It was in shorthand that grammar was drilled into me. Sadly though, after all that, I’ve learned that even with the grammar drillings I’ve had, there is a big difference between AP, Chicago and Gregg. Gregg is the grammar I learned in high school, but I’ve had to learn the other two as well and at times it gets awfully confusing keeping them straight!

I’ve recently considered getting some a hold of some of those little orange vocabulary books that were part of English class in Junior High and High School (not sure if they make more advanced editions). Although, I despised that work in school it really did have a huge impact on my vocabulary and there are many words that I would not be familiar with today without it. Even a refresher of some books that I have done would be helpful.

Words are great. There was a game we had when I was a teen, Balderdash. (Kind of like a board game version of the kid’s game “Dictionary” where you read a word and people have to guess what the definition is. I learned one of my favorite words through that game. “Parbreak.”

In my mind’s eye, enjoying the freedom of word usage in print is like rolling around on a bed covered with thousand dollar bills.

I think that was why I started my own blogs – because I didn’t care so much about SEO for them, but I did want to write the way I learned – with a (mental or printed) thesaurus handy.

As Mark Twain put it, “The difference between the right word and *almost* the right word is the difference between ‘lightning’ and ‘lightning bug.’”

This is often not quite as robust as an online or hard copy Thesaurus, but I find it usually does the trick.

I play a game with my thesaurus regularly. I know I have some overused ‘pet’ words.

I take a piece of writing that needs jazzing up and decide to find five alternate words by choosing some of my pet words and looking up alternatives in my thesaurus.

The only problem is that it’s like deciding to check a blog you love. Checking that blog leads to clicking a link somewhere else and then somewhere else. When I open my thesaurus, I often get caught up and lose track of time.

Great post, Jodee.

Dana

That’s where I learned that “just desserts” is not right. It is “just deserts” (deserts being a derivative of deserves) and that everyone who uses the phrase “just desserts” is wrong. I’m completely addicted to that book and have easily read it from cover to cover a dozen times since buying it.

There are a couple of things I do while playing with words. At my weekly Toastmasters meeting we have a Word of the Day. Everyone who speaks attempts to work that word into what they are speaking about. Sometimes people choose common, everyday words, but often the word chosen is new or relatively unknown to most of us.

I also read poetry. I find that poets often use words that I am unfamiliar with or use them in new and interesting ways.