So I’m going to share a bit of my nerdy side in this next series of posts. I developed a habit in my senior year in high school from an ongoing assignment my English teacher gave us for the year.
For some context here, he was a very untraditional teacher, barely taught us anything, we only called him Michael (and I can’t even remember his last name), and we spent most of the classes getting him to tell us stories of his days backpacking around the world. So, his version of homework was for us to come up with our own vocabulary words based on things we have read throughout the week. What we turned in was a paper full of the 20 words we found that week with their definitions and where we read them. Most people just halfassed this halfass assignment, but I took it seriously, and it turned into something I have continued to do to this day.
So, while I am reading things, if I come across a word I don’t know, or can’t recall the definition of, I write it down along with the definition and the quote from where I found it. I will share 5 words in each of the next few posts in hopes it might be an interesting habit for someone else or maybe even so you can learn a few new words.
Today’s Word Gems
- Panoply (noun) - a complete or impressive collection of things.
- Flow, pg 83 - “Surrounded by an astounding panoply of recreational gadgets and leisure choices most of us go on being bored and vaguely frustrated.”
- Dilettente (noun) - a person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts without real commitment or knowledge
- Flow, pg 116 - “But it is certainly possible to become a dilettante - in the finest sense of that word - in all these areas, in other words, to develop sufficient skills so as to find delight in what the body can do.”
- Spurious (adjective) - not being what it purports to be; false or fake
- Flow, pg 118 - “We might say that making a distinction between flow activities that involve functions of the body and those that involve the mind is to some extent spurious, for all physical activities must involve a mental component if they are to be enjoyable.”
- Avarice (noun) - extreme greed for wealth or material gain
- Interview with the Vampire (I can’t recall if I found this in the book or movie)
- Perfidy (noun) - deceitfulness, untrustworthiness.
- Daily Stoic email 06/19/2019 - “The Shakesperon scholar Richard Greenblatt, calls this phrase a kind of motto for those who can’t wrap their mind around perfidy.”
Ponder This
- Have you ever kept a vocabulary journal or something similar? How has it impacted your learning?
- How might regularly learning and using new words benefit your personal and professional growth?
- Can you think of ways to incorporate new vocabulary into your daily routine or business communications?
Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!
Books
- Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Deep Work - Cal Newport
- Daily Stoic - Ryan Holiday
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