Post: #1

When you come across words that you don't know do you more often look up the particular word or do you just make an assumption on the meaning based on the rest of sentence? I usually look the word up unless it's easy to assume what the author meant. Looking up big words all the time gets really time consuming especially if the author pack the sentences with a bunch of big, fancy, SAT words.

I'm reading "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" and he has so many words that I don't know in the book. It's pissing me off!

This thread is mostly out of curiosity than it is advice-seeking. I would like to know how you guys deal with this issue or if you guys can relate to the situation. I feel like some of you Europe based members have a bigger vocabulary than me and it's weird.

Post: #2

Best part is when you begin to see the word everywhere. Do you know of Baader-Meinhof?

Post: #3

I don't know what Baadder-Meinhof is, but I'm about to google it.

Post: #4

It's really annoying, but more so in languages, in my opinion.

Maybe you could go through the book, skimming for words you don't know. Write a list. Learn the definitions. Write sentences with them. Then read the book.

By the end, you've gained a larger vocabulary, and probably had a more pleasant experience reading the book.

G

Post: #5

Best part of having a Kindle Fire is that if I dont know a word, I just highlight it and a dictionary.com bubble pops up with the definition. Otherwise I would look it up online.

Post: #6

Look it up.

It brings to mind a conversation I overheard:

A: Hey, I thought I had a huge vocabulary, but I'm always having to look up words when I read.
B: And that's why you have a huge vocabulary.
A: Ohh..

Mental masturbation aside, the above can be applied to lots of situations we are familiar with. E.g. Those who get laid the most have been rejected the most, or some other variant of success coming after learning through a perceived failure.

Post: #7

Just like I tell my elementary students, look at the context to try to determine the meaning. Even if you do end up looking the word up, you will be more likely to remember it if you have already made some effort to determine the meaning yourself using context clues.

Post: #8

Always look it up, even if you forget the meaning later. Kindle works like a charm for this, if you find a word, look it up with the built in dictionaries. Takes less than 2 seconds.

Post: #9

My phone is always sitting on the arm of my couch when I'm reading. It only takes me a few seconds to Google the word. I take a minute to replay the word in my head and comprehend its meaning. Then I notice it for the next few weeks in random settings.

Post: #10

I have a better question - what do you do when you finish shitting in a toilet and realize that there is no paper?!

Just out of curiosity of course.

Post: #11

It's not so much in books as in music for me.
Whenever I listen to an album by Bad Religion I have to break out the dictionary to look up certain words/phrases. To date there hasn't been one I haven't had to do it for.
A good example would be 'incongruous insistence.'
I re-listen every once in a while so it sticks in my mind through repeated exposure.

Post: #12

(12-09-2014 07:06 PM)Virtus Wrote:  Best part is when you begin to see the word everywhere. Do you know of Baader-Meinhof?

I knew it had something to do with a militant group in Germany and that there is a German film that has "Baader-Meinhof" in the title.

I googled and here is what I found:

"Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information--often an unfamiliar word or name--and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase "That's so weird, I just heard about that the other day" would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.

The reason for this is our brains' prejudice towards patterns. Our brains are fantastic pattern recognition engines, a characteristic which is highly useful for learning, but it does cause the brain to lend excessive importance to unremarkable events."

Pretty interesting. How it gained its name:

"How the phenomenon came to be known as "Baader-Meinhof" is uncertain. It seems likely that some individual learned of the existence of the historic German urban guerrilla group which went by that name, and then heard the name again soon afterwards."

As far as the original post, I tend to look up the word on my phone, then circle the word in the book and write an abbreviated definition/synonym in the margins.

I have quite an intense reading style, frequently marking in the margins and highlighting/underlining key points.

I took a class that used Mortimer Adler's (author of How to Read a Book) How to Mark a Book as a model for how to converse with an author.

Post: #13

There is no shame in looking up a word you don't know. It means you are learning.

If you want to keep reading, it can be helpful to assume the meaning, and keep the flow of your reading going.

I find it more useful to stop in these instances when doing academic or work related reading, otherwise I continue and look it up later.

Post: #14

I occasionally proofread sci-fi and fantasy books, and they're full of words I don't know. I learned "cislunar" the other day, for example. Thought it had something to do with feminist menstruation or something. (It doesn't.)

Every time you look up a word, you get smarter. Maybe not much smarter, but you still get smarter.

Post: #15

(12-10-2014 03:56 PM)Lucky Wrote:  

(12-09-2014 07:06 PM)Virtus Wrote:  Best part is when you begin to see the word everywhere. Do you know of Baader-Meinhof?

I knew it had something to do with a militant group in Germany and that there is a German film that has "Baader-Meinhof" in the title.

I googled and here is what I found:

"Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information--often an unfamiliar word or name--and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase "That's so weird, I just heard about that the other day" would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.

The reason for this is our brains' prejudice towards patterns. Our brains are fantastic pattern recognition engines, a characteristic which is highly useful for learning, but it does cause the brain to lend excessive importance to unremarkable events."

Pretty interesting. How it gained its name:

"How the phenomenon came to be known as "Baader-Meinhof" is uncertain. It seems likely that some individual learned of the existence of the historic German urban guerrilla group which went by that name, and then heard the name again soon afterwards."

As far as the original post, I tend to look up the word on my phone, then circle the word in the book and write an abbreviated definition/synonym in the margins.

I have quite an intense reading style, frequently marking in the margins and highlighting/underlining key points.

I took a class that used Mortimer Adler's (author of How to Read a Book) How to Mark a Book as a model for how to converse with an author.

Post: #16

If the writer is good, you should be able to glean the meaning using only context clues and/or inference.

Re: looking up while reading, like Lizard King said, it kinda disrupts my rhythm so I have read the paragraph from the beginning. As long as you figure our the word you're fine.

To add to SamuelB's post, ficition is great for building your vocab organically...I read nothing from Steven King, Chricton, and Thomas Harris books in primary school and was reading on a 12th grade level by grade 8.

Post: #17

The Kindle really is the truth.... I'll go through phases where I don't read books on Kindle, but still keep the it nearby because it's faster to look up words on the Kindle than in the regular dictionary. I used to look them up in the regular dictionary and it was kind of a pain in the ass and would disrupt the reading flow, but staying vigilant about looking up words you don't know is totally worth it. Worth it for yourself, of course, but also because by consistently reading challenging stuff and looking up words you don't know, you'll be better read and have a better vocabulary than 95% of the population.