[The link that I posted this morning was broken for a while. Here’s a working link, preceded by an excerpt that I hope will entice you to read the full story.]
My blog name comes from a high-school class that I had expected to dislike. On the first day, the teacher, Larry Wray, declared himself to be a lover of words. It had never occurred to me to be such a thing, let alone to confess the fact. Mr. Wray handed out yellow workbooks with the title “WORD POWER” in all caps repeated nine times forming a column down the right side of the cover, followed by this subtitle: “A short guide to vocabulary and spelling.” The author’s name, Byron H. Gibson, appeared in small letters at the bottom.
The author, this Dr. Gibson, made some (to my mind) outrageous claims:
- “Words are power!”
- “Teacher, your students will come back through the years to thank you for giving them this help in their single most important objective, learning words and learning them accurately, on which all other life objectives depend.”
- “This guide has been prepared to be the single most helpful book you have ever studied.”
Right.