Word Workout: Building a Muscular Vocabulary in 10 Easy Steps

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The prefix mis- begins many English words and often means bad, badly, wrong, or wrongly. For example, a misadventure is a bad, unfortunate adventure; misbegotten means badly begotten, poorly or illegally conceived; to misrepresent is to represent wrongly or falsely; and to misuse is to use in the wrong way. A misgiving is by derivation the giving of a bad feeling. Now let's turn to the first of the features that will appear throughout Word Workout after each set of ten keyword discussions. Notice how “workout” here indicates a session of strenuous exercise ( in this case for the brain), and “work out” in this context means to figure out and resolve. Both the adjective consummate and the verb to consummate (KAHN-suh-mayt), to complete, fulfill, come from the Latin consummāre, to complete, form a whole, bring to perfection. You can consummate a business deal, complete it, or consummate a vision or goal, fulfill it. You can also consummate a marriage by having sexual intercourse, which symbolically completes or fulfills the union.

Synonyms of vivacious include frisky, sprightly, animated, vibrant, frolicsome, and effervescent (EF-ur- VES-int). Effervescent comes from the Latin effervescĕre, to boil or foam up, and may mean either literally bubbling or full of bubbles, like soft drinks or champagne, or figuratively bubbling with energy or delight, as effervescent conversation or effervescent music. Garish suggests excessive showiness or unpleasant brightness, and is used of that which tries to attract attention in a loud and tasteless way: garish neon lights; New York City’s garish Times Square; garish modern architecture that confuses ornamentation with style.The adjective consummate is neutral and may imply perfect completion, as consummate happiness, or utter completion, to the utmost degree, as consummate wisdom or consummate stupidity. Consummate may be applied to those who are accomplished or skilled to the highest degree, as a consummate actor or a consummate politician. Or consummate may apply to those who possess a quality or characteristic in the greatest degree, as a consummate fool or a consummate bore. In like manner we can speak of consummate virtue or consummate evil, consummate honesty or consummate hypocrisy.

One of the meanings of the verb to presume is to take undue liberties, or, to take upon oneself without permission or authority. For example, you can presume to know what's good for someone else, presume you can do something better than someone else, or presume to speak when you ought to be silent.

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In elementary school, I was taught to use an before vowels and a before consonants, writes a faithful reader named James. But recently I’ve heard more and more people say an before words beginning with h, in phrases such as an historic event. Is this correct?" One last example: Though it may be a mental workout to decide when to write the two words “work out” versus the single word, “workout,” you now have the tools necessary to work out the right answer every time. All of our vocabulary resources focus on helping kids expand their word base independently. To do this, kids need to develop what educational specialists call word consciousness. This refers to an awareness of words and the relationships between them, and motivation to learn new words. Kids with higher word consciousness are better attuned to nuances such as the difference between the written and spoken word, and why certain words are used in certain contexts instead of others. Introducing rarer words like “extraordinary” instead of “amazing”, or “vile” instead of “nasty” promotes word consciousness. As an avid exercise fan, one of the sets of most commonly confused set of words emerges when deciding whether to use “work out” or “workout” in a sentence. When you assume, you suppose something that is realistic or probable, that is likely to happen or be true: teachers assume that their students will do their homework; employees assume they will be paid. When you presume, you suppose more boldly and confidently, believing or asserting the likelihood or truth of something that may be doubtful or wrong: optimists presume things will always work out for the better; students often presume to know the answer to a teacher's question.