Lexis: Building language

"There lies a great difference between an almost right word & the right word – just as between a lightning bug & a lightning", quipped the noted American author, Samuel Clemens known popularly as Mark Twain. Twain reminded us that to master vocabulary is beyond the possession of an ever-expanding mental lexicon. It is the ability to use words precisely in its purposeful context.

Effective employment of vocabulary, with logical adequacy in propositions, helps us to effectively reason, communicate, & connect with important people in our lives. Wouldn't we want to share our musings & sentiments precisely & comprehensively with our loved ones? In this article, I shall share with you a few insights I've garnered during my quest for paving my way with words.

Progressive Learning

The average Joe’s instinct, as he encounters an unfamiliar word, is to flip through dictionary pages to locate its definition & sentence usage. He reads, repeats and memorizes until having convinced himself into a comfortable association with the word. As though a dictionary lookup will make you an instant expert on the word; like flipping a light switch from off to on.

Vocabulary researchers have proposed a better metaphor for the right way of learning words - the dimmer-switch phenomenon. A smart switch which can intensify the light, with the knob’s turn. We first learn the dictionary definition, & gradually become comfortable with its usage in various contexts; next, we draw figurative parallels, dissect its morphemes, & go on to store the word in our mental schema.

Obtaining deep, rich, immortal, & nuanced vocabulary never comes simply by persistently mugging up dictionary definitions. This ineffective method of ‘one-word-per-instance’, prevalent in most schools leads to a peripheral knowledge & memory lasting no longer than until the quiz due next Friday or until aptitude tests like SATs.

Framework for Vocabulary

In contrast to the traditional way of definitional vocabulary learning, 5 core principles that I learnt from experience & long hours of research & that I am currently employing in my self-learning, has provided me with the reliable framework for building a better vocabulary. On its face value, the principles read learning definition; knowing the words in its context, drawing personal connections by considering ‘new’ words as labels for ‘known’ concepts of life; understanding the word’s etymology & morphology; & finally semantic groupings in the mental schema.

As I delve deeper into improving my vocabulary, with this 5 principled approach, I am in limerence with English as the language & am ever appreciative of its beauty. It has the ability to absorb from other languages & to evolve to make speech succinct & reflective of reality. A handful from the interesting words I encountered were 'factotum', 'procrustean', 'gadfly', 'Hornswoggle', 'mountebank', 'ersatz', and 'canoodle'. Moreover, I learned to refract shades of meanings of synonymous words, often thought to allow swapping usage, for example, between 'specious' & 'spurious'.

Additionally, I learned to understand words in their context & in connection with my own happenings in life. Narrative etymologies of words fascinated me, maintaining my persistent interest in learning new words. And, I have also learned to implement, an efficient database model in my mind, to allow storage of & access to words so that it is transferred flawlessly & instantly from the mind to the paper.

Dictionary

In the first principle, I learnt the first step to mastering any word is to learn its' definitions from a credible source, for example, from the so-considered authoritative dictionary of English – the Oxford English Dictionary. Though, I like the Merriam Webster's publications better. The point is not to miss any subtle & granular connotations that make up the complete meaning. Reading here means digging through that new word.

If you research (try Google's Ngram viewer) on the occurrence of any English word in print, you discover that its first usage marks (most of the time) circa 1600. Time to hurry before it's too late to catch-up! To quote Malcolm Muggeridge's, 'All new news is old news happening to new people'.

Never Read a Lonely Word

Likewise, I learnt the importance of studying words in its context. Just as marine biologists wanting to research sharks, do so not in isolation, but in its natural habitat - the ocean, in the same token, a word must be studied in its natural habitat. Words reside in phrases, sentences, paragraphs, & books. Example usage of words in a sentence will edify you on the scope of its habitat, outside which it could suffocate to death.

Become a voracious reader of quality materials. Not all books slapped 'best seller' are interesting. Some of them are crap. The key is to to be highly selective of what you read. Don't read books just because it is making headlines. Read on something that interests you. And research what classics have been produced. Go through GoodReads.com. Exchange book reviews with your best friends while you encourage them to read more. Seek recommendations from your seniors.

Analogical Mapping

Next, I learnt to draw parallels between new words and known concepts. We have all been stung by the perpetual critique of that gadfly in our workplace or school. We have all given a second thought to buying an ersatz ketchup over the usual one, at times of financial constraints. Dawkins, Harris, Dennet, & Hitchens, sometimes sound like sophists with their specious arguments against God's existence. And so on. One way I connected with the word 'factotum' is through Alfred, Batman's loyal butler. For me, he is the paradigm of a factotum. He serves Batman, foods & articles, gives him sage advice, takes care of the Wayne mansion, remotely assists Batman in the field, & he is also the sole mechanic of the Batmobile & the Batcopter.

The Tales of Etymology

Now, it is time to look up a word's etymology. The word 'procrustean', for example, comes from the Greek word 'procrustes', who was a mythical bandit of Attica, also the nefarious son of Poseidon. He would waylay hapless travellers into fitting them to his iron bed. If they were too tall for the bed, he’d hack their legs off, & if they were too short, he’d literally stretch them. A procrustean bed was the arbitrary standard for a forceful conformation. This apocryphal story is a perfect example of the etymological narrative of a word. It is a powerful tool in vocabulary learning.

Similarly, the root of word factotum is 'fac', from the Latin facio, meaning – ‘to make or to do’. To remember this, we take the word factory where things are made. The second part is the totum, meaning ‘all’. So factotum literally means someone who does it all. This is how we study the morphology of a word.

Semantic Chunks

The final principle is known as semantic chunking. Once, we’ve used all four principles, how do we now organize the words to make sense? How do we store them in our mental lexicon? I recall an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, where he strenuously tries to recall a word. This was visualized as many mini-Spongebob's inside his head running helter-skelter, searching, among heaps of cabinets, for the file containing the word. We don’t want this situation with our vocabulary.

Schema theory, the well-known concept in cognitive science. It states that we store information in our mind in a framework or in a schema in such a way that persistent, logically coherent sets of inherently meaningful data are grouped together. Vocabulary is no exception to this schema. Memorizing consecutive series of words ordered alphabetically in a dictionary is Rather than memorize a consecutive series of words arranged typically in ascending order of alphabets (with no logical links between them) in a dictionary, we learn words from a common domain. For example, tussle, spat, donnybrook, melee, hullaballoo, kerfuffle all share common meaning – a type of disagreement. We learn them together in one instance. However, we must also be careful of the nuances of meanings in each of the seemingly equivalent.

2 Cents and a Dime

In a nutshell, I have shared with you my approach to vocabulary learning so that you will be aided in your own. Long time back, I remember reading Miss Perry's notes. She was one of my friend's high school teacher whose exclusive notes on General Paper of A-Level, I had the privilege of glancing. She has some helpful drills suggested for her students to follow, which I've included below.

Use Merriam Webster's app & subscribe to its word of the day. Read periodicals like the Time, the NYT, & the WSJ. Watch, listen, analyze, & review quality TV series and podcasts. Communicate in English with your friends. Peruse a lot of good books.

Excellent books for further perusal:

• Lewis, N., 2008. Word Power Made Easy. Delhi: GOYAL SaaB.
• Strunk, W. and White, E., 2000. The Elements Of Style. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Sword, H., 2012. Stylish Academic Writing. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Happy learning.