#WritersCoffeeClub Jan 13. Are you actively building your working vocabulary? How?
Not specifically these days, but I instinctively look up unfamiliar words I run across when reading.
When I was about 10-12 years old I went through a phase of reading dictionaries.
@cstross Footnote on an obscure word in one of Spike Milligan’s books: “Look it up. I had to.”
Postscript wrt. #WritersCoffeeClub Jan 13:
My current WIP contains some obscure words. Per scrivener, some dictionary words used once (in 116,000) include:
efficacious
blithe
chandler
phenethylamine
disparagement
multimodal
ferrule
palatinate
ablutions
polstilion
flatulent
halitosis
instar
ichneumon
obnubliated
attestations
heterocyclic
gumption
burgrave
stylops
(etc.)
I like to exercise my readers!
@cstross I hope the poor postillion wasn't struck by lightning.
@dragonfrog Oddly enough … 🤪
@cstross Instar in there, then.
@cstross Nice. I had to. lookup stylops and postillion. Now I know two new words!
@cstross, every time I see one particular word in that list, I think of Mary Poppins with bad breath:
Supercalifragilisticexpi-halitosis.
@cstross These are almost certainly just typos, but just in case they have actually crept into the text: surely "polstilion" should be "postilion" and "obnubliated" should be "obnubilated".
@cstross Ichneumon! Being a Magic the Gathering player from the 90s, I've never forgotten that one.
@cstross polstilion as in goulash, or postillion?
@cstross "obnubilate" is a lovely word. But do you have a typo in "postilion"?
@cstross the dictionary was a pretty frequent last resort of Something To Read for this pre-Internet kid. And looking up words is always better than just ignoring them like they weren't in the sentence!
@cstross
"When I was about 10-12 years old I went through a phase of reading dictionaries." Who didn't?
You moved on to thesauruses at 13? With an occasional foray into Cruden's Concordance, for entertainment?
@cstross I look up words etymology. Knowing their history and how they influenced other languages helps me a lot to remember them on the long haul.
@cstross I find it more effective to look for links between words. looking up the etymology of a word is very effective in that endeavour, and sometimes creates unseen bridges between languages. I do that a lot in French, English and Spanish. The back and forth is instructive and (for me) anchors a word deep in my memory
@cstross reading in French and German
