A student once said to me: “You know every word there is! Did you make flash cards for the entire dictionary?”

She was wrong on both counts. There are plenty of words I don’t know, and the ones I do know I didn’t learn by using flash cards. I learn words by following a simple rule: I look up every word I encounter that I don’t already know. Always. If you follow that rule all the time, you’ll develop an outstanding vocabulary in no time at all. Every word you read in a textbook…or hear on the news…or read in a magazine…or hear in a movie. Look it up! Sure, you can probably figure out roughly what it means by context, but why not just learn the darn word?

I was just reading an article online at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that said, “The Falcons [are] one of the teams that appeals to a fan base deracinated by definition.” I’d never seen the word deracinated before in my life! A quick trip to dictionary.com, and now I know what it means (pulled up by the roots, eradicated). Now I know — and so do you!

By the way, I’m amused to note that my blog software is saying that deracinated is misspelled. It isn’t, it’s just the software doesn’t know that word either!