Wordsmithery

Aside from boosting one’s psychic mobility, reading also expands one’s vocabulary. Unfortunately, I was not a prolific reader in my formative days but I did develop a love for words in high school. While I may not have taken to a voracious consumption of literature, I did spend considerable periods perusing the dictionary to pick up new, special words.

I would later realize that reading the dictionary — with its words without their context — does not exactly improve your vocabulary. Additionally, I figured that I learned more words from reading Archie comics than I did from Merriam-Webster. Would you believe it, aside from the delight Archie comics provided, they also introduced this kid to terms like tepid, antidisestablishmentarianism, flagon, batten the hatches.

I was not much of a serious reader in college either. My usual reading fare consisted of blogs and newspaper columns. But I told myself in my first year of teaching that it was about time I expanded my reading selections. However, my primary reasons were not “to be transported to different worlds” or “to exercise my imagination” or “to let my mind free-wheel.” No, my primary reason was to learn new words.

So I started a journal titled “Wordage” where I logged every new word I encountered in print, on TV, or in a conversation. I wanted to call myself a “wordsmith” or “a person who works with words.” In fact, “wordsmith” is record #16 in my notebook.

According to Dale Carnegie, there are four ways, and only four ways in which we have contact with the world: 1) what we do, 2) how we look, 3) what we say, 4) how we say it. Throughout my life I have deeply revered people who were especially exceptional in #3 and #4. Nothing is more impressive than someone who has a ridiculous arsenal of vocabulary and a beautiful way with words.

In the first page of version 1 of Wordage, I acknowledged my limited lexicon and how this was my driving force to keep this journal so that one day I might be able to call myself a bona fide wordsmith. It’s a long travel but you gotta start somewhere!

I say “version 1” because, thus far, the contents have been transferred to three notebooks. I started in 2006 with a compilation of used notebook sheets stapled together. I then migrated everything over to this spiral notebook I received on my 23rd birthday. I’d rewritten most of the entries when I thought that this word-collecting hobby warranted a more special notebook. So I got myself a ruled Moleskine and once again transferred everything there. This is it, I’m not changing media… for now.

Why pen the entries on a notebook, you ask. I could easily encode the words, definitions, and sample usage on the computer, just like I inventory my fonts. But there’s a more personal connection with pen and paper, am I right? Besides, I rarely write longhand anymore so it makes for good carpal exercise.

It was only a couple days ago when I opened my notebook since last year. I’d been temporarily storing my newfound terms and phrases as SMS or mobile phone notes. Though I am barely into 1/5 of the notebook, I am pleased as punch to have filled up seven glorious pages since Wednesday. But that’s probably because I spent most of my time reading four issues of Time, one issue of Newsweek, and a couple chapters of my current book. God bless apps for mobile dictionaries!

So far, I’ve made an account of some hundred words. Of these, I’ve truly familiarized myself with around 75, and actually used around 50. This is not impressive progress, considering that I’ve kept this journal for four years running. So in an attempt to refresh my memory with these words I’ve collected, I re-read the entries and examples then quizzed myself afterwards. This was Wednesday. It’s Friday now and it seems I’ve forgotten again.

So to truly pave my path toward becoming a wordsmith, I will try to use at least one new word from the list every day, if only to entrench it in my vocabulary.

There, that’s one word for today — entrench.