The American Heritage Dictionary just published a little books called "100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know." This sounds like a cool little book, one that can teach you all those words you know you should look up but never do.
Yes, some of these words are useful, like, say, numbers 2 and 3. Those are words I see in print a fair amount, and it certainly does help your reading comprehension if you know what they mean. However, some of the words on the list baffled me as to why they were included.
For instance, number 22: euro. Do they mean the monetary unit, or simply the prefix that places an object on the Continent? Either way, I'm not sure that knowing it makes you urbane, or even literate.
How about number 15: deciduous. That word comes in handy in exactly no contexts. Let's say you are reading a story about a disease that is affecting deciduous trees. Do you really need to be sure exactly what kind of tree it is?
Or number 100: ziggurat. I honestly can't tell you if I've ever seen that word in print before. Sure, it might be a cool word to know, but I don't see how it made the top 100.
Anyhow, here's a list for the self-improvement type.
Yes, some of these words are useful, like, say, numbers 2 and 3. Those are words I see in print a fair amount, and it certainly does help your reading comprehension if you know what they mean. However, some of the words on the list baffled me as to why they were included.
For instance, number 22: euro. Do they mean the monetary unit, or simply the prefix that places an object on the Continent? Either way, I'm not sure that knowing it makes you urbane, or even literate.
How about number 15: deciduous. That word comes in handy in exactly no contexts. Let's say you are reading a story about a disease that is affecting deciduous trees. Do you really need to be sure exactly what kind of tree it is?
Or number 100: ziggurat. I honestly can't tell you if I've ever seen that word in print before. Sure, it might be a cool word to know, but I don't see how it made the top 100.
Anyhow, here's a list for the self-improvement type.
- abjure
- abrogate
- abstemious
- acumen
- antebellum
- auspicious
- belie
- bellicose
- bowdlerize
- chicanery
- chromosome
- churlish
- circumlocution
- circumnavigate
- deciduous
- deleterious
- diffident
- enervate
- enfranchise
- epiphany
- equinox
- euro
- evanescent
- expurgate
- facetious
- fatuous
- feckless
- fiduciary
- filibuster
- gamete
- gauche
- gerrymander
- hegemony
- hemoglobin
- homogeneous
- hubris
- hypotenuse
- impeach
- incognito
- incontrovertible
- inculcate
- infrastructure
- interpolate
- irony
- jejune
- kinetic
- kowtow
- laissez faire
- lexicon
- loquacious
- lugubrious
- metamorphosis
- mitosis
- moiety
- nanotechnology
- nihilism
- nomenclature
- nonsectarian
- notarize
- obsequious
- oligarchy
- omnipotent
- orthography
- oxidize
- parabola
- paradigm
- parameter
- pecuniary
- photosynthesis
- plagiarize
- plasma
- polymer
- precipitous
- quasar
- quotidian
- recapitulate
- reciprocal
- reparation
- respiration
- sanguine
- soliloquy
- subjugate
- suffragist
- supercilious
- tautology
- taxonomy
- tectonic
- tempestuous
- thermodynamics
- totalitarian
- unctuous
- usurp
- vacuous
- vehement
- vortex
- winnow
- wrought
- xenophobe
- yeoman
- ziggurat
3 comments:
Notice you don't see "ostentatious" or "pedantic" on this list.
I mean, "Laissez Faire"? the most misused Latin phrase I can think of.
Granted I do drop "Thermodynamics" most times I'm waxing scientific about entropy or the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
I know what you mean about thermodynamics. I can't tell you how many times "photosynthesis" has come in handy while gardening or taking third grade science.
It is sad when I know very few words on this list. I do know the world "plasma" But obviously for different meanings.
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