CORRELATION

In case you’re counting, I’m at word 12 in the old thesaurus… check out older posts to see what I’m doing.

I need to improve my correlation, or do I? I used this word in relation to reciprocate. And no, it makes no sense at all, does it?

food for thought: “We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.”—Shaw

 Have you gotten the idea that when I’m clueless as to how to draw something related to the word, I color the word or a word that’s related? And you also can see just how bad my vocabulary and use of words are… yikes. I'm striving for progress and improvement, not perfection. Good thing.

New Words

One of my critique buddies scribbled "sounds trite” on my piece. I was too embarrassed to say, “What’s trite?” I sort of understood what the word meant, but I wanted a better understanding so I wouldn’t be trite again. I got up and pulled the dictionary off the bookshelf. Okay, I didn’t. I wanted to. I like books better than the computer, but instead I opened up the laptop, searched the Internet for dictionary.com. These are the things I love about the Internet. Information at your fingertips. I don’t utilize the Internet as much as I could for the very reason, I’d never get anything accomplished, other than stuffing my already full brain with more info. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Trite: lacking in freshness, archaic, rubbed or worn by use. Hackneyed; dull

synonym: ordinary

antonym: original

Okay, it’s worse than I thought. I don’t want to be ordinary and dull in my writing. Now I have to admit, I didn’t know the meaning of hackneyed either, which I want to pronounce: hack-an-eyed (sounds like something my mom would have said when frustrated with her sewing: "Oh hack-an-eyed!") but it’s hack-need, I know. And the meaning of hackneyed: made commonplace.

When I’m reading a page-turner book and come across a word I’m not quite sure the meaning or simply haven't heard before, I am too lazy to get the dictionary. I want to keep on reading. I say to myself, “Oh, I’ll go back and look that up later.” I also get the jest of the meaning based on the sentence. And as you’ve seen by what I did looking up trite, it leads to looking up another word. I’d spend all day with my nose in the dictionary.

That is a poor decision on my part—not looking up the meaning of words—and it’s no wonder my vocabulary stinks.

Now that I’m going to school for Web Development, I MUST know certain words. Some of these words aren’t exclusive to programming. These are words one should know anyway… like integer. Integer means whole number. Seems most folks know that, but I didn’t. I thought it was a programming term and wondered why that couldn’t just say whole number.

I’d like to excuse myself for not knowing integer because: A) I’m not good in Math, more so Algebra and beyond. [Ah, not really an excuse]; B) I only know basic Math [Well, there are whole numbers involved in basic Math, but I never knew integer.]; C) The last Math class that I had in 9^th grade, I was more worried about a girl in there who frightened me. And D) That Math teacher had the personality of a soap dish [and that might be giving him a little more than he deserves]; Oh and don’t forget: E) That was all the Math requirement needed to graduate from high school. [Having no real guidance, that was it for me for Math.]

Since I’m lacking in my writing due to learning coding, maybe I’ll pick a random word from the dictionary and blog about it. Increase my vocabulary and get a little writing accomplished.

What about you? Do you look up words when you’re reading?

More on the Power of Words

Dear Mom,

I was reading this silly book called Six Word Memoirs, where you use six words to sum up your life or something. My brain started tossing around words and in light of this blog I came up with, “You’re bad luck.” I believed it.

I’ll never forget that day. Ruthie and I were playing in the hallway. You had gotten up from the living room and stood at the doorway and said, “Lynn, are you going to bring me bad luck every 11 years?” It was my birthday, a Friday the Thirteenth. I had no idea how to answer that.

I still wonder if you meant it, and why you would feel that way. Those words affected me for the longest time, feeling responsible for your death in some way. Especially after I had prayed for God to take you to heaven so you wouldn’t suffer. Prayed to God. Mother did die.

My mind travels. You had appendicitis when I was born on Friday the Thirteenth, and was told we almost died. I wondered if you thought of me as some evil demon. Or maybe you had an out-of-body experience that scared you so much, it felt safer to blame me. Or maybe you were not really aware of what you were saying.

I know in my heart it’s not true, now.

I’ve tried watching my words when talking to my children. No doubt I have slipped up because who knows what affects others, really. But I still try to be careful.

No matter what, good will come.

The Power of Words

Dear Mom,

Monday night we had Norm’s son Todd and his three children (the grandchildren), Jack, Lucas and Lily over for their birthdays. Jack turned 12, and Lily & Lucas (twins) turned 8. They wanted meatloaf and mashed potatoes; I added corn to the menu. Lucas wanted to say a prayer before dinner. He started, “Dear God, thank you for all our food and drinks. Thank you for my family. Thank you for the table and chairs. Thank you for clothes and toys and….” He continued on and I wondered whether it was ever going to end. Not that I minded because he sounded so cute, but I didn’t want the food to get cold. I sat there with my eyes closed listening, and then I peeked out of one eye to look at Lucas. His head was down, his hands folded and he looked adorable. "And thank you for mashed potatoes and thank you for the meatloaf.” He paused slightly and I wanted to say, “Whew, finally.” But thank goodness I kept my mouth shut because Lucas then whispered, “Because Grandma’s meatloaf is very, very good.” Look what I would have missed had I opened my mouth. Now how does that not touch your heart?

Here's a picture of the little stinker.