Appendix H. . .Vocabulary
I have put together a list of about 5500 words. If we don't
count slang expressions and "four-letter words," these are the most
frequently used words in the English language. They are words every
high-school graduate should know and they occur in textbooks written
for college freshmen. I can say that with confidence because I went
through dozens of introductory texts and counted the non-technical
words. These are words you simply have to know in order to succeed
in college.
Most children know several thousand words before they start
going to school. We can call these Level-1 words. They learn several
thousand more words in the elementary grades and we can call these
Level-2 words. About 4000 of these Levels-1-2 words are listed in
the vocabulary. Level-3 words are ones that should have been learned
by the tenth grade. About 900 such words are listed in the vocabulary
and they can be identified because they are printed in lower-case
letters but they have a very brief definition included. More advanced
words at Level-4 are printed in capital letters in the vocabulary.
These are ones college professors assume that you know.
To summarize: Level 1 Preschool
Level 2 Elementary School
Level 3 Middle School
Level 4 High school Graduate
Some students ask why, if they already know several thousand
words, they need to learn still more. A good answer is by analogy of
adding lanes to paved roads. A 1-lane road is certainly much better
than a path, but it doesn't handle two-way traffic very well. Adding
a second lane is therefore a great improvement, but may still pose
problems when cars want to pass. Adding a third lane reduces this
problem somewhat, but it is adding a fourth lane that is necessary to
permit a smooth flow of traffic in both directions.
Vocabulary is like a road that carries information between
people. Level-2 words are like a 2-lane road, and you can get along
pretty well with that for many everyday purposes. But if you want to
deal with heavy traffic of information, if you want to deal with
complex ideas efficiently, you need a super-highway vocabulary. That
means knowing words at levels 3 and 4. Good college professors do
not use "big" words where little ones will do just as well. But we
do use Level-4 words when it would take a long phrase of lower-level
words to try to express the idea.
(Beware of sources that count "words" instead of "ideas" and
make the size of your lexicon seem very large. I have counted words
like know/knew/known/knowing as only one idea. By adding prefixes
(unknown) and suffixes (knowingly), one could make it seem that you
know many thousand more words. To me, it is the number of non_verbal
ideas that best measures the richness of your vocabulary.)
Enlarging your lexicon
A "lexicon" is a dictionary; your lexicon is the set of words
that are meaningful to you. If a word is in your lexicon, you can
recognize it immediately, and dull as the assignment may be, I urge
you to go through the vocabulary list at the back of this workbook
and highlight every word that you do not know. Then, put a check-mark
beside each of those words as you learn them.
The definitions given in the vocabulary list are much too brief
to be used for learning the meaning of the words, but they should be
enough to remind you of the meaning once you know it. I recommend
that you select ten or a dozen words that you do not know and that
seem like ones you would find useful. Put each word on a small slip
of paper, look up the word in a college dictionary, and put some cue
to its meaning on the back of the slip. Then carry these slips with
you to study when you would otherwise be doing nothing mental. Once
you have learned a word, put the slip in a separate pile for later
review and replace it with a new word to be learned.
When you are deliberately learning new words, do NOT simply try
to MEMORIZE their verbal definitions. Recall that the real meaning
of words is non-verbal and a definition is useful only if it is, in
turn, meaningful to you. For example, if I define ethereal as the
feeling one has when regaining consciousness after being knocked out,
you could memorize the words but still not know what ethereal means
if you have never been knocked out. The point is that you need to
associate a word with its non-verbal meaning, not with its definition.
Learning new words requires MENTAL IMAGERY. . .visual, auditory,
tactual, gustatory ideas. First, use the verbal definition to bring
that idea to mind; then try to find some feature of the word that you
can readily associate with that idea. Then make up a sentence using
the new word. This added bit of cognitive effort will probably be
enough to effect learning then and there. However, do not put that
slip in your "learned" pile until you have once used the word. It is
when you have spoken or written the word in the normal course of your
everyday life that the word is a part of your lexicon.
I am going to give a number of illustrations of this method in
order to help you get the hang of it. But the method works best when
you create the images yourself. This is simply because ideas that
occur to you once are more likely to occur to you again. So please
read these examples for their method, not their content.
ABERRANT=not normal. Imagine a nest of ants running around,
one of which is shaped like a tiny bear. "A bear ant" represents the
non-verbal idea of something that is "not normal." A common football
score of 21-20 would be aberrant in baseball.
ABUSE=improper use. Say to yourself, "AB-use is BAD-use," while
thinking of a good example such as a knife with a bent tip because it
was used (improperly) to pry open a can. Making a dog-ear of the
corner of a page is one way to abuse a good book.
ACCELERATION=increase rate. Think of the accelerator in your
car and imagine feeling the car take off when you step on the gas. I
used to burn rubber to feel the fast acceleration.
ACUITY=see clearly. Perhaps there's a "dirty old man" cleaning
his glasses so that he can see "a cutie" more clearly. Newborns have
very poor visual acuity.
ADAGE=saying. For "age," think "old," and then try to recall an
"old ad" that has a line (saying) you remember. . .such as, "Be all
that you can be, in the Army." You can probably find a fitting adage
for almost any occasion.
ADAPT=fit conditions. Something that is "apt" is "suitable."
Think of an ad that was changed to make it an "apt ad," such as, "If
you smoke, please try this brand." You have to be able to adapt to
each professor's style.
ADHERE=stick to. Try to think of something that makes you want
to stick an "ad here." Possibly a picture of a fat person that you
stick to the refrigerator door to remind you to eat carefully. Wise
shoppers adhere to their budgets.
ADMONISH=scold gently. Sometimes I can't make a connection, but
just forming an image and studying the word is often sufficient. For
example, imagine a parent explaining to a child why something the
child did was wrong, and try out possible cues such as "bad-monish,"
"monastery," "punish." Even unsuccessful cognitive effort helps. It
is often better to admonish a child rather than to punish.
ADVENTITIOUS=accidental. This word sounds like, "adventurous,"
and leads to imagining an episode of venturing into a new part of
town and accidentally running into someone you know. You can enjoy a
prize even if winning is adventitious.
After just reading the illustrations, you may have no trouble in
reading this paragraph:
Learning new words is usually adventitious. Sometimes you hear
an aberrant word in an adage, such as one that admonishes you about
abusing your eyes lest your acuity is decreased. You do not have to
adhere strictly to my method of learning but should adapt it to your
own style. You will soon see an acceleration in your learning words.
Once you make a commitment to learn these words, you may find it
helpful to put a few of your word-slips in places where you might
have a chance to study them: the bathroom, the dining table, the car
seat, etc. In this way, you can build your super-highway lexicon by
using time that you would otherwise waste. Count up how many words
you would learn if you added one every time you brush your teeth!
1. . 2 . .3 . .4 . . Associations
To say that you know the meaning of a word is to say that you
have learned an association between the word and the non-verbal idea
that it represents. However, there are two contexts in which you may
encounter the word, namely when you hear it spoken or when you see it
written. For most words in your lexicon, if you know the word in one
of these contexts, you also know it in the other. However, for words
with which you are not very familiar, you may do better when reading
than when listening. This is because you can stop reading while you
search your memory for the meaning of a word, whereas when listening,
the lecture or conversation usually continues without regard to your
awareness of the meaning of the words.
Hence, your reading lexicon is probably somewhat larger than
than your listening lexicon. Symbolically,
Association 1. Written word ____> Nonverbal idea (meaning)
Association 2. Spoken word _____> Nonverbal idea (meaning)
Association 1 may be stronger than Association 2. Furthermore, these
associations are not symmetrical. That is to say, the following two
associations are very probably weaker than the first two:
Association 3. Nonverbal idea ____> Written word
Association 4. Nonverbal idea ____> Spoken word
Association 3 is required when you are writing, and again, you often
can pause long enough to try to think of the word the represents the
idea you have in mind. Association 4 is required when you are talking
and most people don't like to stumble around while searching for just
the right word.
The asymmetry in associations is familiar. For example, we all
know the frustration of knowing a person's name but not being able to
think of it at the moment. Thus, the association name--->person is
stronger than the reverse association, person--->name. Similarly,
most high school graduates recognize the names Madison, Polk, Hoover,
and Wilson as presidents of the United States, but few of them recall
those names if asked to name presidents. In general, öit is usuallyò
ömore difficult to generate the word than to recognize itò.
The reason that I said generating the word is "usually" more
difficult is because the strength of an association depends on how
frequently it has been practiced. There is nothing inherently more
difficult about associations 3 and 4 compared with 1 and 2; we simply
don't normally use as many words when we are speaking as we see when
we are reading. In one study, it was found that a vocabulary of only
200 words would enable a person to understand over 95% of everything
that was said in a college student union building!
In order to increase your functional lexicon, you must practice
all four kinds of associations. Being able to think of a word during
normal conversation is the best sign that the word is truly in your
lexicon. The next few pages provide some helpful verbal exercises.
Vocabulary Matching
Indicate the definition below that fits the capitalized words:
___ 1. One characteristic ASCRIBED to professors is absentmindedness.
___ 2. The soldier pledged ALLEGIANCE to the country.
___ 3. The scientist ASSIMILATED the idea into her theory.
___ 4. The CONCEPT of learning is described in "Ways and Whys."
___ 5. The COHENSION of the group was remarkable in that situation.
___ 6. The roads CONVERGED at the race track.
___ 7. Good multiple-choice exams require difficult DISCRIMINATIONS.
___ 8. It is difficult to DETER a determined child.
___ 9. Imagery FACILITATES learning the meaning of words.
___ 10. The students were asked to GENERATE questions in class.
___ 11. Teachers sometimes give away answers INADVERTENTLY.
___ 12. The product was INFERIOR to what we usually receive.
___ 13. The LITERAL meaning of the statement caused confusion.
___ 14. The pilots try to MINIMIZE flying into bumpy air.
___ 15. The engineers took PRECISE measurements.
___ 16. Coal is one our country's natural RESOURCES.
___ 17. Learning strategies has a SIGNIFICANT effect on memory.
___ 18. The student's STATUS in class was uncertain.
___ 19. There may only be a SUBTLE difference between our opinions.
___ 20. The doctor SYSTEMATICALLY tested the patient.
Definitions:
a. the act of perceiving differences k. an idea or general notion
b. to produce l. position in rank
c. hardly noticeable m. approach a common point
d. to reduce n. methodically
e. to make a part of o. loyalty
f. not deliberate p. make easier
g. asset q. accurate
h. lower in quality r. union, held firmly together
i. considered as belonging to s. in a basic or strict sense
j. prevent/restrain from proceeding t. full of meaning
Make up several sentences using these same words. If possible, make
up sentences that contain two or more of the words (e.g. "A soldier's
allegiance is sometimes more ascribed than real.")