultural aspects that the natives know well, and that other tourists might never discover.

One of the best ways to get the flavor of a region is to taste the traditional dishes you won’t find anywhere else. If you’re traveling in the United States, you might want to check the menus for these local specialties:

flannel cake: a griddle cake (also called “pancake” or “flapjack”) that may be slightly sweetened, often served with jam or jelly (Appalachian Mountains)

Sally Lunn: a sweet rich bread whose recipe harks back to the early American settlers arriving from England (North Carolina)

lutefisk: dried cod (whitefish) that has been rehydrated in a solution of lye and water before being boiled and served warm or at room temperature; the Norwegian immigrants brought this dish with them to the farms they developed on the plains (upper Midwest region)

scrod: another fish dish, this one also reflecting the early American connections to the British Isles, scrod is a traditional way of preparing small whole fish by salting and drying, then broiling over open flames (New England)

red-eye gravy: a sauce made from pan drippings (from bacon, fried ham, or other fried meat) thickened with flour and with strong coffee added (South)

hopping John: a “good luck” dish eaten on New Year’s Day, this dish is made out of black-eyed peas, rice, and bacon (South Carolina, Georgia)

bear claw: a scary name for a deliciously sweet pastry covered in icing, that’s shaped like the paw of a grizzly bear (Pacific Northwest)

We hope that you’ve gotten a taste of some of the interesting words you can discover while you’re traveling! Keep your eyes open for new words as you visit different areas, and you’ll fill your mind with food for thought.

How to Learn to Love Learning Words

June 7, 2012

It’s no secret that we tend to spend more time doing things we enjoy, rather than things we find boring or annoying. However, sometimes those boring or annoying things (doing dishes, doing the laundry, attending meetings at work, filling out expense reports) still need to get accomplished. How can you turn “boring or annoying” into something you can tolerate – or even get to love? The trick is to change your habits as well as your attitude.

If you have the attitude of seeing the best in people, and a habit of nurturing and sponsoring those in need, then you have the quality of philanthropy, literally translated from the Greek as “love of humanity.” The root word philos means love, and this root frequently appears as the prefix phil- or philo-. If you don’t have the habit of looking up a word’s etymology to study the root words it’s made from, then you’re missing an important part of vocabulary study. The more you know about words, the more you’ll like them.

Once you’ve gotten into the habit of looking for root words, you’ll find that it’s much easier to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words that share those same roots. For example, if you looked up the other half of philanthropy you’ll have found that the second part of the word comes from the Greek word anthropos, which means “humankind.” So what do you think the word anthropology means? If you guessed “the study of humankind,” you’re right. And if you could figure that out because you already learned the common root suffix -logy (“study, practice”), your attitude of curiosity towards words will have paid off.

Building on your good habits, and developing an attitude of curiosity and exploration will help you quickly add new words to your vocabulary. If you develop a love of words, you’ll also learn to love using them in new and creative ways, which will make your written and spoken communication more interesting to other people (as well as yourself) and ensure that you’re better able to hold an audience’s attention. After all, you don’t want people to equate the phrase “boring or annoying” with their conversations with you!

Practice your new-found love of words and learning by looking up, defining, and using these words in one or more sentences: philosophy, philodendron, philharmonic, philately, philology.

Are You Slowing Down Your Own Vocabulary Study?

June 5, 2012

There are many texts and software packages available that offer a variety of study techniques for people who want to improve vocabulary. Some of these resources are very good, but some don’t have the information you need to quickly and efficiently build your vocabulary. In fact, you might be using study methods that are actually slowing you down! It’s important to know the best ways to improve vocabulary, and apply those techniques to your study program.

For example, you might be taking lists of words and learning them one at a time. Although you may think all you need to do is memorize a word’s definition and spelling, studies have shown that this isn’t the best way to get that word into your long-term memory and make it a part of your active vocabulary. In order to do this, you need to learn the word in context. The idea of “collocation” – that is, grouping of words into chunks (phrases, idioms, or related words) – has been part of the teaching process for decades, especially with teachers of ESL (English as a Second Language). Obviously, what’s good for people who are learning English will often apply to people who are learning new English vocabulary, and that’s definitely the case here. That means that you need to find examples of the word you’re learning and see how it’s used in writing. If the word is often part of a common phrase, learn that as well. You’ll find that both the word and its meaning are easier to memorize and recall when needed.

Another drawback of simply using a list of words is that most of the time those words are relatively random, without any connections between them. Again, this makes the words harder to remember. It’s better to group words together and learn each group separately. You can group words by parts of speech, for example, and learn a group of adjectives at one time. You might also group words by topic; perhaps you’ve got half a dozen words related to physical geography on your list, mixed in with the others. Separate those words out and use visual imagery to help fix their meanings in your mind. In fact, incorporating visuals into your vocabulary study is a good idea whenever possible, because it creates one more link between your focused attention and your long-term memory, and makes accurate recall and correct use of the word more likely in the future.

References:
Gairns, R. “Working with words.” (1986)
Hill, J. “Collocational competence.” English Teaching Professional No. 11 (1999)
Lewis, M. “Implementing the lexical approach.” (1997)

5 Ways to Set Yourself Apart Using Vocabulary

June 1, 2012

Whether you’re trying to impress your professors with your abilities or working hard to bring yourself to management’s attention so they’ll consider you for a new job or promotion, you need to make sure you stand out from the crowd. One of the best ways to do this is to use the power of your vocabulary to constantly communicate in the most effective and efficient way possible. Here’s why vocabulary study is the key to making you the center of attention and the one person who succeeds:

1. You’ll be able to consistently show excellence.

A good vocabulary allows you to smoothly and easily communicate, both verbally and in writing. We’re always transmitting information and it’s important that your speech and writing has a uniform quality. People will know they can count on you to be clear and articulate, no matter the situation.

The word uniform comes from the Latin roots uni- (“one”) and forma (“form, shape”).

2. Good communicators are able to get people to agree with them.

Clear and persuasive speech is only possible with an excellent vocabulary. If you’re looking for a promotion to a supervisory position, you’ll need to be able to get people to work in unison in order to get things done, and your vocabulary skills will definitely help.

To make the word unison, add the Latin root sonus (“sound”) instead; unison means “having one sound.”

3. Vocabulary knowledge keeps you from being confused.

Fluency in speaking is important, but you also need to know the definitions of words so you can use them precisely. By studying vocabulary, you’ll know better than to make unilateral assumptions about meaning. This means you won’t be confusing other people, either.

The Latin root latus means “side” so unilateral means “one-sided.” For example, you might assume that because words like unintelligible and unimproved also start with the letters UNI, they also use the root word meaning “one” – but they don’t. These words begin with the prefix un- which means “not” (i.e. “not intelligible” and “not improved”).

4. No matter what field you’re in, vocabulary is a valuable resource.

Frankly, we can’t think of any profession (except perhaps that of mime, or Trappist monk) that doesn’t rely on words. Communication is a universal requirement in any field. Start with improving your basic and advanced English vocabulary, and then go on to the terminology specific to your area of work or study.

Take the root words uni (“one”) and versus (“to turn, to become”) to create the whole of existence, all things turned into one: the universe, a universal constant.

5. Good vocabulary makes you stand out from the rest.

You might be only one applicant out of hundreds for that perfect job you’ve been looking for. Your vocabulary skills will set your job application apart from the others and you’ll quickly come to the interviewers’ attention with your unique ability to express yourself.

The Latin word unicus (“sole, single”) became the French word unique, and entered the English language in the 17th century.

Best Word Blogs

May 30, 2012

We’re so lucky to have the internet to help us with vocabulary! Although it’s true that there are a lot of poorly-written sites out there that won’t teach you new vocabulary or the best ways to use it, there are many good sources for news and information about English vocabulary. Here are some of the ones we like:

Word Origins / History of English

The writer known as Ojibwa on the Daily Kos site has an occasional series called “Origins of English” that provides an excellent overview of the history of the language.

While not a daily blog per se, the Online Etymology Dictionary is a great place to do a quick look-up for individual words. For commentary and topical discussions on word origins, check out Dave Wilton’s blog Wordorigins. You can also follow Dave on Twitter.

At The Etyman Language Blog you’ll get in-depth discussions about word origins, written in a clear but advanced academic style. This blog is updated less than once a week in general, but the posts are worth waiting for.

Learning New Vocabulary

For vocabulary words with images to help you remember them, check out The Vocabulary Blog where interesting illustrations provide mental and visual links to word definitions. This blog is written by Mike Kloran, an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in Japan. Because English is a difficult language for ESL learners, you’ll often find that ESL teachers are able to explain words in ways that are very easy to understand.

One very popular way to learn vocabulary is to find a “word of the day” calendar to put on your desk. Of course, now we also have internet sites that provide that service as well! One good place to find your word of the day is at The New York Times. Not only do they give you interesting words to learn, but they also link to articles that use each word, so you can see how it’s used in context.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary also provides a word of the day so if you happen to use that as your online reference, take a detour to learn a new word while you’re looking up the definition of another one.

Of course, we encourage you to continue to read The Vocabulary Builder’s Blog, your first source for news and information about the English vocabulary you need to succeed!

The Important Connection Between Spelling, Vocabulary Improvement, and Literacy

May 28, 2012

The University of Western Australia recently sponsored a study called “Making the Links” that underlines the importance of the connection between a good vocabulary and good spelling skills. While the overall goal of the project was to promote literacy, the study found that without a solid basis in vocabulary and spelling, the student’s ability to comprehend and build on the information they read was severely limited. This “basic literacy” should be achieved by students by the time they reach secondary school age, concluded the researchers, but not all students are achieving that goal. This basic skill is more “word-oriented” and requires the teachers and the students together to concentrate on vocabulary building, understanding the roots and origins of words, and accurate spelling. Once these are well integrated into the study routine, it is easier for students to focus on comprehension.

One surprising result of the study, which concluded in 2011, was that teachers quickly realized that the way they teach would need to change in order to support this focus on literacy. Groups of instructors started sharing their techniques, and results from different classrooms were compared. Understandably, one of the more difficult aspects of this system is to incorporate the literacy targets into all of the subjects being taught, because classroom time and resources are often limited. Teachers, researchers, and outside organizations combined their energies into finding the best ways to accomplish this goal.

The effort and time put into adapting teaching styles to incorporate vocabulary improvement, spelling skills, and reading comprehension paid off in the end. Testing showed that the majority of students in the literacy-focused curricula scored higher than national averages in all three areas, with an amazing 76% of students scoring at least 13 percentage points higher than average in vocabulary skills.

This and other studies emphasize the importance of a good vocabulary in student success in all areas of study. Without a good vocabulary, and the ability to recognize and correctly spell words, it’s very difficult for children to get the skills they need in reading comprehension, which is necessary for acquiring knowledge in any field.

Cross-posted at the Ultimate Spelling blog.

Word Art: Palindromes and Ambigrams

May 24, 2012

Many written languages developed from pictorial representations of objects, small artistic icons that gradually became more refined and simplified into letters. Once the intricate graphics were taken away, people started putting the artistry back into writing by finding new ways to combine the letters. One of the more popular ways of doing this was by changing the shapes of the letters (with the result that we now have thousands of computer fonts to choose from) to match the mood of the text, or to highlight a word. Monasteries became famous for their “illuminated” texts that incorporated small pictures and fantastically ornamented capital letters, often using gold leaf and precious colored paints. However, even without changing the shape of letters, they could be put in pleasing and entertaining configurations, not just by spelling words, but by creating sets of words that formed pictures, or read the same forwards and backwards. A palindrome is a set of one or more words that reads like that; two famous examples of palindromes are NEVER ODD OR EVEN and ABLE WAS I ERE I SAW ELBA. Some English words like desserts (stressed) and reviled (deliver) are natural palindromes.

An ambigram isn’t a palindrome, exactly, though many of them read the same forward and backward. In this case, the mirror-image effect is done entirely through the style of the letters. With a rotational ambigram, the word image is designed to be rotated or inverted, and the viewer can see the same word – or sometimes a different word entirely – in the image whether upside down or right side up. Some ambigrams use the shapes of the spaces between the letters of a word to form a new word, and others rely on the way letters are drawn to create a change in perception of exactly what word the letters form. Many businesses these days use ambigrams in their logos and promotional material, because they’re so visually compelling.

For some examples of ambigrams and other word art, look up the work of artists John Langdon or Scott Kim. Try your hand at graphic artistry yourself, and you’ll find you’re looking at vocabulary words in a whole new way.

Word of the Day: Prehensile

May 22, 2012

The people with the best vocabulary have a talent for reaching out in many directions at once to find new and useful words, and the skill to hold tight to these words and incorporate them into their active communication. One way these vocabulary experts are able to remember and correctly use words is by linking them and their definitions to images that help recall and understanding of the word. Today’s word lends itself well to imagery, and you can mentally link it to the first sentence in this paragraph as well: think of a monkey in a tree, using its tail to hold on to a branch as it balances forward reaching for a piece of ripe fruit. The monkey’s prehensile tail gives it an advantage over other animals, and lets it seek out the ripest fruit at the very tops of the trees.

Your vocabulary study will give you an advantage as well, helping you quickly grasp the meaning of the texts you read, and giving you the ability to rise above your competitors for a scholarship, job, or promotion. For the most effective vocabulary study, don’t forget to include these exercises:

Learn the definition and correct spelling of a word. Knowing a word won’t do you any good if you can’t use it effectively. This means that you’ll need to know how to correctly use the word in context, in both spoken and written communication. You’ll also need to remember how to spell the word, without relying on your computer’s spell-check program.

Look up the word’s history. By going into a word’s etymology, you’ll get a better understanding of the word’s meaning, and also learn how it’s related to other words, both of which will help you remember the word more easily. For example, the word prehensile comes from the Latin verb prehendere (“to grasp”). If you look up this root word, you’ll find that the words prize and comprehend both can be traced back to it. Linking these words together gives you more ways to remember the word: think about using a prehensile tail to grasp a prize; or think about how another way of saying that you comprehend something is “to grasp the situation” or “to get it.”

Be familiar with idioms and different ways of using the word. English is a very flexible language, and sometimes words aren’t used literally. If you hear someone say “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” it means that they’ve been completely surprised by learning something that they didn’t believe could be true. Something that’s “more fun than a barrel of monkeys” is very fun (or funny) indeed, and if you “throw a monkey wrench” into something you’re causing delay, difficulties, or failure of a project or plan.

Don’t monkey around now – get started on your vocabulary studies today!

Useful Vocabulary Resources for Graduates

May 18, 2012

Most students are finishing up their school years in May and June, and either moving on to university studies or getting ready to find a job after their post-secondary education. If you’re a friend or relative of a graduating senior and are looking for a gift to help them go on to the next phase of their lives, don’t forget that vocabulary skills will help in any field. We’ve found some books and other resources that should be useful to any graduate.

100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know
(American Heritage Dictionaries/Editors)

A good overview of advanced vocabulary that younger students may not have encountered in their classwork in secondary school, but will undoubtedly need in college, this book will give students a head start on the word knowledge they need to do well in classes.

Vocabulary for the College Bound Student
(Harold Levine)

Instead of presenting words in an alphabetical list, this book groups them by theme and topic to make them easier to remember. Although this is not specifically designed for SAT study, the vocabulary words are among those that are frequently found on SAT exams, making this a good book for students at any level.

One Year of Words
(Dorothy Rubin)

College students – especially freshman – are usually very busy, and finding time to study vocabulary might seem like too much trouble to fit in to the day. However, using this week-by-week study guide, the seemingly overwhelming task of vocabulary building can be broken down into manageable chunks. Each week gives the student ten new words to learn, with three exercises to take at the end of each word list, and an answer key for help.

Essential GRE Vocabulary Flashcards
(Princeton Review/Editors)

For college graduates going for advanced degrees, the GRE is a major hurdle to get over in the application process for graduate school. These flashcards are easy to use and take along for impromptu study so that vocabulary improvement can happen anywhere at any time. There are 500 cards in the set, each with definitions, synonyms, parts of speech, and context examples.

Check out more suggestions for vocabulary resources here.