Building a Powerful Vocabulary: New Edition of “Words of the Month”

The latest edition of “Words of the Month,” my free vocabulary enhancement feature, has been online since the beginning of this month. Among the featured words, all of which lie within the conversational vocabulary of America’s most articulate (as is the case with all of the words featured in my book "The Articulate Professional -- 3rd Edition"):

1. statuesque
2. kaleidoscopic
3. paucity
4. wistful
5. attenuate

Here are extracts from some of my favorite examples:

-- a statuesque building in Houston: the 901-feet tall Williams Tower (formerly the Transco Tower)

-- in this picture showing our company’s top five execs, each of them looks statuesquely tall, and I suppose that is because of …

-- a dancer posing statuesquely; an example of a statuesque American actress: the six-feet tall…

-- given the kaleidoscope of shifting information, it’s hard to predict where the hurricane will make landfall

-- last night’s “Charlie Rose” was a kaleidoscope of currently controversial issues

-- kaleidoscopic fall colors; a folk dance becoming a kaleidoscope of colors

-- John Eliot Gardiner saying: “Beethoven’s music is so full of rhythm, and excitement, and kaleidoscopic changes of emotion”

-- the fate of the first President Bush being a perfect example of the voting public’s capriciousness

-- I am pretty capricious when it comes to picking a route to go to work each morning

-- a capricious theater critic; a special attraction of the Seychelles—they are less prone to capricious weather

-- having wistful moments when you wish you had accepted that offer from IBM instead of…

-- I try to avoid thinking or speaking wistfully of the past because life is short and…

-- I kept staring at her because there was such an air of wistfulness about her

-- South Koreans musing wistfully that the two Koreas show no sign of unifying; the wistfulness in Boris Yeltsin’s comments made shortly after the failed Soviet coup

-- it appears that Osama bin Laden’s influence had not attenuated quite as much as….

-- frequent coffee breaks will attenuate the momentum (of the discussion)

-- attenuation of a manager’s autocratic style; hot peppers can attenuate hunger because they contain..; a vaccine that will attenuate the AIDS virus; the attenuated physique of an anorexic; gravel traps being used to attenuate the speed of a car

-- the vast wetlands surrounding New Orleans helping attenuate the destructive force of hurricanes

-- a paucity of strong leadership at the top; a disheartening paucity of creative thinking; blaming the setback on a paucity of knowledge and experience

-- an amazing paucity of information with regard to prevention of cancer

-- apparel shoppers disappointed by the paucity of exciting new designs; parents of school-age children complaining about the paucity of worthwhile programs on television

-- Japan being one of the world’s top five industrial powers despite its paucity of natural resources

© Copyright 2011 V. J. Singal