TRUTH DOG CHAPTER 2
Author's note: this is the online version of the second chapter of the advanced English textbook I'm writing. I keep this version here so my students can read what I write without an unnecessary waste of paper.
VOCABULARY
Before we discuss anything else, we need to talk about your vocabulary.
Chances are, up until now, your education has failed you. Chances are, you haven’t actually read all that much and you don’t really know that many “big” words.
“I read all that time,” some of you protest! You’re indignant.
Ah, but you can’t fool me. If your other name is Reads A Lot, chances are, it’s commercial fiction: Harry Potter. Stephen King. Tom Clancy, and so on: fourth grade-level airport gift shop fiction lacking literary depth.
[ Nothing wrong with commercial fiction—it’s great entertainment and it’s certainly better food for your brain than watching television or chatting on social media. But it’s not challenging you and it’s not doing much to enlarge your vocabulary. ]
I’m not blaming you. It’s not your fault. Most teachers don’t know how to convince you to read and make it count. They gave you a reading log and told you to have your Mom sign it, as if this would somehow prove you did your reading. (Please.)
Or, they assigned dialectical journals. (You copied your friend’s.)
Or, they told the whole class to read the same book and then gave you a pencil-and-paper test. (You used your smartphone to cheat.)
Silly teachers. The kids aren’t gonna read unless you make it cheat-proof.
“Silly teachers. The kids aren’t gonna read unless you make it cheat-proof.”
Good news! The long period of your life you’ve spent Pretend Reading is over.
We’ll come back to the reading requirement. In the meantime, I know that for you to be successful, your vocabulary needs to go to boot camp.
Five hundred new words. Starting right now, in August.
Look, as an Old Guy Who’s Done A Ton of Reading, this list of Power Vocabulary reflects the terms I run into most frequently, words that are not used in everyday informal conversation. Many of them I run into constantly, even on the Internet, where most content is written at a third grade reading level.
[Footnote: I chose this list of vocabulary words using a number of sources, including Dr. Averil Coxhead's "Academic Word List" (Victoria University of Wellington's School of Linguistics and Applied Language studies online), and Princeton Review, WordSmart (5th ed., The Princeton Review, 2012.]
In astrophysics you need to learn discipline-specific words like astrometric, nucleosynthesis, and trigonometric parallax. In history you’re learning discipline-specific words like plebiscite, containment, and nullification. In English we have discipline-specific words too, like concrete language, wit, and hyperbole.
That discipline-specific bucket of words I’m calling rhetoric vocabulary. These words are given in this chapter as List R, because “R” stands for “rhetoric.” Clever, huh? I list them first because I want you to learn them first. Because we’re going to need them soon.
And, I have another, bigger bucket of words that are not exclusively Englishey. You will see them everywhere, in multiple disciplines online and in print. The entire bucket of words appears in Appendix Z: Power Vocabulary, more than 500 words, A to Z, in all their splendiferous glory.
Don’t panic! You don’t have to learn them all right now. Calm your palpitating heart. I’ve broken the power vocabulary down into 23 fun lists. Not fun like Magic Mountain. Sorta fun. Okay it’s not fun, it’s work. But it’s not busy work. It’s good work. Vocabulary, along with the rules of English grammar, comprise your level of control as a writer.
Athletes spend time in the weight room strength training. As a writer you need time in the “control room” toning your weak, flabby control muscles. What better way to begin than to step on the vocabulary treadmill?
How to learn and retain vocabulary
I do not give a list of ten words on Monday and a quiz on Friday, followed by a new ten words the next Monday. Why not? Because you’ll only know 10 words at a time, forgetting the old ones as you go. Not as dumb as I look, huh?
I believe that as you go, you should remain responsible for all of the assigned words. Don’t worry about how I plan to do that. I’ll tell you that in person. ((rubs hands together evilly))
But how will you retain so many words???
Not with flashcards displaying the word on one side and its simple definition on the other.
Method #1: mnemonic device
This doesn’t work for me, because I’m not an audial learner. But it might work for you! The idea is to somehow generate a rhyming scheme for the word that will remind you of the word’s meaning.
prodigious (adj.) means extraordinary, enormous, to a burdensome or abnormal degree, but the connotation is more neutral than negative… the word’s rhyming scheme could be “pro digits,” or “in favor of a great number of digits,” as in a huge number with a prodigious number of zeroes… or a weird creature with a prodigious number of fingers.
[Footnote: "Prodigious," wordpandit.com/prodigious (May 26, 2017).]
In your notes, or on a flashcard, detail your rhyming scheme for the word. Include the definition, of course.
Search wordpandit.com plus the word you seek for more ideas. They have a section called “mnemonic tips.” All my words may not be there, but you’ll certainly get the idea.
Method #2: pictogram
This works best for visual learners, especially visual artists. No, I am not much of a visual artist. But it works better for me than the mnemonic device strategy.
A pictogram is a picture of the word itself made to look like what the word means.
convivial (adj.) social, festive, but like a dinner party, not like an alcohol-soaked rager
Stop laughing at my picture!
In your notes, or on a flashcard, create your own pictogram. Include the definition if you need to do that.
I remain unconvinced that insipid little pictures of stick figures will be of any help to you, but what about magazine clippings or royalty-free computer images, or some other method of visual artistry in your notes or on your flashcards? I want your art to be memorable and meaningful because otherwise it’s just busywork.
Method #3: strange little story
As a verbal learner, this method works extremely well for me. (Who would have guessed that an English teacher is a verbal learner?)
The idea is to write a weird little story about someone or something that encapsulates the meaning of the word without using the word itself.
It helps if you write about someone you know, but you should change that person’s name in your strange little story in case your notes or your flashcards fall into the wrong hands.
preclude (v.) means to prevent something from ever happening… the connotation is neutral
Wonder Woman lassoed Dedrick with her golden magic rope, preventing him not only from running away, but from telling any more lies.
[Footnote: Wonder Woman is a trademark of DC Comics.]
Dedrick was one of my students. He was no liar, but he made me laugh and we enjoyed this sort of banter.
Method #4: category cards
Some of you are stubborn mules and insist on using traditional flashcards: word on one side, and the traditional definition on the other. Absent any context, you will not enjoy good retention using this strategy.
So how can you make it work?
By making category cards as well.
You may use my 23 categories if you want, but you should create around 40 of your own categories whether you use mine or not. Things you’re familiar with. They can be silly, like “turtles,” or “Elvis,” or “Wyoming,” or “the president.” Make them fun and interesting.
Then, when you study, draw out 3-5 category cards on the table in front of you. Then, one at a time, draw out vocabulary cards and decide: In which category does the vocabulary card best fit? If the word fits none of them at all, you may set it aside. The act of deciding where the word goes helps you brain create connections it can’t make if you’re just drilling yourself one word at a time using only the vocabulary flashcards.
If each time you’re drawing out different category cards, that adds an extra dimension of thinking about the vocabulary words.
Always do these two things no matter which method you choose.
1. Pronunciation
First of all, learn how the word is pronounced. If I don’t stand in front of the class and say it out loud and encourage you to say it out loud with me, or if you were absent that day, or if you forgot, then go to the Internet. There is a short YouTube™ video for each word in which a disembodied voice pronounces the word for you.
If you can remember how it’s pronounced, then of course you needn’t write it on the card or in your notes. Otherwise do.
It’s important to hear the word in your head when you see it. You don’t want people to laugh at you when you say “clandestine” and the way you said it rhymes with “Palestine.”
They will laugh. I know my mean friends and I did!
2. Parts of Speech
In your notes or on your flashcards, don’t forget to include the different parts of speech. Don’t just write “preclude,” write
v = preclude
n = preclusion
adj = precluded (past part.)
adv. = none
You needn’t always include the -ing form of the word (in this case, precluding), since almost any English verb comes to you with those forms included, free of charge. But if you’re confused about the part of speech for the word “precluding” (no, it’s not necessarily functioning as a verb), then you will need Chapter 6: Control.
What to do first, and how much to do at a time.
There are 24 lists, 1-23 plus the “R” list of Englishey words. This means if you begin in August learning three lists per month, while continuing to study and retain previous lists, you could still take December off and you’d would be done at the end of April.
Note that the lists are not equivalent in terms of length, and that some words occupy multiple lists.
All of my lists are available at vocabulary.com—get some practice there too!
Disagreements
You will probably disagree on occasion about which words appear in which lists. That’s fine! You wouldn’t be able to disagree with me if you weren’t learning them. Who knows, maybe I placed an impostor here and there. Maybe I did it subconsciously.
All kidding aside, the English language, just like every other language, evolves and changes, and you will have your own individual understanding of it. Some educators, wordsmiths, and other grumpies with too much time on their hands will try to enforce all The Rules in a tragic, futile effort to keep the language from changing. Yes, we need standards. We’ve gotta spell correctly as much as possible. We need periods at the ends of sentences. Everyone’s bibliography needs to look the same in a particular discipline. But we also need to recognize that the English language is like an organism. Change is inevitable. Pick up some Shakespeare if you want to see how much it’s changed in the last four centuries alone.