Latest Posts by pfm019 - Page 9

15 Ways to Improve Your Vocabulary

in response to:

1. Develop a reading habit. Reading is the most effective way to build your vocabulary. Read books, magazines, and newspapers that cover a wide range of topics, and pay attention to unfamiliar words. Look up their meanings and try using them in context. Vocabulary building is easiest when you encounter words in context. Seeing words appear in a novel or a newspaper article can be far more helpful than seeing them appear on vocabulary lists. Not only do you gain exposure to unfamiliar words; you also see how they’re used. In fact, 15 minutes is recognized as the ideal time for students to see positive gains in reading achievement; students who read just over a half-hour to an hour per day improve the most.

2. Utilize word lists. They are incredibly flexible tools that can help you organize your learning in a variety of ways. For instance, vocabulary can be grouped into small, easy chunks that can be revisited for maximum learning benefits. Research shows that a word needs to be seen up to 10 times before we really learn it, and researchers believe that staggered repetition is the best way to learn new vocabulary. Word lists help keep vocabulary terms in manageable chunks that a student can come back to as they gain mastery. I have posted some word lists HERE and will continue to add to this in the future.

3. Use the dictionary and thesaurus. Online dictionaries and thesauruses are helpful resources if used properly. They can jog your memory about synonyms that would actually be better words in the context of what you’re writing. A full dictionary definition can also educate you about antonyms, root words, and related words, which is another way to learn vocabulary.

4. Keep a vocabulary journal. Making a vocabulary journal is a great place to collect and interact with words you hear or see in your reading. Each page should be dedicated to a singular new word, including its definitions, synonyms, and antonyms. Review the journal regularly to reinforce your learning. 

5. Choosing appropriate vocabulary. It’s important to use words and expressions that fit the context so your meaning is clear. For example, different audiences for your writing will require different levels of formality: the vocabulary you use in an academic essay may not be effective for a blogpost targeting a popular audience. Consider the following questions to help you choose the most appropriate words for your audience and purpose:

a. What’s the exact meaning of the word? Words may be broadly similar in meaning but differ in important aspects of that meaning. Consider the difference between ‘the fragrance of flowers’  and ‘the odour of rotten eggs.’ Both words refer to the sense of smell, but fragrance has a positive core meaning while odour has a negative one. If you don’t know what a word exactly means, check it in a dictionary. b. Is the word attached to a feeling? Compare the two sentences: ‘The freeway snakes through the town’ and ‘The freeway meanders through the town’. In this example, snake indicates negative feelings about the freeway while meander doesn’t. What level of intensity does the word show? Many words with similar meanings describe different degrees of the same quality or action. For example, ‘comical’, ‘hilarious’ and ‘side-splitting’  show different degrees of funniness. Think about the intensity of what you want to convey when choosing words. c. Is the word formal or informal? Go for formal words and expressions in business communication and academic writing. In the following examples, the second expression in each pair is more formal than the first: (1) come up with / create (2) one after another / at regular intervals (3) huge / considerable (4) enough / sufficient d. Is the word polite? Words which describe negative qualities or sensitive issues too directly can be offensive. Good communicators consider the feelings of their audience. For example, when writing about childhood obesity, it’s more appropriate to use ‘children with weight problems’ or ‘children of an unhealthy weight’ than ‘fat children’. e. Is the word specific or general? Use words with specific meanings whenever possible to make your message clearer to your audience. For example, avoid overusing general verbs such as ‘be’, ‘do’, ‘have’ and ‘get’, especially in academic writing, as they don’t accurately convey specific ideas. It’s better to use a more specific verb or verb phrase to strengthen your message. Compare the impact of the verbs in these sentences: ‘To be successful, learners need to have high-level literacy skills.’ ‘To be successful, learners need to develop and demonstrate high-level literacy skills.’ f. What other words does the word often go with? Some words are frequently used together and therefore sound more natural in combination. This is called collocation. For example, we say ‘fast train’ not ‘quick train’, but ‘quick shower’ not ‘fast shower’. Similarly, it’s more natural to say ‘highly critical’ rather than ‘deeply critical.’

6. Play word games. Classic games like Scrabble and Boggle can function as a fun way to expand your English vocabulary. Crossword puzzles can as well. If you really want to be efficient, follow up rounds of these word games with a little note-taking. Keep a list of the different words you learned while playing the game, and then study that list from time to time.

7. Use flashcards. A quick way to build a large vocabulary is to study a number of words via flashcards. In today’s digital age, a wide array of smartphone apps make flashcards convenient and easy to organize. Aiming for one new word a day is reasonable. You can always go for more, but it may not be reasonable to assimilate dozens of English words every single day.

8. Subscribe to “word of the day” feeds. Some web platforms will provide you with a word a day—either on a website, an app, or via email—to help you expand your vocabulary. You can add these words to running word lists.

9. Use mnemonics. A mnemonic device is a form of word association that helps you remember words’ definitions and proper uses. For instance think of the word obsequious which means “attempting to win favor from influential people by flattery.” Break down that word into components: “obse” is the beginning of “obsessed,” “qui” sounds like the French word for “yes” (oui), and “us” is like the word “us.” So you can think of that big word obsequious as “obsessed with saying yes to us”—which is kind of what it means!

10. Practice using new words in conversation. It’s possible to amass a huge vocabulary without actually knowing how to use words. This means you have to take it upon yourself to put your personal dictionary into use. If you come across an interesting word in your reading, make a point of using it in conversation. By experimenting in low-stakes situations, you can practice the art of word choice and, with a little bit of trial and error, hone in on the right word for a particular context. Furthermore, speaking to native – or non-native – speakers of English (or any language you are learning) will guarantee you the chance to learn new words. Anyone who has ever wondered how to develop their vocabulary will know that the most important thing is putting your vocabulary to use and hearing what people say in return. This is how language works, and before long you’ll be finding ways to work those new words into your everyday use of the language.

11. Watch movies and TV shows. This simple activity can expose you to new words and phrases. When watching TV or a movie, pay attention to the dialogue and note any unfamiliar words. When the TV show or movie is done, look up the meanings of the new words and try to use them in context.

12. Build a story. Learning vocabulary words outside of their context is difficult, so why not create context with some creative storytelling? This can be an individual writing activity or you can do this in a group. An sample group activity: Choose a word list and determine an order in which your students or friends will take their turn. Every person gets to choose one word from the word list. You begin by writing the first sentence of a story; each student then uses their chosen word in a sentence to build on the story. This gets learners comfortable using the words in sentences, and putting those individual vocabulary words into a broader context. This is also an activity you can do via text, chat window, or email, which makes it perfect for remote learning.

13. Draw it. Sometimes the best learning activities are ones that don’t feel like a learning activity. This can be an individual activity but can also be used in group settings. Here’s a way to turn vocabulary acquisition into a game: Ask each student to have a piece of paper and a pen or pencil ready, and tell them you are going to be playing a drawing game. Using the private chat feature of your remote learning software, choose one student and give them a word from your vocabulary list along with its definition, and tell them that they have 20 seconds to draw it. While the student is drawing it, make sure that you make their screen the main screen of the software. You can do a countdown to keep up the momentum, or play music while you wait. At the end of the time, the student shows their drawing to the other students: The first student to guess which vocabulary word has been drawn is the next student to draw. This activity is not only fun, but also benefits students who are visual or tactile learners.

14. Be aware of idioms. Idioms are commonly used word combinations or expressions. These have very specific meanings that are not obvious from the words they contain, e.g. ‘a piece of cake’, ‘get the hang of it’, ‘an Indian summer’, and ‘after a fashion’. Many dictionaries list and define idioms if you look up the component words. For example, try looking up ‘Indian’ or ‘summer’ to find ‘Indian summer’. Idioms are generally more appropriate for speaking and non-academic writing.

15. Practice, practice, practice. In many ways, vocabulary is like a muscle – it will get stronger the more you use it. The key to building a strong vocabulary is to use it regularly. Try using new words in your conversations, writing, and everyday life. The more that you use them, the more they will become a part of your everyday vocabulary.

Sources & other related articles: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Poetic Genres

Whereas a poetic "form" defines the way a poem arranges sounds, rhythms, or its appearance on the page, a poetic "genre" is something like the poem's style. Many poetic genres have a long history, and new poems almost always seek to explore a new aspect of the traditional style and thus to redefine the genre in some way. The following list is a selection of the major genres of poetry.

allegory A narrative with two levels of meaning, one stated and one unstated.

aubade A song or poem greeting the sunrise, traditionally a lover's lament that the night's passion must come to an end.

ballad Broadly speaking, the ballad is a genre of folk poetry, usually an orally transmitted narrative song. The term "ballad" applies to several other kinds of poetry, including the English ballad stanza, which is a form often associated with the genre.

blason A Renaissance genre characterized by a short catalogue-style description, often of the female body.

cento A poem composed entirely of lines from other poems.

dirge A funeral song.

dramatic monologue This might be called a "closet soliloquy": a long poem spoken by a character who often unwittingly reveals his or her hidden desires and actions over the course of the poem. The "I" of the dramatic monologue is very distinct from the "I" of the poet's persona. Robert Browning was a master of this genre.

eclogue A short pastoral poem; Virgil's eclogues are one of the first examples of this genre.

ekphrasis Originally a description of any kind, "ekphrasis" is now almost exclusively applied to the poetic description of a work of art.

elegy This genre can be difficult to define, as there are specific types of elegiac poem as well as a general elegiac mood, but almost all elegies mourn, and seek consolation for, a loss of some kind: the most common form of elegy is a lyric commemorating the death of a loved one. Greek elegiac meter, which is one source of what we know as the elegy today, is not normally associated with loss and mourning.

epic A long narrative poem that catalogues and celebrates heroic or historic deeds and events, usually focusing on a single heroic individual.

epigram A brief and pithy aphoristic observation, often satirical.

epitaph A tombstone inscription. Several famous poems end with the poet writing his own. (See, for example, Thomas Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" or W.B. Yeats's "Under Ben Bulben.")

epithalamion A song or poem that celebrates a wedding.

fable A brief tale about talking animals or objects, usually having a moral or pedagogical point, which is sometimes explicitly stated at the end. Aesop and la Fontaine are perhaps the most famous fable-writers.

georgic The agricultural cousin of pastoral, a georgic is a poem that celebrates rustic labor.

hymn A song of praise.

invective A personal, often abusive, denunciation.

lament An expression of grief.

light verse Poetry that is mostly for fun: this can mean anything from nonsense verse to folk songs, but typically there is a comical element to light verse.

lyric This genre encompasses a large portion of the world's poetry; in general, lyrics are fairly brief poems that emphasize musical qualities.

masque Courtly drama characterized by elaborate costumes and dances, as well as audience participation.

occasional verse Poetry written with reference to a particular event.

ode A long, serious meditation on an elevated subject, an ode can take one of three forms.

paean A song of joy or triumph.

palinode A recantation or retraction, usually of an earlier poem.

panegyric Poem or song in praise of a particular individual or object.

parody A comic imitation.

pastoral Originally a poem that depicted an idealized singing competition between shepherds, "pastoral" has come to denote almost anything to do with a rural setting, although it also refers to several specific categories of the genre. Associated genres of varying synonymity are idyll, bucolic, eclogue, and georgic.

psalm A sacred song.

riddle A puzzling question that relies on allegory or wordplay for its answer. Riddles are often short, and often include an answer to the question posed, albeit an unsatisfying one. The riddle of the Sphinx, which Oedipus solved, is a particularly famous example: "what walks on four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the afternoon?"

romance An adventure tale, usually set in a mythical or remote locale. Verse forms of the romance include the  Spanish ballad and  medieval or chivalric romance.

satire Ridicule of some kind, usually passing moral judgment.

tragedy This genre originated in ancient Greek verse drama and received extended treatment in Aristotle's Poetics, which made the downfall of the main character one of the criteria for tragedy. The genre has since expanded to include almost anything pertaining to a downfall.

verse epistle A letter written in verse, usually taking as its subject either a philosophical or a romantic question.

If these writing notes helped with your poem/story, please tag me. Or leave a link in the replies. I'd love to read them!

bold of u to assume there wouldn't be medieval armor cloud on this blog.

[Video - Norwich HEMA Society]

Genz d'armes 1415

Enid and Geraint by Rowland Wheelwright

I was thinking thoughts and like, I bet at least some of the nuns back in the day were aro/ace/both and became nuns to avoid romantic n sexual interaction

Patti Smith, Seventh Heaven

Almourol Castle / Portugal (by Pedro Grao).

La Belle Dame sans Merci by Paul Julien Meylan

“ in the end, we’ll all become stories, ”

“ in the end, we’ll all become stories, ”

YeeHan Knights AU for January's patreon art!

Saul Realised I never shared this here, painting I did for a discord challenge, task was to reinterpret a piece of Medieval marginalia.

The Middle Ages according to Historians VS the Middle Ages according to Hollywood. More about myths & general misconceptions about the middle ages here;

https://fakehistoryhunter.net/2019/09/10/medieval-myths-bingo/

Follow me on Twitter here;

https://twitter.com/fakehistoryhunt

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that

Update March 1, 2024: Hey there folks, here's yet another update! I reposted Part 2a (the "medieval warhorses" tangent) to my writing blog, and I went down MORE of the horse-knowledge rabbit hole! https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/741423906984951808/my-post-got-cut-off-so-i-added-the-rest-of-it Update Jan 30, 2024: Hey folks, I've posted the updated version of this post on my blog, so I don't have to keep frantically telling everyone "hey, that's the old version of this post!" https://thebalangay.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/preindustrial-travel-times-part-1/

I should get the posts about army travel times and camp followers reformatted and posted to my blog around the end of the week, so I'll filter through my extremely tangled thread for them.

Part 2 - Preindustrial ARMY travel times: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask

Part 2a - How realistic warhorses look and act, because the myth of "all knights were mounted on huge clunky draft horses" just refuses to die: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/732043691180605440/helpful-things-for-action-writers-to-remember

Part 3 - Additional note about camp followers being regular workers AND sex-workers: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/740604203134828544/reblogging-the-time-looped-version-of-my

--

I saw a post on my main blog about how hiking groups need to keep pace with their slowest member, but many hikers mistakenly think that the point of hiking is "get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible" instead of "spending time outdoors in nature with friends," and then they complain that a new/less-experienced/sick/disabled hiker is spoiling their time-frame by constantly needing breaks, or huffing and puffing to catch up.

I run into a related question of "how long does it take to travel from Point A to Point B on horseback?" a lot, as a fantasy writer who wants to be SEMI-realistic; in the Western world at least, our post-industrial minds have largely forgotten what it's like to travel, both on our own feet and in groups.

People ask the new writer, "well, who in your cast is traveling? Is getting to Point B an emergency or not? What time of year is it?", and the newbies often get confused as to why they need so much information for "travel times." Maybe new writers see lists of "preindustrial travel times" like a primitive version of Google Maps, where all you need to do is plug in Point A and Point B.

But see, Google Maps DOES account for traveling delays, like different routes, constructions, accidents, and weather; you as the person will also need to figure in whether you're driving a car versus taking a bus/train, and so you'll need to figure out parking time or waiting time for the bus/train to actually GET THERE.

The difference between us and preindustrial travelers is that 1) we can outsource the calculations now, 2) we often travel for FUN instead of necessity.

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Why is this so specific? Because not everyone in preindustrial times was fit, not everyone was healthy, not everyone was between the ages of 20-35ish, and not everyone had nice clear skies and good terrain to travel on.

If you are too far below 18 years old or too far past 40, at best you will need either a slower pace or more frequent breaks to cover the same distance, and at worst you'll cut the travel distance in half to 10 or so miles. Too much walking is VERY BAD on too-young/old knees, and teenagers or very short adults may just have short legs even if they're fine with 8-10 hours of actual walking. Young children may get sick of walking and pitch a fit because THEY'RE TIREDDDDDDDDDD, and then you might need to stay put while they cry it out, or an adult may sigh and haul them over their shoulder (and therefore be weighed down by about 50lbs of Angry Child).

Heavy forests, wetlands and rocky hills/mountains are also going to be a much shorter "distance" per day. For forests or wetlands, you have to account for a lot of villagers going "who's gonna cut down acres of trees for one road? NOT ME," or "who's gonna drain acres of swamp for one road? NOT ME." Mountainous regions have their traveling time eaten by going UP, or finding a safer path that goes AROUND, so by the time you're done slogging through drier patches of wetlands or squeezing through trees, a deceptively short 10-15 miles in rough terrain might take you a whole day to walk instead of the usual half-day.

If you are traveling in freezing winters or during a rainstorm (and this inherently means you HAVE NO CHOICE, because nobody in preindustrial times would travel in bad weather if they could help it), you run the high risk of losing your way and then dying of exposure or slipping and breaking your neck, just a few miles out of the town/village.

Traveling in TOO-HOT weather is just as bad, because pushing yourself too hard and getting dehydrated at noon in the tropics will literally kill you. It's called heat-STROKE, not "heat-PARTY."

And now for the upper range of "traveling on horseback!"

Fully mounted groups can usually make 30-40 miles per day between Point A and Point B, but I find there are two unspoken requirements: "Point B must have enough food for all those people and horses," and "the mounted party DOESN'T need to keep pace with foot soldiers, camp followers, or supply wagons."

This means your mounted party would be traveling to 1) a rendezvous point like an ally's camp or a noble's castle, or 2) a town/city with plenty of inns. Maybe they're not literally going 30-40 miles in one trip, but they're scouting the area for 15-20 miles and then returning to their main group. Perhaps they'd be going to an allied village, but even a relatively small group of 10-20 warhorses will need 10-20 pounds of grain EACH and 20-30 pounds of hay EACH. 100-400 pounds of grain and 200-600 pounds of hay for the horses alone means that you need to stash supplies at the village beforehand, or the village needs to be a very large/prosperous one to have a guaranteed large surplus of food.

A dead sprint of 50-60 miles per day is possible for a preindustrial mounted pair, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO. Moreover, that is for ONE day. Many articles agree that 40 miles per day is already a hard ride, so 50-60 miles is REALLY pushing the envelope on horse and rider limits.

NOTE: While modern-day endurance rides routinely go for 50-100 miles in one day, remember that a preindustrial rider will not have the medical/logistical support that a modern endurance rider and their horse does.

If you say "they went fifty miles in a day" in most preindustrial times, the horse and rider's bodies will get wrecked. Either the person, their horse, or both, risk dying of exhaustion or getting disabled from the strain.

Whether you and your horse are fit enough to handle it and "only" have several days of defenselessness from severe pain/fatigue (and thus rely on family/friends to help you out), or you die as a heroic sacrifice, or you aren't QUITE fit enough and become disabled, or you get flat-out saved by magic or another rider who volunteers to go the other half, going past 40 miles in a day is a "Gondor Calls For Aid" level of emergency.

As a writer, I feel this kind of feat should be placed VERY carefully in a story: Either at the beginning to kick the plot off, at the climax to turn the tide, or at the end.

Preindustrial people were people--some treated their horses as tools/vehicles, and didn't care if they were killed or disabled by pushing them to their limits, but others very much cared for their horses. They needed to keep them in working condition for about 15-20 years, and they would not dream of doing this without a VERY good reason.

—

UPDATE January 13: Several people have gotten curious and looked at maps, to find out how a lot of cities are indeed spread out at a nice distance of 20-30 miles apart! I love getting people interested in my hyperfixations, lol.

But remember that this is the space between CITIES AND TOWNS. There should never be a 20-mile stretch of empty wilderness between City A and Town B, unless your world explains why folks are able to build a city in the middle of nowhere, or if something has specifically gone wrong to wipe out its supporting villages!

Period pieces often portray a shining city rising from a sea of picturesque empty land, without a single grain field or cow pasture in sight, but that city would starve to death very quickly in preindustrial times.

Why? Because as Bret Devereaux mentions in his “Lonely Cities” article (https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/), preindustrial cities and towns must have nearby villages (and even smaller towns, if large and prosperous enough!) to grow their food for them.

The settlements around a city will usually be scattered a few miles apart from each other, usually clustered along the roads to the city gates. Those villages and towns at the halfway point between cities (say 10-15 miles) are going to be essential stops for older/sick folks, merchants with cargo, and large groups like noble’s retinues and army forces.

Preindustrial armies and large noble retinues usually can’t make it far past 10-12 miles per day, as denoted in my addition to this post. (https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask )

they were confreres in christ

i figured yall would appreciate this photo

original instagram post from vinnikolaus

What you HAVE TO know about your characters

Name:

Appearence:

Age:

Role:

Why the have that role, not based on the plot but based on the characters core beliefs and how that affects the plot:

Beliefs:

Motivations:

Who they were raised to be vs who they are/are becoming:

Plans for the future:

How they feel about themselves and how it affects their behavior:

Why do they even matter:

@judas-redeemed / Wilhelm Schulz, “All Soul’s Day” / Neil Hilborn, “Our Numbered Days” /@petfurniture / Hugo Simberg , “The Garden of Death” / Ramona Ausubel

something something tdph remaster releasing soon

Summer Berry Mix 🍓🫐 ♡⊹˚₊

on dying gently.

tom jenks // perhaps the world ends here by joy harjo //death comes to me again, a girl by dorianne laux // @claypigeonpottery // c s lewis // chasing cars by snow patrol

y'ever get haunted by the fear you will never write anything as beautiful as the US Steel Pipe Works Slag Dump Youtube Comment cuz hoo boy i sure do:

shoutout to you, youtube user mrc109, wherever you may be today

Just vibing bro 🏳️‍⚧️

Another List of "Beautiful" Words

to include in your next poem

Avidulous - somewhat greedy.

Breviloquent - marked by brevity of speech.

Compotation - a drinking or tippling together.

Crimpy - of weather; unpleasant; raw and cold.

Desiderium - an ardent desire or longing; especially, a feeling of loss or grief for something lost.

Dyspathy - lack of sympathy.

Ebriosity - habitual intoxication.

Epitasis - the part of a play developing the main action and leading to the catastrophe.

Fantod - a state of irritability and tension.

Graumangere - a great meal.

Grimoire - a magician's manual for invoking demons and the spirits of the dead.

Hiemal - of or relating to winter.

Illaudable - deserving no praise.

Impluvious - wet with rain.

Innominate - having no name; unnamed; also, “anonymous”.

Juberous - doubtful and hesitating.

Noctilucous - shining at night.

Poetaster - an inferior poet.

Psychrophilic - thriving at a relatively low temperature.

Quiddity - the essential nature or ultimate form of something: what makes something to be the type of thing that it is.

Repullulate - to bud or sprout again.

Retrogradation - a backward movement.

Semiustulate - half burnt or consumed by fire.

Tenebrific - causing gloom or darkness.

Unparadiz’d - brought from joy to miserie.

If any of these words make it into your next poem/story, please tag me. Or leave a link in the replies. I'd love to read them!

beautiful words list pt. 2

the creator.

dark when it gets dark, @yvesolade // sun bleached flies, ethel cain // angels in america, tony kushner // jacob wrestling with the angel, alexandre louis leloir // hannibal // twitter // sun bleached flies, ethel cain // @avainblue // unknown // god the father, jusepe de ribera // american teenager, ethel cain // deaf republic, ilya kominsky // ziptie, julien baker // blasphemies at the 5th street station, sarah osborn // the burial of christ, michelangelo caravaggio // hannibal // the city in which i love you, li-young lee // stephen fry // the madonna del suffragio, salvator rosa // chop suey, system of a down // specimen days, michael cunningham // lisa marie basile // god, john lennon