A pragmatic approach to building vocabulary, organized according to common topics of conversation (albeit dated at 1949 when originally published). Includes a how-to for assessing your present vocabulary at the onset. Almost entertaining (how to topics include how to talk about personality types, doctors, liars and lying, speech habits, enemies, how to flatter friends, how to talk about complex ideas, attitudes, etc). Brief with respect to etymology/roots. Helpful for pronunciation, with comparisons among words with similar phonemes and/or syllable sounds.

READ THIS!!! great for enhancing vocabulary and etymology skills

This book changed the way I think and experience new ideas. I learned to see roots and connections in everything, as well as the logic underlying the english language. If you want to build your vocabulary, this book is the one!

The best way to enrich and expand your vocabulary is to read voraciously and extensively. The second best way is to read this book.

The approach the book takes to teach you new words is to explain their etymology and then to make you work with them. Making the reader work with the words goes a long way in helping remember the words. That way you don't have to make great efforts by yourself to memorize them.

I found it really interesting to learn the sometimes strange and quirky origin of a lot of words. It made me realize that words are not just simple associations of meanings with sounds. They are much more - they are pieces of history living among us. Studying etymology often provides us a look at how people did things and thought about phenomena in the past. For example, did you know that the name George literally means a land-worker (geo + ergon). Or that sycophants are called so because they were originally fig-showers [(fig : sykon) + (show : phanein)], people who informed the authorities (to gain their favor) when figs were being stolen from the sacred groves or when fig-dealers were dodging the tariff.

The author's light-hearted, often humorous style adds to the enjoyability of this book and makes reading it a wonderful experience.

As a non-native speaker, it is extremely challenging to go through this book. Many of the context is based on American, which is a country I do not quite familiar. Despite these, this is a great book for vocabulary. It said build a strong vocabulary in 30days, but although I try my best to read it every single day, I probably have used about half a year to finished half of the book.

One tenet that touches me from the book: word is the symbolization of ideas hence a large vocabulary is key to imbibe new ideas and accurately express our own idea. Though a bit late, I'm glad I start to realize the importance of reading and that I start to learn English the same way a native speaker does. I'm even a little complacent that I learnt some Latin and Greek roots. I start to use more Webster dictionary to check out the word's etymology and its history.
This books reminds me of the old days when I was preparing GRE. The vocabulary from this book is about the same level of GRE, and is explained in a more logical etymological approach.
In the recommendation to read more, the author suggests to read at least one book and several magazines a week. To me this is formidable, if not impossible. I need a goal and a plan.

My fav quotes (not a review):
-Page 140 "The root psyche combines with Greek soma, body, to form psychosomatic (sī′-kō-sƏ-MAT′-ik), an adjective that delineates the powerful influence that the mind, especially the unconscious, has on bodily diseases. Thus, a person who fears the consequence of being present at a certain meeting will suddenly develop a bad cold or backache, or even be injured in a traffic accident, so that his appearance at this meeting is made impossible. It’s a real cold"
-Page 141 "In your sessions with your therapist, you discover that your asthma is emotionally, rather than organically, based—your ailment is psychogenic (sī′-kō-JEN′-ik), of psychic origin, or (the terms are used more or less interchangeably although they differ somewhat in definition) psychosomatic, resulting from the interaction of mind and body. (Psychogenic is built on psyche plus Greek genesis, birth or origin.)"
-Page 151 "Chiropractors heal with their hands—the specialty is chiropractic (kī′-rō-PRAK′-tik). Cheir (chiro-), hand"
-Page 151 "mancy comes from a Greek word meaning foretelling or prediction,"
-Page 191 "Disaster (dƏ-ZAS′-tƏr) and disastrous (dƏ-ZAS′-trƏs) also come from astron, star."
-Page 191 "Nomos, arrangement, law, or order, is found in two other interesting English words. For example, if you can make your own laws for yourself, if you needn’t answer to anyone else for what you do, in short, if you are independent, then you enjoy autonomy"
-Page 206 "Flies, bees, beetles, wasps, and other insects are segmented creatures—head, thorax, and abdomen. Where these parts join, there appears to the imaginative eye a “cutting in” of the body. Hence the branch of zoology dealing with insects is aptly named entomology, from Greek en-, in, plus tome, a cutting. The adjective is entomological (en′-tƏ-mƏ-LOJ′-Ə-kƏl). (The word insect makes the same point—it is built on Latin in- in, plus sectus, a form of the verb meaning to cut.) The prefix ec-, from Greek ek-, means out. (The Latin prefix, you will recall, is ex-.) Combine ec- with tome to derive the words for surgical procedures in which parts are “cut out,” or removed: tonsillectomy (the tonsils), appendectomy (the appendix), mastectomy (the breast), hysterectomy (the uterus), prostatectomy (the prostate), etc."
-Page 206 "eccentric (Ək-SEN′-trik)—out of the center,"
-Page 207 "The Greek prefix a- makes a root negative; the atom (AT′-Əm) was so named at a time when it was considered the smallest possible particle of an element, that is, one that could not be cut any further."
-Page 208 "Imagine a book, a complicated or massive report, or some other elaborate document—now figuratively cut on or through it so that you can get to its essence, the very heart of the idea contained in it. What you have is an epitome (Ə-PIT′-Ə-mee), a condensation of the whole. (From epi-, on, upon, plus tome.)"
-Page 209 "Ə-LAN′-dƏr-Ər). By etymology, philosophy is the love of wisdom (Greek sophos, wise); Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love (Greek adelphos, brother); philharmonic is the love of music or harmony (Greek harmonia, harmony); and a philter, a rarely used word, is a love potion."
-Page 228 "The Fifty-Minute Hour, by Robert Lindner"
-Page 229 "Companion itself has an interesting etymology—Latin com-, with, plus panis, bread. If you are social, you enjoy breaking bread with companions. Pantry also comes from panis,"
-Page 246 "The top of a mountain is called, as you know, the summit, a word derived from Latin summus, highest, which also gives us the mathematical term sum, as in addition. A consummate artist has reached the very highest point of perfection; and to consummate (KAHN′-sƏ-mƏt) a marriage, a business deal, or a contract is, etymologically, to bring it to the highest point; that is, to put the final touches to it, to bring it to completion."
-Page 259 "Pathos occurs in some English words with the additional meaning of feeling. If you feel or suffer with someone, you are sympathetic (sim-pƏ-THET′-ik)—sym- is a respelling before the letter p of the Greek prefix syn-, with or together. The noun is sympathy (SIM′-pƏ-thee), the verb sympathize"
-Page 270 "Unconscionable and conscience are related in derivation—the first word from Latin scio, to know, the second from Latin sciens, knowing,"
-Page 272 "Latin grex, gregis, herd or flock."
-Page 279 "congregation, 6–aggregate or aggregation, 7–segregate,"
-Page 280 "congregate"
-Page 279 "gregarious,"
-Page 301 "Anyway Harry didn’t accomplish a thing—he was just a victim of good fortune. What were the apologists for Dewey’s failure doing? They were disparaging Truman’s achievement."
-Page 312 "mugwumps;"
-Page 321 "libra, balance, weight, pound, hence “equal balance.” Libra (LĪ′-brƏ) is the seventh sign of the zodiac, represented by a pair of scales. Now you know, in case the question has been bothering you, why the abbreviation for the word pound is lb. and why the symbol for the British pound, the monetary unit, is £."
-Page 333 "Alexander Woolcott once remarked, if something is pleasurable, it’s sure to be either immoral, illegal, or fattening. The derivation is the prefix pro-, before, plus scribo, scriptus, to write."
-Page 335 "Surprisingly, via, road, is the root in the English word trivial (tri-, three). Where three roads intersect, you are likely to find busy traffic, lots of people, in short a fairly public place, so you are not going to talk of important or confidential matters, lest you be overheard. You will, instead, talk of trivial (TRIV′-ee-Əl) things—whatever is unimportant, without great significance; you will confine your conversation to trivialities"
-Page 350 "addiction, etymologically “a saying to or toward,” or the compulsion to say “yes” to a habit, combines dico with ad-, to, toward."
-Page 350 "Facio, factus, to do or make"
-Page 350 "manufacture, to make by hand (manus, hand, as in manuscript, manual),"
-Page 350 "Volo, to wish, to will, to be willing (as in malevolent, benevolent), occurs in voluntary, involuntary, volunteer,"
-Page 353 "Condone is built on Latin dono, to give, the root found in donor, one who gives; donate, to give; and donation, a gift."

Summary:
Manu of manufacture, manuscript- to make by hand
volo of voluntary- to will
dono of condone- donate
libra, pound (lb)- balance
ad of addiction – toward
via of trivial- road
facio- to make
Scio of conscience- knowing
Summus of summit, consummate and sum- highest
Pathos of sympathise and pathology- feeling
Nomos of autonomy- arrangement, law
Panis- bread
Soma- body
genes- origin
chiro- hand
mancy- prediction,"
Disaster~ astron- star."
Sectom of insect- cut (also tome and tomy of tonsillectomy)

This is an excellent book for improving your vocabulary. Not only does it teach you how to reason about words and word structure, etymology and derivations, it does it in a humorous and digestible fashion. There were a few misprints/typos in my edition, but these were by no means a fault of the author.

By far the best vocabulary building book ever written.
This book focuses on how using only etymology one can expand their vocabulary. By doing it's exercises (which are a total of 47) one can actually expand their vocabulary & that too very efficiently.
Also one more good part about it is that newer versions of this book come with 700+ new additional words which are revised over time.

All chapters in the book are made available on # KAS Mania YouTube channel in Kannada Language for students for purpose of competitive exams and whoever wish to learn Wordpower made easy through Kannada. A total of 14 Calsses available on the book. The links of the same are given below.

https://youtu.be/SvvrvFCxGo4?si=zTIWy...

https://youtu.be/hxqnXQiE190?si=fVluD...

https://youtu.be/LUABmLPWQGk?si=gAwOp...

https://youtu.be/xI3_AyzUAJk?si=5VsJq...

https://youtu.be/WbKaYmCXd90?si=PIUmw...

https://youtu.be/ZabRGigl_VY?si=4XaEZ...

https://youtu.be/YXZqcZSSfu4?si=P41xH...

https://youtu.be/7ezb-_Smuvc?si=9OrLr...

https://youtu.be/BbHygNns7Zc?si=oqb_v...

https://youtu.be/AWuW6weBIfc?si=j4EFE...

https://youtu.be/oguwnC0-3Ho?si=vUcE6...

https://youtu.be/vE6ymLRgKpg?si=ECsm5...

https://youtu.be/xNIz02Of3zY?si=yRveJ...

https://youtu.be/JAWk8x5hK9M?si=eGi5p...

The definite guide to strengthen your word power.

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