I was raised in a home where there were three consistent magazine subscriptions that slid through our Southeast Queens mail slot:  The Watchtower and Awake magazines wrapped in brown cellophane paper, and the eye popping National Geographic Supernova Yellow magazine that is so renowned that the magazine’s color is added to the spectrum.   Sprinkled in the mix over the years according to my age was Cricket, Highlights, and Ranger Rick. 

One day after school, 6th grade, junior high, I remember trying to describe a new schoolmate and possible friend to my dad.  My dad asked me to tell him about this new schoolmate.  “He’s really nice, Dad, really nice” I said in a matter-of-fact manner.   “Nice son?”  my dad replied.  “Ice cream is ‘nice.’  Can you find another word to describe your classmate?”  I looked upwards scanning the universe for a word, struggling…nice, that’s all I got pop. (Italics represent my thoughts looking back from the present), I struggled to find a word, couldn’t, but it did make me think.   

If I read or heard a word in conversation that I didn’t know, I would ask dad or mom for the meaning.  “What does formidable, dichotomous, epitome, ironic mean?”  The answer was constant: “Go look it up!”  My next move would be to go to the bookcase in the living room, bottom shelf, left side, first book.  I would carefully heave the second family bible, a 75 pound, 1 foot thick with speckled pages, Webster’s New Unabridged Dictionary to search for the word, grasp it, and then add it to my arsenal…collection.

Sunday night after a spiritual morning of fellowship with the congregation, early dinner and dishes, Grandma, Mom, Dad, and Sis would gather around the dining room table, and we would play an intensely competitive, polite, quiet game of scrabble.   The next player would spin the board slowly to their position and gently lay down tiles like a savage.  We were Blackjack Vegas croupiers, forehands, and middle hands.  After each personal play we would shake that letter bag to make sure we could pluck out a good hand.  Periodically someone would clear their rack and lay down all 7 tiles with a word like vacuity or chutzpah for a 50 point bonus along with the word total.  Dad was the bookie and the accountant. He would count the tiles and track each person’s score in long columns on small paper.  This was not a place for Flibbertigibbets.  There was no space for the argle-bargle, babble gabble, gibberish or gobbledygook.  Challenges were hurled like yellow cards if someone tried to sneak in an illegal word on the sacred game board.  The Second Bible was always at the ready to ensure no one slipped up with a proper noun, abbreviation, prefixes and suffixes and hyphenated words or an apostrophe, or an even bolder move to invent words and with a poker face arrange your letters into abominations such as: Jeux, Cazh, Chesture, Crestboot, Dord, Dropellet, Pounet, Singlewave.

January 9 is National Word Nerd Day.  Regardless of the obscure origin of the day it is still a time to stretch the mind and exercise the tongue using the power of the approximate 1,000,000 words in the English Language.  Lingual purists will contest that the one million number includes the plethora of chemical names and other scientific entities.   The official word on the street Miriam Webster in the Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries.  Either way a million or a million words is a great goal to conquer when studies show average native speakers of English use 1000-3000 words in everyday speech to communicate. 

Perhaps, you like me, are a logophile (a lover of words), and the worst and best moment is when you come across a feeling, event, or idea that you simply can’t find the word for because it’s indescribable, or you have completely forgotten it, or you experience lethologica, the tip-of-the-tongue phenomena.

Lethologica:  ‘the inability to retrieve a specific word as a response to a visual, auditory, or tactile presentation.’

Perhaps the word has not been created…yet.  This fleeting angst in the moment is such a potentially beautiful workout for the brain until it becomes a nighttime obsession stealing sheep and sleep until you arrange that elusive letter combination into a word.  How can we build up our vocabulary and the vocabulary of our children in lieu of Word Nerd Day?

• Hack 1.  Word of the Day

Each day Merriam Webster supplies a word with an audible pronunciation and how to use the word in a sentence.

Why don’t you subscribe to WORD OF THE DAY and use the word in your own sentence immediately and text a friend or family?  By the way, the word for January 9 is Ominous.

Sentence:  There is an ominous weather warning for New York City with the forecast calling for 50mph winds.

• Hack 2.  Buy an epically large dictionary that you can be proud of.  Place it in a visible central location and use it.

• Hack 3.  Read the entire entry for the word you look up in the dictionary.  Please note that words can have more than one meaning, and the meaning you need for the word you are looking up may not be the first one given in your dictionary. The other meanings of the word will help expand the different ways the word can be used.   Focus as well on the etymology of the word that may appear near the beginning of the entry.  This can often provide fascinating insights as to the way the word has evolved to its current meaning.  This backstory will make learning words enjoyable and help you to remember it.

• Hack 4.  Read! Read! Read!  Select a good newspaper, a good magazine, or a good book.  How about all three.

• Hack 5.  Encourage your children to read.  See my past blog regarding reading vocabulary and children.

• Hack 6.  Buy a pocket sized journal and jot down every word when you hear it in conversation that you do not know.  Ask people to repeat words if you didn’t hear it correctly and explain you are trying to build your vocabulary.  Whenever you are reading, watching a movie, or talking to a teacher, get in the habit of writing down any word you don’t know.  Make sure to look it up in the dictionary either right away or when you still have a chance to keep the context of how it was used fresh in your mind.  You can even start a vocabulary journal where you can add these words and their definitions to at the end of the day.

• Hack 7.  Immediately use new words in your writing and speech.  Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.  Use it until you remember it.  Text it to a friend.  Make sure you know how to pronounce the word and feel comfortable using it in everyday speech.  In time the word will become yours and part of your vocabulary.

• Hack 8.  Make a family tradition centering around a word game. *

• Hack 9. Visit Planet Word Museum in Washington DC.

On this day of nerds and words I challenge any and all to use your words and your powers wisely. 

Please share in the comments below, in any language, your favorite word or expression that you like to use because of its sound, meaning, rhythm or the pure emotion it captures.  I will break the ice for you.  (See Comments)

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