Polemic hogwash - helping build better vocabulary

If the title sounds odd don’t be worried. That is exactly what I thought of it when these two words came up in the same sentence.

What to categorises as hogwash has caused our gang to split up in to two polemic camps.

The first result of a google image search for 'polemic hogwash'

You may wonder why of all things are we discussing this. And actually even I am quite amazed at what we can come up with if we add just a bit of fun to an exercise which is usually cumbersome and boring.

I am talking about building one’s vocabulary. It is a task that most people (especially those giving the GRE) consider an important exercise in self-development. Yet, the few ways of improving one’s vocabulary are either too cumbersome (lots and lots of reading) or too boring (reading through word lists and meanings, and may be using flashcards).

‘Our gang’ is a BBM messenger group of my school friends. One of our chat windows is called ‘Vocab’ and the topic of conversation usually revolves around words (occasionally digressing, of course) and its usage. The discussions are a lot of fun and I’ve found that actually this way of building my vocabulary works better than others (I hope it works for the others too).

We are tapping in to what schools try to do quite often – make learning fun. And given that the Oxford English Dictionary adds a few words every week to its already huge list I think we can continue this game for a long time!

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