Verbal Success® Vocabulary eCourse
LESSON 4 OF 7

Hello and Welcome Back!

In your last lesson, you learned that every day we encounter numerous verbal environments that introduce us to a wealth of new vocabulary words.

In this fourth lesson, we will discuss the concept of Personal Power Words. We will investigate what makes a word a Power Word and why you should focus on using Power Words® when you communicate.

In Today’s Lesson You will Learn...

• What makes a Power Word different from other vocabulary words
• Why it’s not always beneficial to use “BIG” vocabulary words
• How to identify Personal Power Words that empower you
• How to use Personal Power Words to achieve greater success

This lesson focuses on Personal Power Words. You may be asking: what is a Power Word? A Power Word is any word that enables you to communicate your ideas with greater clarity, confidence, and impact.

To begin this lesson, it’s important to understand the subjective nature of English Vocabulary. The English language is vast and complicated, which can make it very subjective. For example, how does a person distinguish between a word that is empowering and one that is juvenile or one that is pretentious?

A Power Word (as defined by Verbal Success®) is a word that enables you to communicate your ideas precisely, confidently, and with impact. In order to communicate your ideas with confidence and impact, the people you are communicating with must understand the words you are using. A Power Word is NOT an obscure, abstruse word that sounds pretentious and confuses people. A Power Word is a word that communicates clearly and impresses people when you use it. It’s a word that enables you to communicate your ideas with precision. When you use Power Words you feel intelligent, articulate, and most importantly, confident.

One of the problems with the English language is that there are over 400,000 words in the English lexicon-and new words are being added every year. Most people possess a vocabulary that consists of 10,000-30,000 words. This means that even the most intelligent person only knows a small fraction of all the words in the English language. What this means to you is that you need to be careful with the words you use because with higher level vocabulary words, it’s very easy to use a word that is not in your audience’s vocabulary. When you use a word that is not in your audience’s vocabulary, you may confuse, embarrass, or even offend people.

Have you ever encountered this person: he or she uses obscure, esoteric, and “loaded” words in order to try to convey intelligence? This person seems to build sentences around obscure words. What do you think of this person?

Do you perceive this person as intelligent?
Do you think he or she is a good communicator?
Is the obscure word an empowering word?

Most often, the answer is “no”. It’s important to remember that when people use high-level words just to impress others, they often appear and sound pretentious and pompous.

Power Words are empowering words because they strike a fine balance between pretentious, high-brow words and run-of-the mill words.

In order to better understand what makes a Power Word, it is important to know the difference between Passive Vocabulary and Active Vocabulary. As I mentioned before, our active vocabulary consists of the words we use regularly; our passive vocabulary includes the words we more or less recognize when we read or hear them, but fail to use on a regular basis.

A true Power Word is a word that most people have in their passive vocabulary, but not in their active vocabulary. By using a higher-level word that is in a person’s passive vocabulary, you will appear sharp and well educated. People appreciate and respect articulate communicators. And when you are able to draw on a word that your listener understands, but doesn’t necessarily use, you sound articulate and intelligent, and thereby, make a positive impression.

When you use Power Words, the positive impact you will have on people is both conscious and subconscious--some people will consciously note that you selected the perfect word to articulate your idea; others won’t consciously note the word you used, but they will subconsciously note that you were able to communicate effectively, intelligently, and with precision, and because of this they will hold you in higher regard.

Using a Power Word that is in a person’s passive vocabulary is ideal, but since Power Words are of a higher caliber than ordinary vocabulary words, there will be times when your audience may not understand a word you have used. This is when context becomes important. Now, I’m not suggesting that you have to define the word in your sentence; you just have to be cognizant of the context. Let me give you an example:

Back when I was working for an ad agency, I was commiserating with a colleague about office gossip. He was lamenting about negative remarks he had overheard people say about him. He said, “I can’t believe my co-workers are bad-mouthing me like this.” To which I responded, “Office politics can get nasty. I too have been unjustly maligned by colleagues in the past.” My colleague had never heard the word “maligned” before, so he commented that he liked the word and said he would use it instead of “bad-mouthed” in the future. This is a perfect example of the power of context. Although the word was not in my colleague’s vocabulary, he was able to immediately understand its meaning from context and appreciate the word.

The way a word sounds can also determine whether a word is a Power Word or a showy, pretentious word. This is more subjective, and ultimately needs to be decided by you. It is important that you are comfortable saying a word. Your comfort with a word will depend on how it sounds to you as well as where you learned it and from whom.

Here is a good example: When I was working for an Ad Agency, I heard one of my clients use the word cantankerous. Are you familiar with the word cantankerous? Cantankerous means “difficult, contentious, bad tempered.” He used the word in the following sentence: “I could never go back to agency work because it’s too cantankerous.” Now, cantankerous was a new word for me, and in determining whether this was a word I wanted to include in my active vocabulary, I decided the word was too odd-sounding, so I decided not to include the word cantankerous in my active vocabulary. I later started hearing the word used in the news media by people I respect and admire. Hearing the word used in the media made me feel more comfortable with it, so I changed my position and I began to actively use the word cantankerous, even though I still think it sounds kind of funny.

As this story illustrates, English vocabulary can be very subjective. You have to determine for yourself your comfort level with a word. I suggest you try to learn every new word you encounter. However, I also suggest that you be selective in determining which words become part of your active vocabulary, because some words will impress and make you appear intelligent and well educated, while some words will make you sound pompous and pretentious.

Your Assignment for Today:

Assignment: As you pay closer attention to the words you encounter every day, begin looking for Power Words. Assess each higher level word you hear and determine if you think it is a Personal Power Word. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Is this word in most people’s passive vocabulary; that is,
  they may not actively use the word, but at least they understand it?
• Am I comfortable using this word; do I like the way it sounds?
• Do I respect and admire the person who introduced this word to me?

If you answer “Yes” to the above questions, then this word is a Personal Power Word that will enable you to communicate with greater clarity, confidence, and impact! Use this Power Word to achieve a higher level of communication, greater respect, and greater success!

This concludes your fourth lesson. In your next lesson, we will look at the best way to start capturing Power Words that we encounter each day. We are no longer going to let Power Words slip away unnoticed. Instead, you will start a process that will enable you to expand your vocabulary with incredible ease!

I look forward to continuing your vocabulary advancement!