Episode 105 – Do I Need a Good Vocabulary to Write?

In episode 105 of the Life Writers Vlog, I answer a viewer’s question, “Do I need a great vocabulary to be a writer?”

Well, having a great vocabulary certainly won’t hurt your writing, but I believe you can be a good writer without being able to do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink.

I also talked about how Merriam-Webster added two hundred new words to the dictionary last month, some common terms like beach read, true crime, freestyle, and other not-so-familiar ones. Click here to read more about the new additions. If you’d like to know more about the process editors at Merriam-Webster add new words to the dictionary, read Kory Stamper’s memoir, Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries. 

We’d love to hear what you think about your vocabulary, if you do anything to improve it, and what’s your process when you come across an unfamiliar word.  Tell us about it in the comments section below.

Whether you have an expansive vocabulary or a functional one, always remember, the only way to do this wrong is to not do it at all!

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Judy
23 days ago

I think my vocabulary has improved simply because I am a writer now. I surprise myself sometimes when I’m having a conversation with someone. I use more descriptive words which I probably wouldn’t have used before. It makes me feel so smart! Love that!

Julie Folkerts
28 days ago

After working for attorneys for over twenty-five years, my vocabulary has tested and advanced. When I was in school and didn’t know a word I was reading, I would ask my mom. Her constant reply was, “Look it up in the dictionary.” I would reply, “I’m not sure how to spell it.” I would guess the spelling and eventually find the word. I still look up the word if I don’t know it. Thanks, Patricia, for this subject matter.

David Godin
28 days ago

I am a word nerd. I look up any word I don’t know, even to the point of its origin, which, for some odd reason, I find interesting. I do the monthly vocab test in the Readers Digest and rarely get more than one wrong. I get a daily email from Dictionarybee, which presents two sentences with blanks in them. The challenge is to select the correct word, of four choices, to fill the blank. In my working life, I interacted with engineers daily and my language, both spoken and written, had to be precise, which encoraged me to improve… Read more »

David Godin
27 days ago
Reply to  David Godin

I forgot this one:
https://www.wordstrivia.com/

Thierry Lagarde
Thierry Lagarde
28 days ago

In French, I have a pretty extensive and out of the ordinary, vocabulary. I can say that all children in France are thought early on, an extensive array of words, their meanings, their disparities and on. It’s a must. My parents brought this with them to Canada. Our mother would read to us at a very early age. I have a special way with words, maybe I picked it up from my father who studied in linguistics. Although I don’t remember him speaking that much to his children other than to say the schooling system in Canada was rotten not… Read more »

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