Since the time I was a tot I have been acquiring and storing up words only to let them spill out. I’ve dipped my toes in word pools from many sources: books, school, television, Campfire Girls, the kids who hung out in the back of the school bus. I was entranced with the notion that different jobs had their own vernacular especially that of short order cooks, the military, and business. It surprised me that a word had different meanings depending on where it was being used. One of my first jobs as an adult was typing from taped dictation for a university dean. I constantly had the dictionary by my side, trying to decipher what I thought I heard him say. I feared that I’d always seem a country rube to this academician. I guess he felt the same. I lasted about three weeks in that position before I was let go.

I never let go of words though; even some of the words Dean Dickson used, like auger. OOPS! I mean agar. I guess my wrong word in his opening speech of the school year to the faculty didn’t agar well for my chances of a long career with the dean.

Last year I discovered the 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know list and realized that I didn’t know all of the words as thoroughly as I wished. So to remedy the situation, I’ve been writing about one of the words each week. I’m about half way through the list. It’s been fun and I’ve learned a lot. My renewed interest in words has spurred me to start writing down all of the words I encounter in daily life, books and song lyrics that I don’t know and look them up. I’m compiling my own lexicon in a way and the more I see these words, the more I use them. A funny thing happens when I take the time to look up my new friends; I start to see them on the street, talked about in the news and in other books. I recently discovered a new list; 100 Words that make you sound smart. I actually use these words a good deal more than the other list. I’ve decided I’ll write 100 short stories and each one will have one of the listed words slipped in somewhere.