Introduction
(Some Up-FrontWordsfrom the Authors)
We believe thatvocabulary-building should be fun and
easy. That'swhywecreatedthislittlebookofwordgames.
Wealsobelievethatonlyusefulwordsareworthlearningto
use. Soinsteadofchoosingwordstofita formatorselecting
thematrandomfroma dictionary,assomeothervocabulary-
buildingbooksdo,we'vetakenrealwordsfromthepagesof
currentmagazinesthatarefoundin highschoolandcollege
classroomsandlibraries. Theneachwordappearsapproxi-
matelyfourtimesthroughthebook,ofteninslightlydifferent
contextorform,soyoucan learna word'sseveralsynonyms
anddefinitions,notjustoneofitsuses.
The600+wordswe'vechosenarealphabetizedattheend
ina mini-dictionarywhosedefinitionsareassimpleandclear
aswecanmakethem. Thedefinitionsaren'tall-inclusive,and
insomecasestheywouldbe morepreciseifweusedwords
that arethemselves uncommonanddifficult tounderstand.
Whenwe had to decide between clarityand precision, we
opted forclarity.
Forthepersonwithaveragevocabulary,thebest wayto
beginusingthebookistoscantheback-of-the-bookdiction-
arywheneveranansweriselusive. Eachtimeyoulookupa
word,itsmeaningisreinforced. Bythesecondorthirdtime
you meeta difficultword,it shouldnolongerbea stranger.
Bythetimeyou'rehalfwaythroughthesegames-evenif you
prefertoskip aroundratherthanplay them inorder-you
should beabletodowellwithoutconsultingthedictionary.
Theindividualwhopreferschallenge,orwhosevocabulary
is wellabove average, shouldconsultthedictionaryentries
only forwordshe misses.
We hope youenjoy thesegamesas muchas weenjoyed
inventingthem. Ifyou do, tellyourfriends-andourpub-
lisher-andwe'llgettoworkonanothervolumeofstumpers.
JudiKesselman-Turkel
FranklynnPeterson