Hi there, viewers! You can read an adapted text version of this video on Medium. medium.com/@quotidianwriter/10-strategies-for-building-your-writing-vocabulary-54232a6f075f
Whenever I write I try to check the dictionary to see if there's a better word for what I want to write. Most of the times, there is. But that's so time consuming that it takes me too much time to complete a paragraph. I've downloaded apps to help me. Sometimes while writing I suddenly think of an imaginary word and then go through the dictionary to check if such a word does exist. 60 percent of the words do exist which muddles me. The rest of the 40 percent is closer to another word that means something completely different.😂 Thanks for your help though.
use the thesaurus in MS word. you right click the word and it will give you a bunch of common suggestions and I find that is a great way to see if there is a better word. It doesn't give weird and strange alternatives, just the common ones which will still resonate with readers. an online thesaurus is great for when you do want a weird and wonderful word
Anathema - something loathed. I learned it from a book titled "The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart: 1,200 Essential Words Every Sophisticated Person Should Be Able to Use" by Robert W. Bly.
Another brilliantly presented roadmap towards that "someday on a shelf " dream of all readers and potential authors. The voice over winds like a silk ribbon, colouring all as it spins and weaves and imparts gems and avoids painful literary surgery later.
Diane Callahan - Your videos are beautifully written and edited. Viewing one of them is like watching an entertaining film while receiving a genuine benefit from doing so.
Is this free? This is free, right? I haven’t stumbled into UA-cam Red by mistake? Because this channel is amazingly valuable; worth at least two semesters worth of a Creative Writing course, probably even more.
I encountered the word 'equine' a few days ago while reading Ulysses, and I love the way it sounds, as well as the cleft between its elegant phonetic properties, and the somewhat base and, to me, unexpected and random-seeming meaning it actually conveys (that of relating to horses). I think a character's face is described as "equine in length" which is such a fresh way of making the antiquated "why the long face" joke.
Hi there, I am study at university and my work assignments have become dauntingly long. I just want to say I am really happy I found your channel because I seriously enjoy writing but I fear my own capabilities. Thank you for creating this channel, very much appreciated.
Specificity is a beautiful thing. I love finding cool new words and then using them in my story. I honestly don’t read enough but I love my dictionary app, it gives fun new words every day.
Thank you because you have just taken the vocabulary work I do for fun to the next level. I am an uneducated beginner and trying to learn as much as I can before I attempt formal education. Sub'd!
First, I though it is the plot detail-vocabulary as line-vocabulary in drawing. I love learning new words. I even found an excuse to use them in writing or speech. I believe that the more vocabulary you learn, the better the expression of idea is. I was influenced by poetry and having a larger range of words is important. You make you better at crafting! It is important to be bi-langage to understand the ethymology.
New word, *caparison* - an ornamental covering for a horse or for its saddle or harness; trappings. From "In the Midst of Life," _The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce_ With its surprise twist, "In the Midst of Life" is a brilliant short story. I highly recommend reading _The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce_ to anyone who, like him, tends to cast a jaded eye upon the human race.
I totally agree with even expertise writers repeatedly using same words....... For example in Haruki Murakami's work the word ominous is quite prominent 👍😁
Hey! This was really an amazing video. I also used to do it in the same way, writing it down on post-it notes; however, in that way, I usually never go back to writing all the words and their definitions and then in the end it demotivated me from reading. This cycle became too much for me. This way of Vocubalary Journal is soooo smart! Thank you so much.
Decorous (adj) - in keeping with good taste and propriety. I heard it in the movie "The Imitation Game." I think it's where our word decorum comes from.
It may not be the intention of this video but I found that your method for creating a vocabulary journal would also help people trying to learn a 2nd language. I'm currently studying Japanese and I'm at a level where reading is enjoyable but a challenge. I often need to look up words that are relevant to story but I may not use outside of its text. In addition, there are other words that are new or interesting and I feel I *should* know them. With so many new words I often wonder, 'what am I going to do with all this?" I decided that since I wanted to enjoy the book and move on I would only look up what words I needed to know. But I also make a point to record vocabulary or phrasing that I find may be useful in the future. After watching this video I realized that one of the pleasures I derive from studying Japanese comes from the vocabulary that consist of Chinese characters called kanji that make up many of the words. These logograms, in essence, are similar to Greek and Latin roots of the English language (a class I throughly enjoyed in college btw) and is not only fascinating but very informative when coming across unfamiliar words. I love the idea of taking a deep dive into a few words then taking it a step further by getting an example from the news and then creating one's own sentence. I will definitely use these tips for my own study! Such wonderful and thoughtful suggestions. Thank you very much!
日本語も勉強しています! I love the pictorial nature of kanji, too, as it makes them so much easier to remember. The other day, I came across the word for "letter" (as in a letter sent in the mail), 手紙, and was delighted to find that it was a combination of "hand" and "paper." I also got a good laugh out of this "new kanji" parody video by Dogen: ua-cam.com/video/S3Fx2FEhhf8/v-deo.html
I really appreciated this video lesson and the process in which you utilize your tools to absorb words! I use to work on memorizing the dictionary, and a lot of those words just evade my need of them lol. I am going to try some of these techniques! Thank you!
Great video. I have multiple pages of scribbled words I've been jotting down as I read. I'm going to have to Google them all eventually, but that detracts from my reading so I've been avoiding it :)
I never meant to roil him as it was meant to be funny. But when he suddenly turned putrid, smashing all that he touches, I got stuck in a quandary. A sentence would have to do. Hi! I fell in love with your videos ever since i watched the First POV part, and it helped me a lot. I read and write as a hobby but I don't think that I'll ever get tired of it. I love books too much.
My imagination was excited to learn that "rapacious" (meaning "like a raptor, swooping down to kill its prey"), when translated from Greek to English, is "swindle." Now THERE's a word picture! I will forever think of a Swindler (a deceptive cheater) as a bird of prey seeking, attacking, destroying and consuming an innocent victim.
As a child I used to be the best at vocabulary, I always aced my quizzes :P so in my writing, I flex my big words. Might need to tone that down a bit lol.
I love your videos! This one is especially great, I just have to remember to listen to this one over watch, my arachnophobia was kicking my ass in this one
My favorite word, *raison d'etre* , a French word meaning “Reason for being” or “Reason for living”. It’s your purpose in life. What a beautiful divine word
It's weird that often for speakers of some other langauges there are many "advanced" or uncommon words that are much easier to learn than the more basic ones.
i love 3rd person perspective. but something I'd add to the disadvantages is that sometime, you switch to a pov of a less interesting character. and so you're stuck with him and his story line when you want the one of the anchor character, which can be frustrating
13:15 His wife had thought him crazy when he first applied for his open carry license. Even he sometimes wondered if his posh British debonair was being overly Americanized. Yet he couldn't help but palm the leather holster at his hip, which contained the heavy bulk of his brand new Raging Judge Magnum, loaded with .410 triple aught buck. It did seem rather overbearing, at least until he turned a corner and was confronted by a roiling putrid quandary shambling towards him. "By jove," he blurted in stunned amazement, as he fumbled at his firearm, "the Texans have been right all along!"
Merriam-Webster also has these nice word quizzes that make certain words 'sticky.' It's Halloween right now and they have a similar themed quiz. New words to remember! Snallygaster, anyone?
What an insight! Most of the time I actually trying to sound smart in my writing and I didn't even realized it 😂! Yeap, the right word for the right moment. p.s. : You spoke pretty fast. Sometimes it was too fast for me😅. I'm not a native English speaker, so it'd be great if you were to slow it down just a bit, 'cause your contents are on my waiting list 😄. Cheers.
When I was growing up I used to read books which were far beyond the prescribed reading level for my age. I will forever be grateful to the late Anne Clarke, Homai's Braille Librarian, for never telling me I couldn't borrow a book because it was "too difficult". I would regularly consult the dictionary whenever I encountered an unfamiliar word. BTW, please try to refrain from assuming everyone knows the acronyms you're using. You used two to describe levels of vocabulary, and I think I might know one of them. You do have an international audience after all.
She sounds like she was a wonderful librarian! To be honest, I wasn't sure what acronyms you were referring to, so I had to reread my script. I think you mean the SAT and GRE, which are just standardized tests here in the United States for undergraduate school and graduate school, respectively. Most Americans don't even know what those acronyms stand for, and I had to look them up to check because I had no idea, haha! I will specify their purpose if I use them in the future, though. Thanks for watching! :)
Can I get the names of some books you have written? Because the way you speak is beautiful and your way of thinking is mesmerizing too. Don't wanna sound like a creep, but I would love to read the book such a beautiful person has written.
Trying to clarify "promontory" and I saw that it also has an anatomical definition (Google) "a prominence or protuberance on an organ or other structure in the body." So that would be something like a horn? Or Spikes?
"I tell you it was a royal quandary to determine what that putrid substance once was." - a disgusted British Aristocrat, just now *pretty sure I missed some punctuation in there. Tried it on the fly. lol
I was waiting out front of a speakeasy in Manhatten, trying to make sense of a sentence or two, scribbled between headlines on a tabloid handed me, one sultry afternoon insisting to take up more time than it should've. Now this invitation, of sorts, used bent words to evoke scandalous images. Redolence was one of them, fashionable as of late describing a woman's scent. Its addition to this note, while hers lingered on it, was a nice addendum to the slow, blonde sway of hips in a snug skirt flaunting off that proved all right for also noticing five and a half feet, two hundred-forty pounds of federal agent had been contrariwise coming at me.
@@QuotidianWriter www.webfx.com/tools/read-able/smog-index.htmlwww.webfx.com/tools/read-able/smog-index.htmlwww.webfx.com/tools/read-able/smog-index.html I'm sure this doesn't speak to everyone. When my brother and I were growing past the bopper years we were surprised that our friends couldn't understand what we were talking about because we both liked our dictionary. If you're going to publish, follow the publisher's rules for the best results. But I do agree with you that expanding our vocabulary is a good thing. Be a good judge when communicating with others.
While we're on the subject of vocabulary building... It's worth note that words often come in "families" like your examples with ante- and bellum relating to belligerent, antecedent, etc... This can help organize thoughts and keep track of what we've learned by associations, too... Picked it up with Latin... in the outright expositional sense. What are your thoughts on "coining" words??? Okay, I already expect something of a warning not to overdo it. I get that. If one goes off the figurative rails with word inventions, it too easily deteriorates an otherwise interesting read into Seussian gibberish. I just wonder, here, how one would best justify coining something "out of thin air" to serve as a word with more contextual meaning in the story or line, than any tangible usage prescribed as from a Dictionary or Thesaurus. ;o)
I LOVE it when authors coin new words! I think the trick is to use word elements that sound familiar so the word's meaning can be guessed based on context alone. Take Terry Pratchett's "octarine," for example, defined as the eighth color in the visible spectrum. It's the color of magic and only visible to wizards and cats, said to be a "fluorescent greenish yellow-purple." As a reader, "octarine" reminds me of "octo" (obviously meaning "eight") and "aquamarine," so it plausibly sounds like an unknown color. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows also does a wonderful job of creating new words, such as "sonder": "the realization that each random passer-by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own." I'm not sure how the creator decided upon the spelling, but it sounds like "wonder" or "yonder," simple and pleasing to the ear while evoking its larger-than-life meaning. So, perhaps it's about not overdoing it, as you said, but also combining the familiar with the unfamiliar. The reader's preset vocabulary, so to speak, will guide them in understanding the meaning of the word. In Brave New World, there's the slang "pneumatic," which has an ambiguous meaning in the story, yet it literally means "full of air." There are ways to repurpose dictionary words in a new context, to add a secondary meaning that builds on the original meaning. And sometimes words are analogs to familiar terms or feelings, like how the modern slang "yeet" can express a wide variety of meanings.
@@QuotidianWriter I'd hazard there are different lines to "draw in the sand" of judgment as well, regarding "when you're overdoing it". A more world-building read might engage in dragging some obscure terms out of yester-centuries's thesauri instead of exactly coining all new terms, or just to cut down on the practice, so one can actively engage in googling or skimming a real dictionary once in a while, if confused... but there can still be that escape into the wonder and mystery of a world entirely NOT our own. On something a bit more technical, a far futuristic sci-fi of pure technology, for example, one could coin words almost endlessly, so long as they were rooted in something reasonably familiar to the audience, like "Xaser" meaning "X-ray Laser", and building to "Graser" or "Gamma Ray Laser"... like that. That could be near endlessly excusable, as the reader wouldn't be TOO stumbled keeping up. OF course, there is the remainder of English we need to be careful enough to keep consistent. As I posited originally, it's worth recognizing that it's easy to stray into "Dr. Suessian" antics if we're not careful... AND as much as I love word-play in general, there's no automagical license for utter silliness outside of children's books. ;o)
Trying to describe sound of a cicada... I came up with, "the stridulated metallic song of a cicada". The root is stridulate, which the computer recognizes as correct. But not stridulated... annoying eh.
I remember reading, or trying to read, a serialised story. The worldbuilding set it in a pre-industrial world and used a lot of old words (18th and 19th century) for things we tend to have forgotten. Many were archaic. On average, I had to look up a word in dictionaries once per page. And those words were often so obscure that about half were unknown in the inbuilt dictionary. Took me right out of the story. I have a good vocabulary, but this was too distracting.
Having smelled my nephews putrid diaper, my stomach roiled at the prospect of changing him by myself. Faced with the quandary of waiting for my sister to return, or to arm myself with wipes and a fresh nappy, I too felt like crying.
English isn't my native language, and I am afraid I will never be able to improve it to a good enough level.😭😭😭 I'm so bad at it that I cannot even get the meaning, even when it is explained. It takes me a lot of time to accept and get used to a new word.
It's hard for English speakers to remember new words and use them correctly, too! I still have to look up certain words all the time because I keep using them wrong. I'm learning Japanese right now, and it's difficult to know the right context. I always worry about using the wrong word choice and sounding stupid. 😅 So don't be too hard on yourself, and keep trying! I recommend reading more middle-grade and young adult novels in English to build up your confidence. Sometimes it can help to watch a movie adaptation of a book first and then read the text. That way, you're already familiar with the story, and you can focus on vocabulary. Keep writing! 😊
Clip is a passive container that loads a gun, usually rifles, and magazines are active. But, yes, then use of these terms interchangeably is wrong. It drives me nuts, revealing the inexperience of the writer and reduces my suspension of disbelief. It may not be a mistake that will kill a novel for me, but it sure gives me serious pause when considering the next author's next work.
I think a magazine is a complete container. A clip is like a partial or open container. The Garand M1 uses a clip, not just to load - it stays in the rifle.
I recently heard of the word woke but it isn't used like, the spotted gray hound dog woke up under the warm summer sun. But with a much different meaning , It seems over used.
Pertinent means not relevant to or not important to or something that has no meaning to. Example “Trumps refusal to peacefully concede is not pertinent to bidens presidency”
'Komorebi' is a Japanese word that doesn't have an English equivalent. It's a descriptive word for the occurrence where sun rays shine through tree leaves and create this sort of glorious curtain over the forest. (I think I first saw it mentioned in an anime, then read it in the book Ikigai). I also learned the word 'maktub' from The Alchemist and asked a Moroccan friend to explain it. She said it translates to: "It is written" and means that our choices are already set in stone for us. It is then up to us to make the decision whenever they arise. I love how language-specific words can tell so much about what a culture finds important.
The most beautiful word I ever encountered is the turkish word "yakamoz", which describes the reflection of the moon in the water. It's absolutely astonishing for me that a culture actually invented a word for that.
I love the exercise you proposed near the end of this video, taking three words and working them into a paragraph. I used to do that as a daily writing exercise using random words. It's also how my first novel ballooned from a 500 word flash fiction story into a 70K novel :)
Very relevant (hence why I searched it). My writing includes a lot of ridiculously overcomplicated words. My fiance said that, although the story is interesting, the pace was shattered by her seeing so many words she did not understand. This will be one of my main focuses when writing the 2nd draft.
My wife used this Vocab Series in homeschooling our kids. "English From the Roots Up." Latin and Greek root words are used to build many English words. Learn the roots, prefixes and suffixes, and you have the pieces necessary to learn dozens of other words you have not studied.
I learned ‘Facsimile’ today. A facsimile is an exact copy of something. The word is also used to refer to a system of transmitting and reproducing graphic matter, such as printed text or photos. // The forged painting was an impressive facsimile of the original. Example “Walls are now decorated with posters and murals of facsimiles of old newspapers that tell the tales of the team's big moments.” - Carlos Monarrez, The Detroit Free Press, 29 July 2022 ***
Hi there, viewers! You can read an adapted text version of this video on Medium. medium.com/@quotidianwriter/10-strategies-for-building-your-writing-vocabulary-54232a6f075f
When i'm writing my first draft, i use shorter, and simple words. And when i'm rewriting, that's when i search, and use some vocalbulary words.
Whenever I write I try to check the dictionary to see if there's a better word for what I want to write. Most of the times, there is. But that's so time consuming that it takes me too much time to complete a paragraph. I've downloaded apps to help me. Sometimes while writing I suddenly think of an imaginary word and then go through the dictionary to check if such a word does exist. 60 percent of the words do exist which muddles me. The rest of the 40 percent is closer to another word that means something completely different.😂
Thanks for your help though.
use the thesaurus in MS word. you right click the word and it will give you a bunch of common suggestions and I find that is a great way to see if there is a better word. It doesn't give weird and strange alternatives, just the common ones which will still resonate with readers.
an online thesaurus is great for when you do want a weird and wonderful word
SCRIPTURIENT
adj. Having a desire or passion for writing; having a liking or itch for authorship.
n. One who has a passion for writing.
Good topic. I’m Dutch, but I just like writing in English so much more. Improving my vocab is probably a pretty good idea
Mee eens
Ja toch
i’m german and i think the language makes basic sentences and words sound very uncomfortable
Anathema - something loathed. I learned it from a book titled "The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart: 1,200 Essential Words Every Sophisticated Person Should Be Able to Use" by Robert W. Bly.
It's a church word
I learned this word from The Putnam County Spelling Bee musical. They have a lot of big words in the lyrics because, well, it’s a spelling bee! haha
anathematize - curse
@@rodschmidt8952 It is still plenty used in secular life for its mundane meaning.
I just downloaded it... Thank you!
Another brilliantly presented roadmap towards that "someday on a shelf " dream of all readers and potential authors. The voice over winds like a silk ribbon, colouring all as it spins and weaves and imparts gems and avoids painful literary surgery later.
Diane Callahan - Your videos are beautifully written and edited. Viewing one of them is like watching an entertaining film while receiving a genuine benefit from doing so.
Thank you so much for your kind words! I always appreciate your comments, cjpreach. :)
Is this free? This is free, right? I haven’t stumbled into UA-cam Red by mistake? Because this channel is amazingly valuable; worth at least two semesters worth of a Creative Writing course, probably even more.
Yep, this channel has helped my writing improve more in two videos than all three college writing courses did. Where were those schools hiring from 😅
I encountered the word 'equine' a few days ago while reading Ulysses, and I love the way it sounds, as well as the cleft between its elegant phonetic properties, and the somewhat base and, to me, unexpected and random-seeming meaning it actually conveys (that of relating to horses). I think a character's face is described as "equine in length" which is such a fresh way of making the antiquated "why the long face" joke.
Hi there, I am study at university and my work assignments have become dauntingly long. I just want to say I am really happy I found your channel because I seriously enjoy writing but I fear my own capabilities. Thank you for creating this channel, very much appreciated.
Thank you so much for your kind words and best of luck with your assignments! You can do it! :)
Whenever I go to write I create a a list of words that I recently learned and try to put them into my story.
Specificity is a beautiful thing. I love finding cool new words and then using them in my story. I honestly don’t read enough but I love my dictionary app, it gives fun new words every day.
Thanks for shedding light on "quotidian". I never thought of looking it up since it seemed like fantasy novel jargon.
I am so thankful UA-cam recommended your video yo me
Thank you Diane. This has been of much help to me. God bless you
Thank you because you have just taken the vocabulary work I do for fun to the next level. I am an uneducated beginner and trying to learn as much as I can before I attempt formal education. Sub'd!
I'm gonna use sconce candle holder in my story.
Love the examples at 14:54. As a non native speaker, a more practical use is my go to, but being enrich with new words so often, is a delight.
Haven't heard this beautiful voice in ages.
This is wonderful advice. Thank you
Carapace. 'Tent' in Spanish is 'una carpa'.
First, I though it is the plot detail-vocabulary as line-vocabulary in drawing.
I love learning new words. I even found an excuse to use them in writing or speech. I believe that the more vocabulary you learn, the better the expression of idea is. I was influenced by poetry and having a larger range of words is important. You make you better at crafting! It is important to be bi-langage to understand the ethymology.
Thank you so much, I love the idea of a Vocab Journal
New word, *caparison* - an ornamental covering for a horse or for its saddle or harness; trappings.
From "In the Midst of Life," _The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce_
With its surprise twist, "In the Midst of Life" is a brilliant short story.
I highly recommend reading _The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce_ to anyone who, like him, tends to cast a jaded eye upon the human race.
Watching this before bed! My favorite kind of videos. 🥰
I'm glad I found this channel.
I totally agree with even expertise writers repeatedly using same words....... For example in Haruki Murakami's work the word ominous is quite prominent 👍😁
Hey! This was really an amazing video. I also used to do it in the same way, writing it down on post-it notes; however, in that way, I usually never go back to writing all the words and their definitions and then in the end it demotivated me from reading. This cycle became too much for me. This way of Vocubalary Journal is soooo smart! Thank you so much.
Decorous (adj) - in keeping with good taste and propriety. I heard it in the movie "The Imitation Game." I think it's where our word decorum comes from.
I love your videos !!!!!
It may not be the intention of this video but I found that your method for creating a vocabulary journal would also help people trying to learn a 2nd language.
I'm currently studying Japanese and I'm at a level where reading is enjoyable but a challenge. I often need to look up words that are relevant to story but I may not use outside of its text. In addition, there are other words that are new or interesting and I feel I *should* know them. With so many new words I often wonder, 'what am I going to do with all this?"
I decided that since I wanted to enjoy the book and move on I would only look up what words I needed to know. But I also make a point to record vocabulary or phrasing that I find may be useful in the future.
After watching this video I realized that one of the pleasures I derive from studying Japanese comes from the vocabulary that consist of Chinese characters called kanji that make up many of the words. These logograms, in essence, are similar to Greek and Latin roots of the English language (a class I throughly enjoyed in college btw) and is not only fascinating but very informative when coming across unfamiliar words. I love the idea of taking a deep dive into a few words then taking it a step further by getting an example from the news and then creating one's own sentence. I will definitely use these tips for my own study!
Such wonderful and thoughtful suggestions. Thank you very much!
日本語も勉強しています! I love the pictorial nature of kanji, too, as it makes them so much easier to remember. The other day, I came across the word for "letter" (as in a letter sent in the mail), 手紙, and was delighted to find that it was a combination of "hand" and "paper." I also got a good laugh out of this "new kanji" parody video by Dogen: ua-cam.com/video/S3Fx2FEhhf8/v-deo.html
I really appreciated this video lesson and the process in which you utilize your tools to absorb words! I use to work on memorizing the dictionary, and a lot of those words just evade my need of them lol. I am going to try some of these techniques! Thank you!
Great video. I have multiple pages of scribbled words I've been jotting down as I read. I'm going to have to Google them all eventually, but that detracts from my reading so I've been avoiding it :)
Love your videos! Thanks for sharing! :)
I really appreciate your videos!
I never meant to roil him as it was meant to be funny. But when he suddenly turned putrid, smashing all that he touches, I got stuck in a quandary.
A sentence would have to do.
Hi! I fell in love with your videos ever since i watched the
First POV part, and it helped me a lot.
I read and write as a hobby but I don't think that I'll ever get tired of it.
I love books too much.
My imagination was excited to learn that "rapacious" (meaning "like a raptor, swooping down to kill its prey"), when translated from Greek to English, is "swindle." Now THERE's a word picture! I will forever think of a Swindler (a deceptive cheater) as a bird of prey seeking, attacking, destroying and consuming an innocent victim.
An Owl tho.
Now I'm thinking of a bird running a scam, a three-shell game or a gold-brick scheme
Thank you. This helped a lot
As a child I used to be the best at vocabulary, I always aced my quizzes :P so in my writing, I flex my big words. Might need to tone that down a bit lol.
New word I.learned? Aglet, learned it a few seconds ago. Thank you from a new subscriber.
« Maladroitly » didn’t know that was a fancy English world. In French it’s so common to use it « maladroit » which means the same thing !
This reminded me of when I caught JK Rowling using the word "gusto" twice in the HP series and I was like 😏😏😏
I love your videos! This one is especially great, I just have to remember to listen to this one over watch, my arachnophobia was kicking my ass in this one
My favorite word, *raison d'etre* , a French word meaning “Reason for being” or “Reason for living”. It’s your purpose in life. What a beautiful divine word
That is absolutely beautiful!
Damn, this was so so helpful
I also keep a list of words I want to use in writing. Legerdemain is a good one. Struthius is my favorite!
QueenCloveroftheice “penultimate”
Actually im spanish and when i saw that word, first thing I thought of was "cotidiano" haha
same, as a portuguese speaker. "Quotidian" is such a... quotidian word in our languages haha.
Zerkalo Didn't see that coming
It's weird that often for speakers of some other langauges there are many "advanced" or uncommon words that are much easier to learn than the more basic ones.
'Appurtenance' is one of the new words that I have recently come across.
I too used etiolated, not in the context of creative writing but in gardening! Someone else pointed out I should use leggy!
CREPUSCULAR
adj. Resembling twilight; dim; indistinct.
I'm so in love with your contents.
i love 3rd person perspective. but something I'd add to the disadvantages is that sometime, you switch to a pov of a less interesting character. and so you're stuck with him and his story line when you want the one of the anchor character, which can be frustrating
13:15
His wife had thought him crazy when he first applied for his open carry license. Even he sometimes wondered if his posh British debonair was being overly Americanized. Yet he couldn't help but palm the leather holster at his hip, which contained the heavy bulk of his brand new Raging Judge Magnum, loaded with .410 triple aught buck. It did seem rather overbearing, at least until he turned a corner and was confronted by a roiling putrid quandary shambling towards him.
"By jove," he blurted in stunned amazement, as he fumbled at his firearm, "the Texans have been right all along!"
Merriam-Webster also has these nice word quizzes that make certain words 'sticky.' It's Halloween right now and they have a similar themed quiz. New words to remember! Snallygaster, anyone?
Great insights!
Awesome channel. ..interesting content...thank u n have a great day.
What an insight! Most of the time I actually trying to sound smart in my writing and I didn't even realized it 😂! Yeap, the right word for the right moment.
p.s. : You spoke pretty fast. Sometimes it was too fast for me😅. I'm not a native English speaker, so it'd be great if you were to slow it down just a bit, 'cause your contents are on my waiting list 😄. Cheers.
You can slow down the video
Some of the things that you said cannot be stressed enough.
"Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie," Latin for "Give us this day our daily bread."
That is what I first thought of as well when she mentioned it.
When I was growing up I used to read books which were far beyond the prescribed reading level for my age. I will forever be grateful to the late Anne Clarke, Homai's Braille Librarian, for never telling me I couldn't borrow a book because it was "too difficult". I would regularly consult the dictionary whenever I encountered an unfamiliar word. BTW, please try to refrain from assuming everyone knows the acronyms you're using. You used two to describe levels of vocabulary, and I think I might know one of them. You do have an international audience after all.
She sounds like she was a wonderful librarian! To be honest, I wasn't sure what acronyms you were referring to, so I had to reread my script. I think you mean the SAT and GRE, which are just standardized tests here in the United States for undergraduate school and graduate school, respectively. Most Americans don't even know what those acronyms stand for, and I had to look them up to check because I had no idea, haha! I will specify their purpose if I use them in the future, though. Thanks for watching! :)
13:28 modern people who don’t know what an aglet is had no childhood
Can I get the names of some books you have written? Because the way you speak is beautiful and your way of thinking is mesmerizing too. Don't wanna sound like a creep, but I would love to read the book such a beautiful person has written.
Trying to clarify "promontory" and I saw that it also has an anatomical definition (Google) "a prominence or protuberance on an organ or other structure in the body." So that would be something like a horn? Or Spikes?
You are Amazing, I liké so much your vidéos❤️😘😘
Amaranthine:
1. Unfading; everlasting.
2. Of purplish-red color
"I tell you it was a royal quandary to determine what that putrid substance once was."
- a disgusted British Aristocrat, just now
*pretty sure I missed some punctuation in there. Tried it on the fly. lol
As a person whose native language isn’t English, I pride myself on being mistaken for being British in writing thanks to my vocabulary
Same but for me it's mostly because I absorbed some british lingo which I adore.
The entire bathroom wall should be tiled with dictionary pages.
I was waiting out front of a speakeasy in Manhatten, trying to make sense of a sentence or two, scribbled between headlines on a tabloid handed me, one sultry afternoon insisting to take up more time than it should've. Now this invitation, of sorts, used bent words to evoke scandalous images. Redolence was one of them, fashionable as of late describing a woman's scent. Its addition to this note, while hers lingered on it, was a nice addendum to the slow, blonde sway of hips in a snug skirt flaunting off that proved all right for also noticing five and a half feet, two hundred-forty pounds of federal agent had been contrariwise coming at me.
I love to expand my vocabulary, but many editors tell me to write on an eighth-grade level. I don't like that advice, but that's what sells.
Tell that to Gregory Maguire, haha!
@@QuotidianWriter www.webfx.com/tools/read-able/smog-index.htmlwww.webfx.com/tools/read-able/smog-index.htmlwww.webfx.com/tools/read-able/smog-index.html
I'm sure this doesn't speak to everyone. When my brother and I were growing past the bopper years we were surprised that our friends couldn't understand what we were talking about because we both liked our dictionary. If you're going to publish, follow the publisher's rules for the best results. But I do agree with you that expanding our vocabulary is a good thing. Be a good judge when communicating with others.
Context clues and special terms ❤️💓
While we're on the subject of vocabulary building... It's worth note that words often come in "families" like your examples with ante- and bellum relating to belligerent, antecedent, etc...
This can help organize thoughts and keep track of what we've learned by associations, too... Picked it up with Latin... in the outright expositional sense.
What are your thoughts on "coining" words???
Okay, I already expect something of a warning not to overdo it. I get that. If one goes off the figurative rails with word inventions, it too easily deteriorates an otherwise interesting read into Seussian gibberish.
I just wonder, here, how one would best justify coining something "out of thin air" to serve as a word with more contextual meaning in the story or line, than any tangible usage prescribed as from a Dictionary or Thesaurus. ;o)
I LOVE it when authors coin new words! I think the trick is to use word elements that sound familiar so the word's meaning can be guessed based on context alone. Take Terry Pratchett's "octarine," for example, defined as the eighth color in the visible spectrum. It's the color of magic and only visible to wizards and cats, said to be a "fluorescent greenish yellow-purple." As a reader, "octarine" reminds me of "octo" (obviously meaning "eight") and "aquamarine," so it plausibly sounds like an unknown color.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows also does a wonderful job of creating new words, such as "sonder": "the realization that each random passer-by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own." I'm not sure how the creator decided upon the spelling, but it sounds like "wonder" or "yonder," simple and pleasing to the ear while evoking its larger-than-life meaning.
So, perhaps it's about not overdoing it, as you said, but also combining the familiar with the unfamiliar. The reader's preset vocabulary, so to speak, will guide them in understanding the meaning of the word. In Brave New World, there's the slang "pneumatic," which has an ambiguous meaning in the story, yet it literally means "full of air." There are ways to repurpose dictionary words in a new context, to add a secondary meaning that builds on the original meaning. And sometimes words are analogs to familiar terms or feelings, like how the modern slang "yeet" can express a wide variety of meanings.
@@QuotidianWriter I'd hazard there are different lines to "draw in the sand" of judgment as well, regarding "when you're overdoing it". A more world-building read might engage in dragging some obscure terms out of yester-centuries's thesauri instead of exactly coining all new terms, or just to cut down on the practice, so one can actively engage in googling or skimming a real dictionary once in a while, if confused... but there can still be that escape into the wonder and mystery of a world entirely NOT our own.
On something a bit more technical, a far futuristic sci-fi of pure technology, for example, one could coin words almost endlessly, so long as they were rooted in something reasonably familiar to the audience, like "Xaser" meaning "X-ray Laser", and building to "Graser" or "Gamma Ray Laser"... like that. That could be near endlessly excusable, as the reader wouldn't be TOO stumbled keeping up.
OF course, there is the remainder of English we need to be careful enough to keep consistent. As I posited originally, it's worth recognizing that it's easy to stray into "Dr. Suessian" antics if we're not careful... AND as much as I love word-play in general, there's no automagical license for utter silliness outside of children's books. ;o)
Trying to describe sound of a cicada... I came up with, "the stridulated metallic song of a cicada". The root is stridulate, which the computer recognizes as correct. But not stridulated... annoying eh.
Can you please give me the name of the font at 9:12?
Tariq Gharra *Try HEVETICA for clarity, my advice*
The font is Adobe Garamond Pro, which I believe is close to the font used in the Harry Potter books.
What book is that at 6:40 ?
No idea! Stock footage. ;)
I learnt aglet from Phineas & Ferb
A new word I learnt recently is exsumed ( I think I spelt that wrong)
So sad, the word Exsumed isn't in Meriam Dictionary..
Exhumed
I remember reading, or trying to read, a serialised story. The worldbuilding set it in a pre-industrial world and used a lot of old words (18th and 19th century) for things we tend to have forgotten. Many were archaic. On average, I had to look up a word in dictionaries once per page. And those words were often so obscure that about half were unknown in the inbuilt dictionary. Took me right out of the story. I have a good vocabulary, but this was too distracting.
Came across DESICCATED in Water For Elephants. Means dried up.
Having smelled my nephews putrid diaper, my stomach roiled at the prospect of changing him by myself. Faced with the quandary of waiting for my sister to return, or to arm myself with wipes and a fresh nappy, I too felt like crying.
English isn't my native language, and I am afraid I will never be able to improve it to a good enough level.😭😭😭
I'm so bad at it that I cannot even get the meaning, even when it is explained. It takes me a lot of time to accept and get used to a new word.
It's hard for English speakers to remember new words and use them correctly, too! I still have to look up certain words all the time because I keep using them wrong. I'm learning Japanese right now, and it's difficult to know the right context. I always worry about using the wrong word choice and sounding stupid. 😅 So don't be too hard on yourself, and keep trying! I recommend reading more middle-grade and young adult novels in English to build up your confidence. Sometimes it can help to watch a movie adaptation of a book first and then read the text. That way, you're already familiar with the story, and you can focus on vocabulary. Keep writing! 😊
@@QuotidianWriter 😯Ah, thank you!🙏😁
I will surely follow your advice!
Brander Sanderson overuses maladroitly
He found himself in a quandary over the putrid smell of hex which made the dead roil like a mannequin.
My take on the words.
😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘
Thanks for that big fish idea
Clip is a passive container that loads a gun, usually rifles, and magazines are active. But, yes, then use of these terms interchangeably is wrong. It drives me nuts, revealing the inexperience of the writer and reduces my suspension of disbelief. It may not be a mistake that will kill a novel for me, but it sure gives me serious pause when considering the next author's next work.
I think a magazine is a complete container. A clip is like a partial or open container. The Garand M1 uses a clip, not just to load - it stays in the rifle.
I recently heard of the word woke but it isn't used like, the spotted gray hound dog woke up under the warm summer sun. But with a much different meaning , It seems over used.
Cotidiano is such a quotidian word in Spanish but not in English.
Vocab seems harder than it looks.
I don't need no bocabolery.
This is too much work. Just read different books, research and news . Thats all.
A word I didn't know was Nirvana. I learned it from Michelle Obama's memoir
It's more of Buddhist Hindu philosophy word.
Pertinent means not relevant to or not important to or something that has no meaning to. Example
“Trumps refusal to peacefully concede is not pertinent to bidens presidency”
This is difficult for someone who are not that fluent in english so the words are limited.
Take it one word at a time, and you'll be much improved even just a year from now! :)
'Komorebi' is a Japanese word that doesn't have an English equivalent. It's a descriptive word for the occurrence where sun rays shine through tree leaves and create this sort of glorious curtain over the forest. (I think I first saw it mentioned in an anime, then read it in the book Ikigai).
I also learned the word 'maktub' from The Alchemist and asked a Moroccan friend to explain it. She said it translates to: "It is written" and means that our choices are already set in stone for us. It is then up to us to make the decision whenever they arise.
I love how language-specific words can tell so much about what a culture finds important.
Those are wonderful examples!
maktub is arabic for "it is written down" and mektab is morrocan way for saying " it's destiny/fate"
In portuguese we have the word "Saudade", that means "I miss you". A whole feeling described in one word. You guys should invent a equivalent.
The most beautiful word I ever encountered is the turkish word "yakamoz", which describes the reflection of the moon in the water. It's absolutely astonishing for me that a culture actually invented a word for that.
Like there are German words to describe several feelings that we don’t even have words for
I love the exercise you proposed near the end of this video, taking three words and working them into a paragraph. I used to do that as a daily writing exercise using random words. It's also how my first novel ballooned from a 500 word flash fiction story into a 70K novel :)
😌 This is oddly relaxing to listen to while I learn. Thank you for this diamond of knowledge.
Verisimilitude:
noun - The quality of seeming true or of having the appearance of being real.
Very relevant (hence why I searched it). My writing includes a lot of ridiculously overcomplicated words. My fiance said that, although the story is interesting, the pace was shattered by her seeing so many words she did not understand.
This will be one of my main focuses when writing the 2nd draft.
My wife used this Vocab Series in homeschooling our kids. "English From the Roots Up." Latin and Greek root words are used to build many English words. Learn the roots, prefixes and suffixes, and you have the pieces necessary to learn dozens of other words you have not studied.
I learned ‘Facsimile’ today.
A facsimile is an exact copy of something. The word is also used to refer to a system of transmitting and reproducing graphic matter, such as printed text or photos.
// The forged painting was an impressive facsimile of the original.
Example
“Walls are now decorated with posters and murals of facsimiles of old newspapers that tell the tales of the team's big moments.” - Carlos Monarrez, The Detroit Free Press, 29 July 2022
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