EXERCISING YOUR VOCABULARY

by Miko Johnston

When I think back to the dark days of the Covid pandemic, I don’t focus on the panic or the shortages. I remember the isolation. Although I had the good fortune of my husband at home and kinship through technology, I found conversations very limited. I began contacting people in my life whom I rarely saw but stayed in touch with, usually with a Christmas card, but many of my friends from the past were mired in their own woes or didn’t respond. Worse, despite having ample time to finish my novel in progress the distress kept me from writing anything…for eighteen months.

I still recall an evening at least six months into the lockdown. My husband, exhausted from yard work, went to be early. His older son called that night. In the past, I’d speak to him briefly before passing the phone to his father, but neither of us wanted to wake him. As I spoke to my stepson I began to realize how much I craved company, even if only over the phone, so what would have normally been a five-minute call stretched into over an hour. I think he, too, longed to talk, and for the same reason.

Our conversation was stilted at first, but not because of any personal reason. He and I were merely out of practice. We’d pause to think of the right word or string more than a few words together in a sentence. It took about five minutes to verbally limber up before we could chat ‘normally.’

That served as a wake-up call. From that day on, I began playing word games. It kept me entertained and, more importantly, prodded me to keep my vocabulary alive and active. Anything that forced me to plumb my memory for words (and spelling). I know many writers use writing prompts, but I wasn’t yearning to write better as much as speak better. I needed something deeper than that.

I began with Spelling Bee, a New York Times creation that gives you a ring of six letters with a seventh letter in the middle. You form words, four letters or more, that must include the center letter. I even got my husband hooked on the game; we still play it almost daily and compare our lists. Later, I added Wordle to my daily routine. You get six chances to find the five-letter word of the day – if you’re not familiar with it, you can read the instructions on the NYT website.

In both cases, trying to figure out the words stimulated my brain. Sometimes, words would pop into my head, even if they didn’t fit the puzzle. That’s when I decided I needed more stimulation and started inventing my own puzzles.

Wordle inspired a new way to challenge myself. I’d pick the first two letters of potential words and list as many as I could. I’d start with my “prompt” letters and work my way through the alphabet with the goal of reaching at least fifty words. As with my conversation with my stepson and my daily dose of word games, the more I challenged myself, the more words I could recall, and the faster they came to me.

Here’s an example:

HOW MANY WORDS CAN YOU MAKE THAT BEGIN WITH THE LETTERS:

BR——-

RULES:

• Words must be at least five letters
• No adding prefixes like S; ED; ING; LY; NESS to a root word of four or less letters
• Only one version of the same word is allowed (ex: float OR floated OR floating)
• Homographs are allowed with variations in the spelling to reflect their different meanings

(ex: score [to make shallow cuts]; score [to earn a point] becomes scoreboard)

• No abbreviations
• No foreign words unless they’re in common English usage (ex: pasta; rondo; bidet; pashmina)
• No proper nouns
• No acronyms (ex: AWOL)
• No hyphenated words or contractions

GOOD LUCK!