Test Your Vocab and Feed the World

I randomly decided to consolidate a list of random and unfamiliar words I had been accumulating for a number of years now. Most of these are words culled from books that I have read, and are for the most part words that I was unfamiliar with at the time I encountered them. I realised that a fair few had been jotted down more than once (showing some consistency in my lack of knowledge) though I am embarrassed to say that at one point I was unfamiliar with what a bollard was among other things.

I decided to consolidate the words alphabetically in a new notebook to make things neater and more organized, and I fully intend to continue adding to the list as fascinating new words (or indeed familiar words that I find particularly interesting) come to my attention.

As a sample of the more difficult ones on my list I offer the following: argillaceous, torquemada, oriflamme, ormolu, lachrymose, mountebank, ecchymosis, concatenate, asafoetida, amyloid, brachycephelic, chilbain, clerihews, gnar, jowse and mastaba.

My sister came home to find me compiling the list and promptly directed me to a fascinating site called FreeRice. The concept is wonderfully simple. You are given a word and you have to guess the meaning from four options. For every correct answer, twenty grains of rice is donated to the UN World Food Programme (donated as payment in kind for banner advertising). Your vocab level is tracked as you answer more questions - you get harder words as you get a string of correct answers and easier ones when you get an answer wrong.

The site is quite addictive, particularly if you love words, and the time-wasting is offset by the fact that you know you are doing it for a good cause. Spending time on the site has underlined to me how vocabulary is fundamentally built on roots words and familiar linkages. For example, stentor might initially seem unfamiliar, but thinking of the word stentorian, would help you to choose the option "loud voiced person" as the meaning. Similarly, bacciferous would be puzzling, but remembering that Bacchus was the Greek god of wine would help you to choose "produced from grapes" as the right answer.