Page 48 - Effective communication Skills by Dale King

While these words rolled off the poet’s tongue, the ones listening would be

transported through their luxurious metaphors and rich phrases. Once the
meeting broke up, they would take those images and words with them to
relish and meditate with. The way they understood the usage of words would
expand with their imaginations.

Use Extremely Vivid Language

To a writer, words are our tools and they give us the flexibility to express

thoughts, tell stories, and impress the neighbors. My father was always an
avid reader and was always reading to me as a child, and he made sure we
had a vase vocabulary. But during the time after I had children, my
vocabulary became a bit stunted. I was used to saying things like: “Do you
want cereal?”

When I found out that my parents were coming for a visit, I would speak in
multi-syllabic words to my children. I would say things like: “We have to

impress your pater familias with the extensive vocabulary you have mastered
while they’ve been gone.”

My best friend and I spent an afternoon using her daughter’s vocabulary
words in sentences while the children sat around with their mouths opened in
surprise. “This is the way you use sublime in sentences.”

Read Harder Books

I love borrowing books from my friend because they underline words they
don’t know, look them up, and will write the definitions in the margins. I will

just read over words that I don’t know and try to figure out what they mean
from clues in the sentence. I will then add it to my working vocabulary when
I can.

I can remember the day when my school teacher gave us permission to go to
the older children’s section to check out books. She told us: “I think you are
old enough to handle some larger words.” Most of us hurriedly went to the

older children’s section. I stood in awe just looking at the vast choices before
me. These books were bigger with the print smaller and longer words were
sitting on the pages. There were syllables I had to sound out, meanings I had
to decipher, and yes, my vocabulary increased considerably.