Word Power

|| Word Power ||

The Quest and

the Conquest

Much of your success as a manager is dependent on

your communication and the language you use. With
so many factors involved, you might be unsure how to
hone your skills. We can make a beginning with a few
steps elucidated here.

- Jayalakshmi Desai

n the course of my long and fascinating

relationship with the written and the spoken
word, the question that I have encountered most
is How do I improve my vocabulary?
Here, I would like to demystify the realm of words
and state some essentials for building vocabulary.

An Open Mind
You must be open to influences. Can thought
develop in an insular scenario? No, you need stimuli
and response to stimuli for words to form. A limited
vocabulary is fine for lower order animals. They are
satisfied with Bow-wow or Meow-Meow
throughout their lives. A human is the acme of
intelligence on this planet. Why should he restrict
himself to banal or mediocre utterances?
There shouldnt be any room for fear, prejudice,
negativity and procrastination as far as building your
vocabulary is concerned. View language as a
powerful means of communication and make it work
for you. In the era of SMS text messaging, page 3
mania and the onslaught of the visual media, it is very
easy to improve my vocabulary after all. But, my
dear young lady, do you still dream of making a mark
in the international arena? Excelling in discussions
where industry bigwigs are participating? Writing an
in-depth piece on issues? Then, dont abandon your
word quest.

Reading
An oft-repeated question: What should I read?
Initially, read anything that holds your interest it
could be finance, archaeology, science, fine arts,
philosophy or pure film gossip.
After a couple of weeks, graduate to other domains
the ones that you are unaware of; are intimidated
by or dislike
Soon, you will widen your horizons and your
word-list will include words whose meanings you
were unaware of. Hence, the next step.

Reference
There is a clichd statement, God helps those who
help themselves, if you wait for divine intervention

or a magic wand to increase your vocabulary, then

you might jolly well wait till the next lifetime. For
example, you are reading an editorial and you come
across these sentences:
Poetry and Prose are the two pillars of literature.
Robert Frost and Bernard Shaw are their leading
lights. Many other writers tend to be prosaic.
At this juncture, if you make a so called
intelligent guess and deduce that prosaic could be
the adjective form of prose, then you are barking up
the wrong tree. Short cuts and a laid-back attitude
will not bail you out. You must refer to wordlists and
dictionaries. Many words have multiple connotations.
After the requisite reference, you will realise that
prose and prosaic have nothing in common and
prosaic means dull or commonplace. You can begin
to guess the meaning of words only after you have
an awareness of a word and its hues and shades.

Make Sentences
Learning words by rote will not be of much help
either. However, placing newly learnt words in
sentences helps a great deal in remembering them for
a longer span. Let us consider
a) Sententious trying to sound important or
intelligent especially by expressing moral
judgements.
Since it is a tricky word containing traces of the
word sentence, let us clarify its usage
The socialites sententious remarks irritated me.
b) Histrionic related to acting.
Alarm bells ringing?
You could confuse it with historic or historical
or even hysterical. So, we write 3 sentences:
1. Shahrukh Khan is known for his histrionic
abilities.
2. 15 th August 1947 is a historic day for India.
(Something so important that it is likely to be
remembered)
3. Romila Thapar is known for her historical
research.
Next month, you can look forward to a test to test
your vocabulary.

Advanc'edge MBA May 2004