I started collecting new words when I was in middle school. I occasionally come across a notebook or diary or scrap of paper with some big word scrawled in my childhood handwriting, or word-of-the-day tear-off calendar sheets that I used as bookmarks in my old favorites. (An early find was morganatic, which is not a word I expect to have much cause to reach for, but it’s waiting there, just in case!) These days, I collect my new words in a computer file that I keep open while I’m writing. It’s an unorganized list of words I’ve come across that appeal to me—some vaguely familiar, some totally new.
I’ve written about working vocabulary several times here, and you know I love thinking about and writing about language. A long time ago, I wrote a post about vocabulary that still feels right to me. As I mentioned in that post, I happily acquire words that I know I’ll never get to use, and I believe my life is richer for it. Sometimes, maybe even years later, I get a chance to use one of my finds the right way.
It’s a symptom of my deep love of words—I’m delighted when I pick up a new one, and tickled pink when I can finally use it. I’m always on the lookout for words I know but haven’t used, or best of all, words I don’t know yet. I pick them up, evaluate them for usefulness, and sometimes add them to my collection. It’s like the literary world is a big flea market of fabulous words just waiting for me to discover them.
Years ago, I read that most adults have a working vocabulary of 20,000 to 35,000 words, and we typically stop acquiring new words in middle age. I can understand that—by that point you have a lot of evidence that your linguistic toolkit suffices—but I hope I never stop. New words mean new nuances and even new concepts, and that’s fantastic.
When I am writing, I do sometimes use a thesaurus, but not to find a fancy word to use in the current sentence. I use the thesaurus because it’s an easy way to quickly see related words so I can choose the nuance I want. It’s a tool for recall. If I spot a word that isn’t part of my vocabulary, I won’t use it right away. Instead, I look it up and chew on it, and if I like it or it seems like it could be useful, I put it on the “Interesting Words” list for potential future use.
From time to time, often when I am stalled on a scene and want to pretend that I’m doing something related to my writing, I’ll review the list. It’s like being in a curiosity shop, because I haven’t organized the words in any way—not alphabetically, not grammatically, not even chronologically. I simply drop the cursor between two entries and add the new word. So when I look at the list, I read through all those lovely words, jumbled there with no guiding principle other than here’s a cool word. Some of them will seep a little further into my consciousness each time. Someday, they may surface organically, and that’s when I know they’re ready for use. Stay tuned for Book 3!
