improve my vocabulary

Obviously it is an on-going endeavor. However, between all my reading and Merriam-Webster Word of the Day and World Wide Words, I think I will do just fine in the long-term. I am going to consider this done for now.

M-W Word of the Day

barbican : an outer defensive work, especially a tower at a gate or bridge.

This was a new one for me.

Since this is one of those never-ending goals in its present form, I am setting some goals to help me decide when I can consider this done. My goal is to learn 150 new words in 2009. Once I do that, I will consider this done. It should be fairly easy since I do get the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day e-mail, though most of them are not new to me.

I have found that reading a wide variety of books and magazines greatly helps one in improving one’s vocabulary. One very rarely gets a chance to exercise one’s vocabulary. Writing is definitely on the decline and our vocabulary is often left in a state of neglect, gathering cobwebs and rust, ready to fall apart at the first signs of strain.

corrigendum • \kor-uh-JEN-dum\ • noun
: an error in a printed work discovered after printing and shown with its correction on a separate sheet
Example Sentence:
Not only was the document itself full of errors, but the corrigenda included with it had mistakes as well!

di·dac·tic
Pronunciation: die-dak-tik
Function: adjective
Etymology: Greek didaktikos, from didaskein to teach
1 a : designed or intended to teach
b : intended to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment, e.g. didactic poetry
2 : making moral observations
- di·dac·ti·cal (adjective)
- di·dac·ti·cal·ly (adverb)
- di·dac·ti·cism (noun)

1) having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight
2) possessed of universal or complete knowledge

“Common”.

Mundane once meant something found all over the world, from the Latin word “mundus” meaning “world”. Unfortunately, “something found all over the world” can be translated as universal or in its more derided form “common”. That is the meaning that is generally attached to the word today.

1. verb form

Primary usage : intending, or claiming (something implied or inferred); claim
Secondary usage : intend, purpose

2. noun form

Synonym of “gist,” as in “gave the purport of her speech in a few words”

The origin of the word “salary” is from the Latin “salarium” which means “salt payment”. In the early Roman republic, cash was nto easy to come by so soldiers were given a small allowance with which to buy salt, essential to their ability to march and fight.