Words and people have a lot in common. Like people, words are born, grow up, get married, have children and even die. And, like people, words come in families — big and beautiful families. A word family is a cluster of words that are related because they contain the same root. A root is […]
When you were a child learning to speak, you seized each word as if it were a shiny toy. This is how you learned your language, and this is how you can expand your current word stock. The best way to learn new words is through reading. Read for pleasure. Read for information. Read […]
I’m kicking off 2022 with a three-part series on enriching your vocabulary and, as a result, your ability to communicate. In the process of enhancing your word wealth, you will expand your thoughts and your feelings, your speaking and your reading and your writing — everything that makes up you. During the early years […]
Two weeks ago, I challenged my U-T readers to wing me limericks with a Christmas theme. To avoid being blown away by a tsunami of entries from around the globe, I did not post the contest on my website. How could there be anything betterer For an avid word-junkie competitor? No crossword or Jumble […]
DEAR RICHARD: Plucked from a recent headline in the Union-Tribune: “Rare corpse flower is set to bloom again / Despite smelling like rotting flesh, thousands visited during last cycle in 2018.” I wish those visitors had bathed! –Bill Griffiths, Rancho San Diego DEAR RICHARD: I thought you might like to add to your collection […]
Four centuries ago, the roots of Thanksgiving first took hold in our American soil. We living today commemorate the solemn dinner, back in the fall of 1621, shared by the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Mass., and the Wampanoag Indians, the local tribe who generously pulled the fragile Pilgrim colony through their first winter and taught […]
The Irish tell a story about a notorious drunkard and trickster named Jack. He couldn’t enter heaven because he was a miser, and he was unable to enter Hell because he had played practical jokes on the Devil. The Devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the darkness. Jack placed […]
Today is National Dictionary Day, traditionally celebrated on the birthday of Noah Webster (1758-1843), who, in 1806, gifted our young nation with his Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, the first great American dictionary. The occasion inspires me to share this letter, along with my response: DEAR RICHARD: Reading the Preface in Eley Williams’ […]
When I was a callow youth, my neighborhood buddies and I used to sing a learned lyric that played around with levels of diction: Perambulate, perambulate, perambulate your craft Placidly down the liquid solution. Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically: Existence is but a delusion. Translated into clear and simple English, our polysyllabic poem turned out […]
DEAR RICHARD: I grew up on a steady diet of proverbs. They aren’t heard as often nowadays, but they bring back memories of simpler times. -Bill Collins, Tierrasanta A proverb is a concisely presented saying rooted in philosophical or religious truth. Just about everybody knows some proverbs, and we often base decisions on these instructive […]