Our vocabulary is the range of words that we are able to use. Obviously, the more words we have within our grasp, the better chance we have of both comprehending and composing English. How then can we build up our vocabulary?
One of the best ways is to read as much as possible. That way, we see words being used in context and get to know them - especially if we read broadly from different fields where different sorts of words are used. It also helps if we employ the two word attack skills detailed below.
Word attack skills
Do you suffer from pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis?
Don't panic! We will use that long word - yes, it is a real English word, the longest in the Oxford dictionary - to show that big words may not be a problem after all, especially if we have good word attack skills!
There are two ways of 'attacking' this word. The first is to place it in the context of the sentence. The sentence asks us if we suffer from pneumono...That suggests that it is something unpleasant, maybe an illness.
The second word attack skill gives us a further clue. The trick is to see the word as the sum of lots of little parts - and to try to recognise those little parts and the word families to which they belong. Let us look closely at the word:
pneumono – ultra – micro – scopic – silico – volcano – koni – osis
With the word broken into smaller parts, do any of them look familiar? What about -osis at the end? Other words that end that way are tuberculosis, neurosis, sclerosis, arthrosis, etc. They are all members of the same word family because in Greek, -osis indicates a condition or disease.
Word families
To work out what the rest of the word means, look at word families that you know. For example, what part of the body is affected by the disease? Look at the pneuma, pneumono family: you might know pneumatic, as in pneumatic tyres, which are inflated with air, not just solid rubber; and pneumatic drills, which are powered by air. In Greek, pneuma means wind, breath, air. Another word in the family is pneumonia, which is a lung disease, so we might guess that our big word is also a lung disease.
What causes the illness? The other word families tell us.
- ultra - beyond, extra, as in ultra-violet light (beyond the violet end of the spectrum)
- micro(s) - small, as in microscope, microphone, microbe, micrometer
- scopic - an instrument for viewing, as in microscope, telescope, periscope
- silico - as in silicon, silica gel
- volcano - (from Vulcan, Volcanus, the Roman god of fire)
- koni - dust, as in konimeter, koniscope, coniosis
So the longest word in the dictionary simply means: a disease of the lungs caused by inhaling very microscopic particles of silicon dust from volcanoes.