A thesaurus groups together words that are similar in meaning. It exists for those tip-of-the-tongue moments when the right word seems just out of reach: “Gah! I need another word for something that’s pretentious … to be pretentious, to put on airs … Ah! An affectation!”
So I’ve been thinking about Google’s Ngram Viewer and how it applies as a teaching tool. Although it doesn’t directly translate, Ngram reminded me of a really handy tool that we use regularly at the Writing Centre. I’ve also realized that many people may not have encountered it before. So, I present to you: the Now Corpus.
It’s widely acknowledged that the number of people who regularly read for pleasure has been in decline over the past decades (Flood). Accordingly, although today’s post-secondary students spend a great deal of time poring over academic articles and studying classic novels for courses on literature, they’re less likely to pick out a book that interests them and read it purely for entertainment and relaxation.
Often when I listen to podcasts, I find myself unfamiliar with some of the terminology being used. Even more often, I find myself forgetting them after I’ve looked them up in the dictionary.
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I’m probably not the only one with this problem, so how do I retain this information?