Word power that made easy

«A new word is not just another pattern of syllables with which to clutter you mind —A new word is a new idea to help you think, to help you understand the thoughts of others, to help you express your own thoughts, to help you live a richer intellectual life.» pg. 141

I immensely enjoyed this book. It is a interesting read on its own, as well as a reference guide and a grammatical aid. It will sit next to my dictionary for a long time and will be used frequently. It is a perfect tool for someone looking to expand their lexicon, whether they be in their teens, twenties, thirties or older. It’s perfect for logophiles and those who are striving to increase their literary education. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in words or their etymology.

Originally reviewed at my blog:
http://jrlovesbooks.blogspot.in/2013/…

I didn’t have any exposure to vocabulary building books before I decided to pick Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis. Why I decided to pick this book is a reason very simple. I saw it in the best sellers list on Flipkart every time I checked the said page on the site. I wanted to see what was so good about the book that made it sell in a bigger quantity than Paulo Coelho’s books (For me he is the author everybody should read. Anyway, we’d discuss that some other time).

To be honest, this was one of the longest books i have read. I am not that used to reading books very big in size. A seven hundred page book is often a mammoth for me. But this was the book that keeps you completely gripped. It leaves you awestruck with the ability of the author to make you learn new words and with your own self learning them.

I always wondered what vocabulary building books would be like. Probably a lot of preaching and a bazillion words in a list that you are supposed to memorise kind of thing was what my imagination suggested. But Word Power Made Easy was nothing at all like that.

Norman Lewis interacts with you. He tells you stories, the histories, jokes with you, is sarcastic of several things, supporting many, and giving you wonderfully superb pieces of advice that you love to take. It is no preaching. It is a friendly relationship with the reader and making him learn many, many useful things.

The idea that Norman Lewis upholds in the entire book is “No Learning Words. But Learning the Ideas Behind the Words.” It is quite hard to guess what exactly he means by that initially, but as you leaf through the masterpiece, you realise that it is the ideas that you need to build your vocabulary, not a list of words.

Norman Lewis exposes to us the world we would never have given a thought about, normally. If there’s a word we use, how did it come to existence, and from where. Lewis tells us the stories behind innumerable words which are hard to forget. You might have a faulty memory about remembering words, but the idea stays with you and so does the word.

I still remember many stories about the words that Norman Lewis tells us, and it still brings back the scintillating memories that I’d get while reading them.

This ‘idea behind the word’ is Norman Lewis’ weapon to make you remember the words you have never heard of before. And the idea of the ideas simply rocks. Also, the way he puts them, is exceptionally witty and it compels you to fall in love with Lewis’ sense of humour. I haven’t smiled as much reading any book as I have smiled while reading this one.

Trust me, it is a treat to read this book.

One of my favourite ones is this, from the segment: How to Talk about Various Speech Habits:

Saying little – meaning much

There is an anecdote about Calvin Coolidge, who, when he was the president of USA, was often called (though probably not to his face) ‘Silent Cal’.
A Young newspaper woman was sitting next to him at a banquet, so the story goes, and turned to him mischievously.
“Mr. Coolidge,” she said, “I have a bet with my editor that I can get you to say more than two words to me this evening.”
“You lose,” Coolidge rejoined simply.

The adjective: laconic.

I would highly recommend this to everybody who loves words or wants to add to his vocabulary. This is certainly the best book you would find of its kinds out there.

An excellent book on improving your vocabulary. I’ve just bought another one recently, ‘1500 words in 15 minutes at day’, and haven’t started it to see how they compare. ‘Word Power made easy’ was broken up into categories based on what you might require. Each category revolved around a central theme which helped to hold everything together when learning.
Apart from introducing new words, defining them and using them with other inter-connected words, there were also useful information on the origins of words, the roots, prefixes and suffixes which went a long way to learning and using the words.
This was a great book and I will definitely purchase a new copy since I don’t have it with me.
Word Power Made Easy

Norman Lewis knows how to teach vocabulary in a way that helps new words stick. In Word Power Made Easy, he does this in several ways:

1. New words are divided into thematic chapters that make it easy to draw connections between the words.

Some chapters are straightforward and closely connected, like «How to Talk About Doctors» or «How to Talk About Science and Scientists.» Others are based on a part of speech, like verbs, as in «How to Talk About Actions» and «How to Talk About What Goes On.» And some are just plain fun, like «How to Talk About Liars and Lying,» «How to Insult Your Enemies,» and «How to Flatter Your Friends.»

2. He uses etymology as the scaffold to help build a knowledge of many related words simultaneously.

After introducing the basic words for each section, he discusses the word’s roots and teaches many words with the same origin. It makes it easy to remember the new words’ relationships to each other. My two favorite etymologies were both words derived from the Greek root phanein, to show. The first, the word sycophant, also derives from Greek sykon, a fig, and literally means a «fig-shower.» As the book explains, «When a fellow wants to get a good mark, he may polish up an apple and place it on a teacher’s desk; his classmates call such a lad an apple-shiner. Less complimentary localities use the term bootlicker.» Now when I think of sycophant, I picture a Greek schoolboy with a fig, and the word has stuck. The second, the word diaphanous, uses phanein, to show, with dia-, which means through. Thus, something that is diaphanous shows through, or is practically transparent.

3. All words are reviewed multiple times in exercises throughout the book that use a variety of ways to measure recall and understanding.

You can’t get by with merely memorizing a definition for many of the exercises. You really have to comprehend the word and its relation to its synonyms and antonyms.

I just completed this book as part of homeschool high school English for my two oldest daughters. I will use it again with all my six children, as I rate it first among all vocabulary-building books we have ever used.

This is one of the better vocabulary builders that you are ever likely to find. Instead of being banal and boring, the book approaches vocabulary building with an entirely different approach. It introduces a word and consequently its root, and then builds up a luxuriant number of words over the same and hence acquaints you with them in no time. The book also focuses a lot on revision of the words and this is what makes it a complete vocabulary book. And the very fact that this is the most coveted book in its regard, obviates the very prospect of me claiming it to be the best. Its a true value for money book and gives you much more than what you spend on it..

آیا وقتی اسم کتاب ۵۰۴ یا ۱۱۰۰ یا … رو میشنوید (مثل من) حالت تهوع بهتون دست میده؟

کافیست دل به این کتاب بدین تا یه جوری بهتون لغات انگلیسی رو با ریشه‌هاشون یاد بده که اصلا لغت یادگرفتن براتون یه کار لذت‌بخش بشه.😂

قطعا خوندنش یه تجربه‌ی جدید از یادگرفتن لغت انگلیسیه.

A wonderful book!! Bible to those who want to learn vocab!! Its more of an exercise oriented than theory!! A very good experience!! After completing the book, I felt very confident in replacing many words with its thesaurus!!

I recommend for everyone to go through this and practice well for improving your language!!

Did this while preparing for my GRE and it was very much helpful!!

The best way to enrich and expand your vocabulary is to read voraciously and extensively. The second best way is to read this book.

The approach the book takes to teach you new words is to explain their etymology and then to make you work with them. Making the reader work with the words goes a long way in helping remember the words. That way you don’t have to make great efforts by yourself to memorize them.

I found it really interesting to learn the sometimes strange and quirky origin of a lot of words. It made me realize that words are not just simple associations of meanings with sounds. They are much more — they are pieces of history living among us. Studying etymology often provides us a look at how people did things and thought about phenomena in the past. For example, did you know that the name George literally means a land-worker (geo + ergon). Or that sycophants are called so because they were originally fig-showers [(fig : sykon) + (show : phanein)], people who informed the authorities (to gain their favor) when figs were being stolen from the sacred groves or when fig-dealers were dodging the tariff.

The author’s light-hearted, often humorous style adds to the enjoyability of this book and makes reading it a wonderful experience.

This book by Norman Lewis is the first step for a scholar to start the journey of building a good vocabulary. New words are explained with easy steps and the exercises in the end of each chapter help the reader to test himself before moving further.

This was the first book I picked with the sole intention of learning some new words for the sake of it.

An excellent book for english language beginners.I can’t even think of any other book for vocabulary.

READ THIS!!! great for enhancing vocabulary and etymology skills

It is a book about how to improve your vocabulary and it does so in a very different manner. A short anecdote is attached with each words. As written in the books every word is associated with an idea. By learning new words, we are expanding our horizon of knowledge. The explanation of each words with their corresponding origins help the readers to engulf the words very conveniently. I think every one should give this book a read.

This is a great book for building vocabulary. A must-have for students preparing for competitive exams which test language skills. This book is easy to read and is divided into a number of sections which test your vocabulary as well as grammar. Also has a wide range of Synonyms, Antonyms, Paronyms, Idioms and special phrases. The comprehensive tests given in the book are a tad bit difficult but if you read the book thoroughly, you will be able to solve them.
Grab a copy soon if you want to improve your spoken as well as written English.

One of the best textbooks I’ve ever read.

A hardcore book, not for beginners…. But honestly, I don’t remember I have ever read such an informative English learning books as this. Try it your own.

This has got to be one if the most rewarding books I’ve ever finished.

This book is a vocabulary builder and I honestly thought it was going to be a boring, long endured effort to get through it. However, I found it highly engaging with little stories and passages along the way, as well as explanations about the Latin and Greek roots of certain English words.

Throughout the book the author explains an idea then gives you the word to explain that idea afterwards. With just enough repetition for you to learn but not too much for it to get boring. Every third lesson or so explores the Latin and Greek roots of the words you are learning to help you better learn the etymology. This means that you can figure out the meanings of words you have never seen before by understanding these roots. The book also contains quizzes, reviews and tests along the way to make sure you are retaining what you are learning.

I was surprised at my ability to retain so much of what I was learning but I think it is due to the design of the book as well as the reviews and tests throughout the book. Psychology says the best way to learn information is to test yourself on the material instead of just rereading it, and I find this suggestion invaluable.

I can’t talk highly enough of this book and recommend it to anyone who wants to really grasp the English language, or to anyone who wants the ability to express themselves more fully and fluently.

Worthy book to improve the vocabulary

Great book for to build one’s vocabulary , It provides reader with a Idea related to a word , a memoir related to that word so that person could attach to that and word remained instilled in his/her mind . It tells the origin and relation of words like ‘Bibliophile’ , Its made from Latin word biblio for books and Latin verb philein , to write . It guides about a society of words «like words to insult one’s enemy’ or ‘word’s to talk about people’ or ‘words to talk about doctors’ etc . One can become a amateur etymologist too which would a great in figuring out meaning of words with whom one ain’t familiar with.

I wish I would have got this book earlier. Very unique approach to learn new words using etymology. There are some session in between each modules which are also very helpful (Like grammar, spelling checking, understanding of your etymology etc). I recommend this book to everyone to make their English very fruitful.

A nice way of expanding the vocabulary, with friendly tone and activities that actually help.

It’s a treasure of knowledge about English vocabulary and improved my vocabulary exponentially.

Best book ever for learning english for native English speakers, and beginners alike. Period.
The author explains the roots in a way you’re sure to remember long after you finish reading (years and years!).

It wasn’t that enjoyable when I was reading it. But looking back, I actually learned a lot. This book taught me so much about the English language, and as someone who has English as their second language, it clarified a lot of things and made me see patterns that I have never noticed before. The only thing I want to say about this book is that I think it should be called «Word power made hard» because it was pretty hard, and I already forgot many things they talked about in the book (because it was very long). So I guess I should consider reading it again.

Excellent book to understand the origin of words and make you see a pattern! Super useful!

I enjoyed reading this from the very first pages till the end. I wanted to read something that would help me become fluent in English and this was a big step for me or so I think!

It is one of the best book to learn vocabulary for competitive exams or for improving your English and i would like to recommend all just go through this book to gain some edge in English and i found this book is so engaging and interesting so i also made a whole series of videos on it.
If you just checkout 👇there then thankyou!
Exammarathon- https://youtu.be/fRbrGhggMkw

My fav quotes (not a review):
-Page 140 «The root psyche combines with Greek soma, body, to form psychosomatic (sī′-kō-sƏ-MAT′-ik), an adjective that delineates the powerful influence that the mind, especially the unconscious, has on bodily diseases. Thus, a person who fears the consequence of being present at a certain meeting will suddenly develop a bad cold or backache, or even be injured in a traffic accident, so that his appearance at this meeting is made impossible. It’s a real cold»
-Page 141 «In your sessions with your therapist, you discover that your asthma is emotionally, rather than organically, based—your ailment is psychogenic (sī′-kō-JEN′-ik), of psychic origin, or (the terms are used more or less interchangeably although they differ somewhat in definition) psychosomatic, resulting from the interaction of mind and body. (Psychogenic is built on psyche plus Greek genesis, birth or origin.)»
-Page 151 «Chiropractors heal with their hands—the specialty is chiropractic (kī′-rō-PRAK′-tik). Cheir (chiro-), hand»
-Page 151 «mancy comes from a Greek word meaning foretelling or prediction,»
-Page 191 «Disaster (dƏ-ZAS′-tƏr) and disastrous (dƏ-ZAS′-trƏs) also come from astron, star.»
-Page 191 «Nomos, arrangement, law, or order, is found in two other interesting English words. For example, if you can make your own laws for yourself, if you needn’t answer to anyone else for what you do, in short, if you are independent, then you enjoy autonomy»
-Page 206 «Flies, bees, beetles, wasps, and other insects are segmented creatures—head, thorax, and abdomen. Where these parts join, there appears to the imaginative eye a “cutting in” of the body. Hence the branch of zoology dealing with insects is aptly named entomology, from Greek en-, in, plus tome, a cutting. The adjective is entomological (en′-tƏ-mƏ-LOJ′-Ə-kƏl). (The word insect makes the same point—it is built on Latin in- in, plus sectus, a form of the verb meaning to cut.) The prefix ec-, from Greek ek-, means out. (The Latin prefix, you will recall, is ex-.) Combine ec- with tome to derive the words for surgical procedures in which parts are “cut out,” or removed: tonsillectomy (the tonsils), appendectomy (the appendix), mastectomy (the breast), hysterectomy (the uterus), prostatectomy (the prostate), etc.»
-Page 206 «eccentric (Ək-SEN′-trik)—out of the center,»
-Page 207 «The Greek prefix a- makes a root negative; the atom (AT′-Əm) was so named at a time when it was considered the smallest possible particle of an element, that is, one that could not be cut any further.»
-Page 208 «Imagine a book, a complicated or massive report, or some other elaborate document—now figuratively cut on or through it so that you can get to its essence, the very heart of the idea contained in it. What you have is an epitome (Ə-PIT′-Ə-mee), a condensation of the whole. (From epi-, on, upon, plus tome.)»
-Page 209 «Ə-LAN′-dƏr-Ər). By etymology, philosophy is the love of wisdom (Greek sophos, wise); Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love (Greek adelphos, brother); philharmonic is the love of music or harmony (Greek harmonia, harmony); and a philter, a rarely used word, is a love potion.»
-Page 228 «The Fifty-Minute Hour, by Robert Lindner»
-Page 229 «Companion itself has an interesting etymology—Latin com-, with, plus panis, bread. If you are social, you enjoy breaking bread with companions. Pantry also comes from panis,»
-Page 246 «The top of a mountain is called, as you know, the summit, a word derived from Latin summus, highest, which also gives us the mathematical term sum, as in addition. A consummate artist has reached the very highest point of perfection; and to consummate (KAHN′-sƏ-mƏt) a marriage, a business deal, or a contract is, etymologically, to bring it to the highest point; that is, to put the final touches to it, to bring it to completion.»
-Page 259 «Pathos occurs in some English words with the additional meaning of feeling. If you feel or suffer with someone, you are sympathetic (sim-pƏ-THET′-ik)—sym- is a respelling before the letter p of the Greek prefix syn-, with or together. The noun is sympathy (SIM′-pƏ-thee), the verb sympathize»
-Page 270 «Unconscionable and conscience are related in derivation—the first word from Latin scio, to know, the second from Latin sciens, knowing,»
-Page 272 «Latin grex, gregis, herd or flock.»
-Page 279 «congregation, 6–aggregate or aggregation, 7–segregate,»
-Page 280 «congregate»
-Page 279 «gregarious,»
-Page 301 «Anyway Harry didn’t accomplish a thing—he was just a victim of good fortune. What were the apologists for Dewey’s failure doing? They were disparaging Truman’s achievement.»
-Page 312 «mugwumps;»
-Page 321 «libra, balance, weight, pound, hence “equal balance.” Libra (LĪ′-brƏ) is the seventh sign of the zodiac, represented by a pair of scales. Now you know, in case the question has been bothering you, why the abbreviation for the word pound is lb. and why the symbol for the British pound, the monetary unit, is £.»
-Page 333 «Alexander Woolcott once remarked, if something is pleasurable, it’s sure to be either immoral, illegal, or fattening. The derivation is the prefix pro-, before, plus scribo, scriptus, to write.»
-Page 335 «Surprisingly, via, road, is the root in the English word trivial (tri-, three). Where three roads intersect, you are likely to find busy traffic, lots of people, in short a fairly public place, so you are not going to talk of important or confidential matters, lest you be overheard. You will, instead, talk of trivial (TRIV′-ee-Əl) things—whatever is unimportant, without great significance; you will confine your conversation to trivialities»
-Page 350 «addiction, etymologically “a saying to or toward,” or the compulsion to say “yes” to a habit, combines dico with ad-, to, toward.»
-Page 350 «Facio, factus, to do or make»
-Page 350 «manufacture, to make by hand (manus, hand, as in manuscript, manual),»
-Page 350 «Volo, to wish, to will, to be willing (as in malevolent, benevolent), occurs in voluntary, involuntary, volunteer,»
-Page 353 «Condone is built on Latin dono, to give, the root found in donor, one who gives; donate, to give; and donation, a gift.»

Summary:
Manu of manufacture, manuscript- to make by hand
volo of voluntary- to will
dono of condone- donate
libra, pound (lb)- balance
ad of addiction – toward
via of trivial- road
facio- to make
Scio of conscience- knowing
Summus of summit, consummate and sum- highest
Pathos of sympathise and pathology- feeling
Nomos of autonomy- arrangement, law
Panis- bread
Soma- body
genes- origin
chiro- hand
mancy- prediction,»
Disaster~ astron- star.»
Sectom of insect- cut (also tome and tomy of tonsillectomy)

A must read for each one of us.

Once you understand the roots, you can never forget the meaning of even the most difficult words.

The whole book is divided into various sessions. These sessions have ideas, origins and related words with exercises. After each session, if you have been attentive, there isn’t a chance to forget the meanings of the words from that session. I am in love with the perspicacity of the book!

I urge you all read this..This would really enrich your vocabulary and your pronunciations.

Happy reading..