The Vocabulary Habit
By
Carolyn Howard-Johnson,
book
and marketing consultant, writer and,
when
my life needs a dose of joy, a poet, too!
I was in love with writing—and even grammar—long before I
was in love with words. I became smitten with words about the same time I fell
in love with my husband about sixty-three years ago. When we opened the door to
our new one-bedroom apartment ($75. a month, I kid you not!), we found a
tattered book that once belonged to a previous tenant. It was one of the early
paperbacks (pocketbooks) called something like “A Word a Day” and we committed
exactly that—one word a day—to memory before we went to sleep each night. We
did it together. That list was spot-on, a list of words that might appear on an
SAT exam or a Graduate Record Exam (GRE).
My vocabulary-intensity rating went up and down after that,
mostly down. Jobs, children, and a business interfered. But lately it
crescendoed along with my interest in poetry. And then one day (it was a
cloudy, uneventful day during my self-imposed isolation during the Days of
Covid) an email from WordGenius appeared in my email box. I may have signed up
for it. If I did, I don’t remember, and I was a bit annoyed. Spam, I thought.
But I played their little games and got hooked again. Then the emails kept
getting more frequent. New and even more fun features. It was a little like the
internet in general, designed for addiction.
I was especially intrigued with the words that were directly
related to writing. They reminded me of a column I once wrote for a print
magazine in the early 2000s for…was it Writer’s Magazine? I remembered what the
column was called, so I did a search in my computer for “Affecting Words” and
there they were. Every single column. Soon I was adding words I collected from
my new email games that I might someday use for more “Affecting Words” columns,
words I didn’t know then, some words I had never heard!
That list is getting longer, and I started thinking about a
kind of memoir based on the love of words—especially words associated with
writing—and what Carolyn See, a now-deceased writing friend called “The Writing
Life” in her memoir.
And then it turned out that another auspicious email from
Elizabeth Seckman, the editor of your IWSG newsletter, showed up in my email
box. The "Ask Carolyn" column needed more posts. I suggested a change from writer advice, to the love of words. She, also being a lover of words, readily agreed and now, starting in June, IWSG authors and fans will have a new series from me
which will allow me to continue to indulge in this newly revived addiction of
mine. They will appear in IWSG’s News & Updates monthly newsletter. The last Wednesday of every month, you will get a word fix if you are signed up for the monthly newsletter. If you're not, there's no secret handshake, just sign up HERE.
If you are wondering if an author—a wordsmithery by
trade—could possibly need a word game other than The New York Times’ crossword
you may already do, here are some of “my” affecting words as a little test to
see if you think you might run across some you need. As you can see, most are
associated with writing or publishing in some way. Some may even nourish your
crossword skills! In any case, why not give it a try! And send me words you’d
like to see there at HoJoNews @ AOL dot com with “The Vocabulary Habit”in the
subject line.
Demiurgic
Palimpsest
Semantic Narrowing
Metonymy
Asyndeton
Antiphon
Synecdoche (one of my favorites)
Test yourself. Or just join WordGenius.com and play with me.
(No, I don’t get paid for inviting you!) Of course, all my IWSG words won’t have
appeared there and may not have appeared in there in the past.
Have I written the first page of that book I mentioned? Not
yet. Do you want to take bets on whether I do? I believe I will if I live long
enough. But here’s the thing. In the meantime, I have lots of meat and potatoes
for just such a book and I have renewed and fostered an old love. And all your
visitors and subscribers to ISWG will be helping me with my trek. What more
could one ask from reviving an old habit (or is it a hobby?) than that?
*Be sure to check in each month to see what fun, clever words Carolyn has to challenge us with. If you're not a member of our newsletter, be sure to sign up HERE.
MORE ABOUT THE GUEST BLOGGER:
Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist,
journalist, marketer, editor, and retailer to the advice she gives in her
HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers and the many classes she taught
for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’
Program. The books in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books published by Modern
History Press include the third edition of The Frugal Book Promoter with more
to come including The Frugal Editor which won awards from USA Book News,
Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie
Books and the coveted Irwin award in its earlier editions. Yes, she also loves
#SharingwithWriters anywhere she can. Thank you, IWSG!
CAROLYN HOWARD-JOHNSON
Celebrate International poetry month with me!!
Deeper into the Pond, part of my multi award-winning
Celebration Series coauthored with Magdalena Ball, Artwork by Jacquie Schmall
Self-published in the tradition of poets everywhere since
the advent of the Gutenberg Press
Web site: http://HowToDoItFrugally.com
Blog: http://SharingwithWriters.blogspot.com
Twitter: @FrugalBookPromo
Facebook: http://facebook.com/carolynhowardjohnson
Amazon Profile: http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile
Amazon Buy Page: Https://bit.ly/DeeperPond
E-mail: hojonews@aol.com
PS: Learn more about my fiction and poetry at:
carolynhowardjohnson.com. [Use this link without the “http://“ or “https:// to
access the correct page! Ahem!]
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