How to improve your Vocabulary

BUILD YOUR VOCABULARY
- Shradha Kaul


Did you know that words could be a source of enjoyment? There a number of interesting ways one could increase one’s word power. Once you get into the loop of reading, you tend to veer towards an exploration into this world of words. People have always wondered why the plural of foot is feet, goose is geese but then why is moose not meese?
There are a number of such anomalies that exist in the world of English language, we will not of course try and unravel this unfathomable mystery but go on to understand how we could learn as much as possible.
Through the course of my relation building with the language, I discovered many things and would like to share some of them. Before I go on, I would like to reiterate that ‘words symbolize knowledge’. An erudite person stands out because of his/ her vocabulary. Learned people possess some of the most remarkable vocabularies. While reading books by great people, I have felt the energy of vocabulary.
As a never say die English language aficionado, I happened to come across some wonderful intricacies of the English language. One word could actually take on a number of meanings! For example, a simple word like ‘light’ could take on so many meanings: a source of light, less in weight, the radiance, daybreak, a match, a traffic light, gleam in the eyes, mental insight and still many more. It was really fun to try this out with other words that could be used in multiple ways.
Collective nouns in the school introductory classes were quite limited but once I understood the language a little better, I went on to discover a whole new world of collective nouns. Nearly everything was neatly packed into groups. It was hard to imagine that we had things like a mischief of mice, a parliament of owls, a congress of baboons, a murder of crows, a culture of bacteria, a rhumba of rattlesnakes, a congregation of birds, and a hand of bananas, mind you the list is amazing.  The same rule applies to people, we have a faculty of academics, a balance of accountants, a column of architects, an amalgamation of metallurgists, a complex of psychologists, a conjunction of grammarians, a vale of graduates, an eloquence of lawyers, and so on.
A lot of inventive people these days come up with their own versions of collective nouns. There are forums where you can contribute your own creation of a collective noun!
Synonyms and antonyms fall into a different league altogether. I personally feel that this is a great way to expand your vocabulary. I wonder how many students use the thesaurus? One must keep the combination of a dictionary and thesaurus always handy. The thesaurus has many uses. It helps you understand the meaning completely and also helps in expanding your repertoire of words. As I have stated earlier, a word has multiple definitions and it becomes a little complex when the synonym turns out to have an entirely different meaning, for example ‘glare’ means a light and also a scowl.
Homophones are words pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, as heir and air, night and knight.
Heteronyms are spelled the same as another but having a different sound and meaning, such as row (a series of objects arranged in a line), pronounced (rō), and row (a fight), pronounced (rou). Sometimes the meaning of a word changes due to capitalization for example august and August both take on different meanings. While the one in lower capitals means someone important, the one with the capitalization means the month of the year. Male is the capital of a country whereas male connotes gender! Words are homonyms when one of two or more words that have the same sound and often the same spelling but differ in meaning, such as bank (embankment) and bank (place where money is kept).
Oxymorons are a totally different kettle of fish. An oxymoron as the word suggests, means a rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening silence, same difference, anticipated serendipity, benevolent despot, a mournful optimist and accurate rumors. Of course the list is endless.
Plurals have never ceased to amaze late entrants into the world of English language. Plurals are formed in a number of ways, you sometimes add an ‘s’ or an ‘es’ or ‘ies’ or sometimes nothing at all to form plurals. For example, deer, moose, sheep and cattle have only one form.  
What I would like to stress upon is that the English language is multi faceted and its range and diversity makes it a challenge. So the onus lies on you to treat it as an adventure and master the intricacies at different levels.



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