Word of the day!
June 2, 2010 1:06 PM   Subscribe

Is there a good book word of the day list with nice usable words?

I really like the concept of word of the day and improving my vocabulary. However, most lists have some crazy outlandish words that don't actually make it to everyday conversation.

So the requirements are

1)offline form, like a book or a calender pull away
2) word of the day or week ish
3) it would be nice if the words were not so crazy that they would never be used.

Thanks!
posted by lakerk to Writing & Language (5 answers total)
 
I know it doesn't fulfill your first requirement, but Dictionary.com's Word of the Day is a perfect match for the other two. You can also get it via text message.
posted by Lizsterr at 1:22 PM on June 2, 2010


Response by poster: Anything that helps. I won't be around computers for a while but still want to be a part of the word revolution
posted by lakerk at 1:23 PM on June 2, 2010


I've got a lot of books of unusual words; most of the genre runs toward the crazy, outlandish words you're disinterested in. But you might like The Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate by Eugene Ehrlich and Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words. You might even like The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy which would fill in lots of names, places, and phrases that really do get talked about.

Here are AskMe's previous contributions to the cause. I'm pretty sure that's where I read of The Highly Selective Dictionary.

You could read these authors with a good dictionary at your side -- make note of the words that surprise you (and where you found them) and look them up then or later.
posted by Zed at 10:45 PM on June 2, 2010


Have a look at the following: It has themed words of the day, an archive online and a weekly newsletter. Not only does it give you interesting words daily (for free), the descriptions of word origins, and usage are interesting as well.
posted by lonemantis at 6:28 AM on June 3, 2010


Hmm the link above didn't work: http://wordsmith.org
posted by lonemantis at 6:29 AM on June 3, 2010


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