Always, as a child, I would go around the house, and if I found a word that I didn't know the meaning of, I would write it down and ask my parents to define it and try to memorise it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Parents spend a lot of time talking over kids. My son went through a vocabulary burst as I was writing 'The Bear.' I thought, 'What if I just stopped and listened?'
At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.
I like playing around with the words; I love it when I feel like I've picked the exact right word to describe whatever it is I'm trying to describe.
You see failed vocabulary in the adult world so often, and it's often because once you reach a certain age you're kind of embarrassed to go look up a word if you don't know what it means.
I think that words are often extraneous to what I do.
My family was always playing with words. It is little wonder that even after I got serious about writing, I've had a hard time getting serious about words.
When a kid can understand that a word can mean two things, there's some real thinking going on. They have a vested interest in finding out what a word means, because it's the punch line to a joke.
I used to like the word of the day and when I read, highlight words that I didn't know and look them up.
When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.