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(No, I didn't subscribe. It's a gift subscription.)
A few pages in I found the Word Power column -- you know, the quiz that contains twenty relatively obscure vocabulary words. Guess what the twentieth word was.
Defenestration.
I about fell off my sofa. I never would have known that word if it weren't for Hatrack.
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Hehe, the only reason I knew the word "Defenestrator" was because it was the title of a Mac nerd short film. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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hehe, I learned that word in second year latin, it was so we would remember Fenestra means window. That's probably one of the few words I remember from latin. The sentence our teacher used was "the defenestration of prague" Apparently this is discussed in the world history classes at my school, but I took world geography.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Working as a writer, I can barely stand to read anything in Reader's Digest anymore. It's such schlock. I have to write that type of "light informative" article every once in a while and I know the fudging and pure off-the-top-of-my-headness that goes into it. I have a hard time trusting any "pop culture" writing anymore, and when it's as blatantly bad as the stuff in Reader's Digest, reading it is almost physically impossible for me.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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It's the perfect magazine to have in the doctor's waiting room, especially if you're nervous or anxious in any way and can't really concentrate.
Light reading is not always a bad thing.
I rarely read the stories. I stick to the funny stuff and the "did you know" kind of articles.
Posts: 3771 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I admit I stopped reading "Word Power" years ago. Some of the words are ones I expect my 7 year old to know. Like most of the publications of the type, many of the articles show the hand of their corporate masters.
Posts: 1021 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Reader's Digest is written at a 5th-grade reading level, which is why I stopped subscribing in 4th grade. The "word power" thing is ridiculous; I've yet to find one word in it I don't know. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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*goes off to read the embarrassing Reader's Digest in complete private away from the way to literate ones*
Posts: 3771 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I got $400 from them once for sending in a funny story from work. The down side was that someone I knew found out about it, and shared the darn thing with everyone I knew. Including my coworkers. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Speaking of interesting associations of words, I may be completely wrong (stop me if I am, this is a theory) that the term "broken in to" as in when your house gets robbed, comes from the medieval ages when house's walls (wattle and daub) were literally smashed in order to steal.
Imagine coming home and finding that not only had you been robbed that there was a great gaping hole in your house's wall!
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Tammy -- no kidding, that's why I made it clear that I didn't choose to subscribe, but received a gift subscription. I knew some hatrackers would sneer.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Well, if we're going to get really snooty, I much prefer American Heritage. I just can't justify the expense right now.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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*glares, then resumes the impossible task of figuring out the mystery of her latest cable bill*
Posts: 3771 | Registered: Sep 2002
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The thing I used to love about Reader’s Digest was that they put the table of contents right on the cover. It was so much easier to turn back to it than in other magazines, where you have to flip around in the ads that fill up the first few pages to find the ToC on page 3 or 7 or whatever.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I learned the word defenestration in my high school sophomore English class. Ms. Bettis was the teacher. In the mid 70's, it was quite provocative to be a "Ms." instead of a Miss or a Mrs. What made it even more provocative was that she was divorced from our psychology teacher.
Whoa. Heady stuff. But I still remember her telling us about the word defenestration, as well as hermaphrodite...
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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Well I invented the word defenestration. So there.
You people who read stuff off of tree corpses disgust me. Didn't you watch "Ghostbusters"? Print is dead. Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sorry, Tammy, I wasn't really trying to attack you there. :mybad: It's just that I've had to throw the magazine across the room in disgust once or twice. But that's mostly because I can identify with the rhetorical situation the writer found himself or herself in and that takes all the mystery out of it. Somehow that makes the whole thing hard to read.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I learned the word defenestration from an episode of Dark Angel. We even had visuals.
quote: You people who read stuff off of tree corpses disgust me. Didn't you watch "Ghostbusters"? Print is dead.
I don't know the reference, but if you really want an alternative reading material, check out Cradle to Cradle. Look at the last paragraph.
Posts: 2149 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Actually, it's written on an eighth grade level. Which is not saying much, since the average American adult reads below this level.
I like the Spanish version, because, sadly, my Spanish reading level is not quite as high as my English reading level.
(And I hope nobody thinks I am sneering. I enjoy many things on or below an eighth grade reading level. )
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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<--- Likes Reader's Digest. My mom's been getting it for a while now. I think that the first article I ever read from it was The Last Passenger some years ago-- I don't remember how old I was at the time.
Now I usually don't have the time to pick up anything other than Laughter, The Best Medicine and other shorts. :/
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And the book excerpts expose people to books they might not otherwise have thought to buy. I can think of at least one nonfiction book I bought because I read an excerpt of it.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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