Showing posts with label vocabulary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vocabulary. Show all posts

22 March 2024

Vocabulary Improvement: Having Fun with English Words

Links below are to a post series I published at one of my favorite social blogging communities, MyLot.com. These may not be words you use in your everyday communications in the English language. But if you like to play word games like Scrabble, they might come in handy!  Learn them so you don't have to consult the dictionary during the game. 



English words are fun! Don’t you think so? Even if English is not your native tongue. When I was in elementary school as a method of enriching our vocabulary and improving our word skills, the teacher would send us home with a list of about 10 words. The homework assignment was to look up the definition of the words in the dictionary, write down the word and the definition, and write a sentence we made up using the word. Thinking back on it, I realize that it was a very good exercise.

What I Learned Watching Korean Drama

Several years back I watched a historical period Korean drama about a king who had a dream. He dreamed of a nation where everyone could read and write. Even poor people! It was a radical move! The nobles and scholars vehemently opposed him. They were willing to kill people over this! Can you imagine? To say that others disagreed with his ambitious endeavor would be the understatement of the century. Nevertheless, because he was fiercely determined, he accomplished his goal. He devised a system of 28 alphabets and from those letters, all words could be created. Sounds marvelous, doesn’t it? Watching that series really made me appreciate the ability to speak, read, and write in my native tongue, i.e. English.




What I Learned When I Had No Internet Access

What do you do when you don’t have the Internet? Oh! I don’t know! Clean your house? Read a book or a magazine? How about … learn some new words? Where’s my dictionary? (Actually I don’t have a dictionary. I have a lexicon.)

Unlike the Korean alphabet, our American English alphabet is 26 letters. Our words are derived from the languages of various civilizations: French, Latin, Greek, languages of the Native Americans, etc. The creation of most of the words we speak rest on 5 of the 26 letters, which we call vowels. A – E – I – O – U. Sometimes the letter Y is considered a vowel. But for purposes of this discussion, we will count it as a consonant.

Entertainment and Education

I started out entertaining myself by scanning pages of my old lexicon and honing in on words I didn’t know. Then I thought to myself, many members of online social communities where I am an active member, are non-English speaking. Why not share my treasure finds with them? There are also some members who speak “the real English”. Per my late husband, there’s real English and then there is the English that Americans speak. Those community members who speak “the real English” might enjoy my findings as well.

So I’ve published this series of short posts. Why isn’t the series longer? Well because I got my Internet back. LOL.  I looked up the meanings of “5 English words” for each vowel. The pattern if you can’t detect it is the first vowel in the alphabet paired with the first consonant in the alphabet; second vowel with the second consonant; third vowel with the third consonant, etc. Similar to my homework assignment from elementary school, wrote down the word and the definition. I did not, however, use the words in a sentence. Why? Like I said, I got my Internet back! LOL. 🙂

Anyway … as I only wrote down the word and the definition in the posts, maybe the reader can go the extra step and use it in a sentence.

One last note. Keep in mind that some of the words I found, you probably won’t use in casual everyday conversation. But if you love to play word games like Scrabble, they might come in really handy!

04 October 2021

American English: Everyday Words Not Used Every Day Until the 20th Century

There are many words we now use every day, that were not everyday words until the 20th century. I always enjoyed the cartoon called Road Runner. There were no spoken words in the animated episodes. Or so I thought. Come to think of it, there was one word and the Road Runner always said it twice. “Beep Beep!”


Mark Nichol published a list of “25 Words Coined by Twentieth-Century Authors”.

Did you know that the word “beep” was invented by a 20th-century scientist and novelist named Arthur C. Clarke? Since some of the words on Nichol’s list are related to technology, it’s no surprise they were unheard of until the 20 century. But the other nontech words are surprising to me and may surprise you too.

Curious to know the other 24 words?

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Source:  Virily.com



27 April 2018

30 Incorrectly Used Words That Can Make You Look Bad | Inc.com

Interesting list.  Most of those words I never had a problem with except for "affect" and "effect".  I can't stand those two words.  They affect my mood, make me angry and have a bad effect on me!

Did I use them correctly? 

You see what I mean?  :)

30 Incorrectly Used Words That Can Make You Look Bad | Inc.com



English: Title page to Volume 1 of Good Words
English: Title page to Volume 1 of Good Words (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


Watching The Words




09 August 2017

Book Review: Prince Iggy and the Kingdom of Naysayer (Reblog)

  • nay·say·er [ney-sey-er] (noun)
    a person who habitually expresses negative or pessimistic views.  Origin: 1715–25


Always enjoy reading a good picture book as a pick me up. I'm really 8 years old at heart. :) Reblogging this.





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