Book Buying Addicts Anonymous discussion

I love reading and books so a simple logical extension of this statement would be to say that I love words. At an early age I realized that words were free and I could use as many as I wanted to. This is a very valuable commodity that costs the consumer nothing. Many of these word users have amassed vast fortunes (and reasonable livings) by just arranging these in a specific order. I make a point of learning and using at least five new words a week. This may seem like lots of words but I know (like my TBR books, I will never run out). I used to come across more unknown words that I do now. Part of the reason is I think the vocabulary of today’s writers is smaller than his/her 100 year old counterpart. If I can’t find my weekly five words in my reading I randomly open the dictionary and see what treasure it reveals. Do you actively expand your vocabulary? Do you think the vocabularies of readers are greater that that of non-readers?