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077 Vexed by Your Bankrupt Vocabulary? Listen to This

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Previous Episode:076 Why Writers Need to Develop a Sense of Humor More Episodes Next Episode:078 Six Storytelling Lessons from a Famous Urban Legend

All Episodes:

October 21, 2015

102 The Beautiful Message Joseph Campbell Was Really Trying to Tell Us

October 8, 2015

101 The Greatest Storytelling Guide This Side of Saturn

September 1, 2015

100 The Episode That Explains the Future of Rough Draft

August 31, 2015

099 A Better Way to Find Big Ideas (That Make You Stand Out)

August 27, 2015

098 How to Grab Great Ideas (Without Using Your Hands)

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097 The Problem with the ‘Hell-For-Leather’ Writing Movement

August 25, 2015

096 Why These Famous Time-Management Techniques Are Ruining Your Productivity

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095 Freaking Out Over the Thought of Writing a First Draft? Try Scaffolding

August 20, 2015

094 How to Avoid Obscurity by Misusing Language

August 19, 2015

093 A Creative Email Trick for Becoming a Plain Spoken Writer

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092 Let This Stupid Machine Read Your Copy Out Loud

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091 This Free App Will Help You Write Bold and Clear Copy

August 13, 2015

090 Four Writing Lessons I Learned from This Depressing Music Project

August 12, 2015

089 The Clear-Copy Rule of Writing for the Web

August 11, 2015

088 Three Ways Writers Must Adjust in a World Dominated by Social Media

August 10, 2015

087 How This Social Media Thing Kicked Web Writing Right in the Feels

August 6, 2015

086 An Elegant Story on Outsmarting Career Obsolescence

August 5, 2015

085 Raise the Stakes! 13 Writing Ideas That Really Work

August 4, 2015

084 The Two Things That Make a Dull Product Irresistible

August 3, 2015

083 Proof That Stories Can Increase the Value of Even ‘Worthless’ Items

July 30, 2015

082 Could Podcasting Make You a Better Writer?

July 29, 2015

081 When Do You Abandon the Editing Process?

July 28, 2015

080 Four Ways to Get Attention by Rocking the Boat

July 27, 2015

079 A Brief Introduction to the Art of Catching Hell

July 23, 2015

078 Six Storytelling Lessons from a Famous Urban Legend

July 22, 2015

077 Vexed by Your Bankrupt Vocabulary? Listen to This

July 21, 2015

076 Why Writers Need to Develop a Sense of Humor

July 20, 2015

075 Listener Challenge: Could You Read 100 Books in a Year?

July 16, 2015

074 How to Get Massive Attention with a ‘High-Concept Pitch’

July 15, 2015

073 A Lesson in Swagger from a Wooden-Legged Civil War Soldier

July 14, 2015

072 Six Ways to Becoming a Completely Original Writer

July 13, 2015

071 The Oldest Writing Trick in The Book

July 9, 2015

070 Eight Things Every Writer Should Know about Landing Pages

July 8, 2015

069 The Fascinating Truth about Boring Topics

July 7, 2015

068 How to Craft an About Page That People Actually Read and Share

July 6, 2015

067 The Psychology Behind Winning Email Subject Lines

July 2, 2015

066 All Great Writing Boils Down to These Four Emotional Appeals

July 1, 2015

065 A Mildly Spooky Illustration of “Reason Why” Copy

June 30, 2015

064 A Mild Warning for All Headline Writers

June 29, 2015

063 How Every Creative Must Think about Marketing and Advertising

June 25, 2015

062 Do Millennials (Really) Hate Long Copy?

June 24, 2015

061 These 4 Sales Principles Can Improve Anyone’s Writing

June 23, 2015

060 How to Use the 5 Stages of Audience Awareness to Dominate Online

June 22, 2015

059 Why The Most Hated Headline Structures Work So Well

June 18, 2015

058 This is the Most Fun You’ll Ever Have “Explaining the Mechanism” …

June 17, 2015

057 The Doomsday Cult School of Specificity

June 16, 2015

056 How to Sweep Away Skepticism with a Dramatic Demonstration

June 15, 2015

055 Meet the Tragic Poster Boy for the Emotional Brain

June 11, 2015

054 A Straightforward Research Method for Finding a Potent Hook

June 10, 2015

053 What You Don’t Know about Your Product Can Kill Your Copy

June 9, 2015

052 Three New Ways to Write a Headline (and When to Use Each)

June 8, 2015

051 Want Copy That Actually Works? Start with Mass Desire

June 4, 2015

050 The Curious Secret to Building Trust and Credibility

June 3, 2015

049 My Second Most Favorite Copywriting Formula in the World!

June 2, 2015

048 How to Get Lazy People to Care about Your Ideas

June 1, 2015

047 My Favorite Copywriting Formula … Ever!

May 29, 2015

046 How to (Rapidly) Build an Audience with Content Syndication

May 28, 2015

045 Solve Your Online Proofreading Problems With This Simple Trick

May 27, 2015

044 The Profanity Princess on Finding Your Voice

May 26, 2015

043 The Oddest Story About Overcoming Obscurity You’ll Ever Hear

May 21, 2015

042 10 Odd Books That Will Improve Your Writing

May 20, 2015

041 How to Read a Book in 2 Hours

May 19, 2015

040 The Shocking Way to Master Any Book

May 18, 2015

039 Nine Copywriting Books for Web Writers

May 14, 2015

038 The 8 Rules of Ruthless Editing from David Mamet

May 13, 2015

037 Revealed: The Perfect Blog Post Length

May 12, 2015

036 The Aggressive Work Ethic of Highly Creative People

May 11, 2015

035 The 10 Rules of Rough Drafts

May 7, 2015

034 5 Ways to Create the Perfect Ending that Your Content Deserves

May 6, 2015

033 6 Simple Rules For Writing Effective Dialogue

May 5, 2015

032 Use Internal Cliffhangers So People Never Stop Reading

May 4, 2015

031 226 Transitional Words and Phrases Every Writer Should Know

April 30, 2015

030 The Great Paragraph Hoax

April 29, 2015

029 5 Ways to Write a Seductive Sentence

April 28, 2015

028 How to Be Smart in a World of Dumb Verbs

April 27, 2015

027 How the Perfect Article Is Framed by White Space

April 23, 2015

026 The Best Articles Always Have This (and a Great Headline)

April 22, 2015

025 The Anatomy of a Hyperlink That Woos Readers

April 21, 2015

024 The Beginner’s Guide to Writing Bullet Points That Work

April 20, 2015

023 How to Create Exquisite Subheadlines

April 16, 2015

022 Four Safe Ways to Find Your Writing Voice (and One Dangerous One)

April 15, 2015

021 The Two Kinds of Knowledge Every Writer Needs

April 14, 2015

020 The Crazy Thing Writers Do to Become Exceptional

April 13, 2015

019 How to Answer the Most Important Question About Becoming an Exceptional Writer

April 9, 2015

018 Four Things That Can Make Writers Famous

April 8, 2015

017 A Small Gift for Your Dark Days as an Obscure Writer

April 7, 2015

016 Steal This Episode

April 6, 2015

015 David Sedaris’ Guide to Writing Brilliant First Sentences

April 2, 2015

014 Six Proven Ways to Open an Article With a Bang

April 1, 2015

013 How I’ll Make You Read Every Single Line of This Article

March 31, 2015

012 The Ugly Truth About How People Read Online

March 30, 2015

011 The 3 Pillars of Great Web Writing

March 26, 2015

010 How to Use RSS to Write Better Headlines

March 25, 2015

009 How to Write Headlines that Get Results

March 24, 2015

008 Where Headlines Have Gone Horribly Wrong

March 23, 2015

007 A 12-Minute Crash Course on Link Building (Ugh)

March 19, 2015

006 An Idiot-Proof Guide to Writing Blog Posts That Google Loves

March 18, 2015

005 Keywords: Your Love Affair With the Language Your Audience Uses

March 17, 2015

004 How Search Engines Work, Part Two

March 16, 2015

003 How Search Engines Work, Part One

March 3, 2015

002 The Unbreakable Law of the Web

March 2, 2015

001 Two Challenges All Digital Content Must Conquer

July 22, 2015

077 Vexed by Your Bankrupt Vocabulary? Listen to This

You can spot a mediocre writer from miles away …

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Flat verbs. Obtuse nouns. Lame metaphors. Absence of stories. I should know. I used to be one.

In regards to the mediocre writers, it seems to me that they’d want an edge. That they’d kill to get their hands on words that crank out power like a Floyd Mayweather right hook.

That they’d do whatever they could. Even read unorthodox books.

In this 11-minute episode you’ll discover:

  • A very brief history of how I fell in love with words
  • 8 words you can’t pronounce (and should never use in a normal conversation)
  • The problem with 12th grade words
  • The disaster that were my college essays
  • An unorthodox guide to a wicked vocabulary

Listen to Rough Draft below ...

077 Vexed by Your Bankrupt Vocabulary? Listen to ThisDemian Farnworth
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The Transcript

Vexed by Your Bankrupt Vocabulary? Listen to This …

Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com.

Demian Farnworth: Howdy, and welcome back to another episode of Rough Draft, your daily dose of essential web writing advice. I am Demian Farnworth, your host, your muse, your digital recluse, and the Chief Content Writer for Copyblogger Media.

And thank you for sharing the next few minutes of your life with me.

You can spot a mediocre writer from miles away.

Flat verbs. Obtuse nouns. Lame metaphors. Absence of stories.

I should know. I used to be one. [And compared to a David Mamet or William Faulkner or David Ogilvy, I still am.]

In regards to the mediocre writers, it seems to me that they’d want an edge. That they’d kill to get their hands on words that crank out power like a Floyd Mayweather right hook.

That they’d do whatever they could. Even read unorthodox books.

A Very Brief History on How I Fell in Love with Words

I fell into writing because I loved words. But you can love the wrong words.

Case in point.

I remember telling one of my college professors [or maybe it was a high school teacher, which means he was also the gym teacher AND the health/sex ed instructor–yuck!] that I loved words.

That words were important to me. That I hunted down rare, interesting words in my leisure time. I circled them and piled them in my notebook. Words like these:

  • Basorexia – An overwhelming desire to neck or kiss
  • Eccedentesiaist – One who fakes a smile
  • Jentacular – Pertaining to breakfast
  • Nelipot – Someone who walks without shoes
  • Petrichor – The smell of rain on dry ground
  • Recumbentibus – A knockout blow
  • Slubberdegullion – A filthy slobbering person
  • Wanweird – An unhappy fate

The teachers nodded kindly. Sniffed. Went on their way. I didn’t understand. These were some hot words. Or were they?

The Problem with 12th Grade Words

See anything strange about those words?

Raise your hand if you said “seems pretty complicated that the average person wouldn’t know what those words meant.”

Copywriting stud Bill Jayme [he came up with the Psychology Today ad headline “Do You Close the Bathroom Even When You Are Home Alone?”] believed that when you used low-rent, fifth grade words you were insulting the reader’s intelligence.

He believed in the 12th grade word.

Perhaps his breed of readers were smarter than ours. I doubt it. But that’s another story.

Unfortunately, the words above are words that belong in a scientific journal. People who have a legitimate PhD.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t EVER use those words.

Feel free to use them–just sparingly. Like once every thousand words. [How many times have I upset that formula in this post? Free nap time on Tuesdays and Thursdays for anyone who gets it right.]

Besides, when I said I was in love with words that’s what I meant.

I loved words.

I collected them like a child collects rare insects. Which means I didn’t intend to use them in any constructive way than to show them off to anyone marginally interested.

And when I did, the results were awful.

The Disaster That Were My College Essays

In college [maybe this happened in high school, but I honestly can NOT tell you what I did in high school, nor when I was ever required to write something, nor what I learned, nor how I got my diploma–I was a public school product]…

…especially during the remedial English classes I had to take [since I didn’t learn the basics of English grammar in junior or high school], I wrote papers based on my favorite words.

In other words, I started with a word like recumbentibus and tried to tap, shove, weld and ramrod some kind of essay around that one word.

As you can probably guess, every essay I wrote was rubbish.

Typical critiques were “Paper lacks focus” or “Seems like you’re trying too hard.”

Duh.

Who wouldn’t struggle when they were trying to write about their summer vacation and the keyword was recumbentitbus? [Even though that was my own self-imposed limitation, I blamed the teachers anyway.]

And that was the problem. I started every paper backwards.

Instead of just writing and allowing my native vocabulary to naturally fall into place, I wrestled to get words and ideas to abnormally fit around the words I loved so much.

That’s not what you are to do with this.

Building your vocabulary is meant to arm you with the right words when you need those words. Unfortunately you may never use words you learned.

That’s fine.

As long as your writing carries a clear, concise and compelling cadence, if you only use one of the words I’m about to share with you, so be it.

What You’ve Finally Been Waiting For

Let me ask you: Where do you get the words you use?

I hope you said books. At least articles. Blog post is okay but if it’s the only way then you need help.

Reading is central to good writing.

As is reading wide.

So set your religious objections aside for a moment as I introduce you to one of the best–marginally unorthodox methods–to developing a wicked vocabulary.

The King James Version of the Bible.

Why the KJV and not say something slightly more readable like the NIV or God forbid, The Message?

Good question.

The point is to pick up words that vibrate with life. That bristle on the page. That choke people. And the KJV is chock full of those words.

  • Asunder
  • Begotten
  • Blemish
  • Bullock [which is the name of a local vasectomy surgeon, I swear.]
  • Derision
  • Hex
  • Oblation
  • Rage
  • Smitten
  • Uttermost
  • Vessel
  • Vex
  • Wrath

See what I mean. Those are fighting words. Hot words. Sawtooth words.

Okay, so, do you recognize anything different about these words versus the words I shared earlier?

They’re shorter. Check. They’re action-oriented. Check. And they’re immediately recognizable. Check.

And that’s the kind of vocabulary you can expect to pick up when you read the KJV.

An Unorthodox Summer Reading List

But how much KJV should you read? And how should you read it? Let me show you.

Read Job. Lamentations. Psalms. And Ecclesiastes. In that order.

You’ll get a low-grade vocabulary surge as you read some pretty potent stories and scenes. Warning: it will be a history lesson in the realm of human suffering without any obvious answers.

But it will also teach you to think like a philosopher. And a psychologist [two great ways to becoming better writers]. And teach you that blind optimism is a stupid default setting.

Reality is a mixed bag of pain and pleasure and will always be that way. No getting around it.

Once you’re done reading those four books [this is going to be a great summer of reading, right!?], move on to Jonah, 1 Samuel, Judges and one of the Gospels, preferably John.

Why?

After you beef up that vocabulary muscle you need to next beef up the story-telling one.

In these books you’ll encounter and probably learn for the first time where the story of David and Goliath, Samson, water to wine miracle–all stories frequently encountered in classic and contemporary writing–and will make you seem slightly more literate than you are now.

Because that’s the name of the game, right? Getting better at our craft.

So tell me, what’s your favorite unconventional source for great vocabulary words? And slightly off the subject, what are you reading this summer? I’m curious. And are you up to the 100 books a year challenge? Let me know in the comments below, and on Twitter.

Until next time. Take care.

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