Use It...or Lose It

English classes provide ample opportunities to learn new words. (Rarely - once in a blue moon even - a student might say that English classes offer too many opportunities to learn new words.) Your vocabulary grows each time you memorize a new word, and the staying power of new words is increased when you use them in speaking or writing.

It is not likely to happen that you’ll have a chance to work everything you learn in an English class into casual conversations – maybe not a term like “adjectival prepositional phrase” unless you’re at a gathering of grammarians. But you can still keep the adjectival-prepositional-phrase concept alive in your working memory when you see prepositional phrases used to describe nouns and note the fact – silently, privately, mentally is perhaps best in most places outside of English class or the aforementioned gathering of grammarians.

Quite a few other words learned in English classes lend themselves more readily than grammar terminology to ordinary communication. For instance, any one of us might, having learned what a metaphor is, compliment a friend who uses one by saying, “Great metaphor, Bro,” when he says a wave is a bomb.

Once your professor has gone over the definitions of terms used to discuss literature (literary elements), it’s a good idea to incorporate the applicable words in your essays. Using newly learned words correctly reinforces your knowledge and can also unify your paragraphs. If you are writing a paragraph on how a writer uses symbolism, reiterate the word symbol (or synonyms) throughout the paragraph. When you do this, you impress your professor with the fact that you are staying on topic and also impress the word upon your working memory, making it part of your lifelong vocabulary.

During brainstorming before writing the essay, you might even make a list of possible points, using the word symbol in some form in each:

1._________ is a symbol of ________.
2. Symbolic _________(s) enhance ________.
3. The author’s use of symbolism _________________.

Keep in mind that all the words and definitions you learn become part of your everyday vocabulary, especially when transference takes place as you incorporate new words into written or spoken communication or notice them when reading or hearing them throughout your lifetime. The best way to remember what you learn is to use it consistently. Did someone once say “Use it or lose it”?

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! My next entry is coming soon. ‘Til then, hang ten!