Word Power Made Easy

Norman Lewis presents a systematic method for rapidly expanding one's vocabulary through etymology, the study of word origins and derivations. The book is organized as an interactive workbook divided into three main parts, with interspersed grammar and spelling intermissions and three comprehensive tests that allow readers to measure their progress.

Lewis opens by establishing a central problem: Children of 10 possess recognition vocabularies exceeding 20,000 words and learn hundreds of new terms each year, while most adults who have left school add fewer than 25 to 50 words annually. He offers three self-scoring diagnostic assessments so readers can benchmark their current abilities, then attributes the decline in adult vocabulary growth to the loss of what he calls the "powerful urge to learn," borrowing the phrase from Roland Gelatt's review of Caroline Pratt's I Learn from Children. Drawing on research from the Human Engineering Laboratory and from universities, Lewis argues that vocabulary size correlates closely with career success, academic achievement, and measured intelligence. Citing educational psychologist Edward Thorndike's research, he contends that learning ability remains strong well past age 20, countering the belief that adults cannot learn new material. Lewis promises that concentrated effort over two to three months can reverse years of stagnation.

The book's method rests on two principles. First, readers must participate actively: pronouncing words aloud, writing answers, and completing every exercise rather than passively reading. Second, vocabulary is best acquired through etymology. Learning a single Latin or Greek root, Lewis demonstrates, unlocks the meanings of 10 or 20 related English words. The root ego (I, self), for example, leads to egoist, egotist, egocentric, egomaniac, and alter ego. This connective tissue makes new words easier to remember and allows readers to decode unfamiliar terms by recognizing their structural components: prefixes, roots, and suffixes.

Part One, spanning Chapters 3 through 8, groups vocabulary around five thematic clusters. Chapter 3 introduces 10 personality types, including egoist, altruist, introvert, extrovert, misanthrope, misogynist, and ascetic, and traces each term to its Latin or Greek origins. From the root misein (to hate), Lewis branches into misanthropy, misogyny, and misogamy; from gamos (marriage), he explores monogamy, bigamy, polygamy, and polyandry.

Chapter 4 teaches vocabulary through 10 medical specialists, from internist and gynecologist to psychiatrist and neurologist, using roots such as derma (skin), ophthalmos (eye), kardia (heart), neuron (nerve), and psyche (mind). Chapter 5 extends this approach to practitioners like the psychoanalyst, osteopath, chiropractor, podiatrist, and graphologist, introducing roots for hand (cheir), foot (pous/podos), bone (osteon), tooth (odontos), and writing (graphein). Chapter 6 covers 10 scientists, from anthropologist and astronomer to entomologist and semanticist, drawing on roots like astron (star), ge (earth), bios (life), tome (a cutting), and philein (to love). Chapter 7 presents 10 adjectives for types of liars, including notorious, consummate, incorrigible, chronic, pathological, and egregious, and uses them to teach roots such as chronos (time), pathos (suffering or feeling), scio (to know), and grex/gregis (herd or flock), branching into words like anachronism, synchronize, sympathy, antipathy, empathy, telepathy, omniscient, gregarious, and segregate. Chapter 8 closes Part One with a 120-item comprehensive test.

Between the main chapters, Lewis inserts 10 "Brief Intermissions" addressing grammar, usage, and spelling. These sections argue that grammar follows the speech habits of educated people rather than rigid textbook rules, endorsing informal constructions like "It is me" and the split infinitive while correcting genuine errors. The spelling intermissions present mnemonic devices for conquering the 100 most commonly misspelled English words, arguing that association is more effective than repetitious drill.

Part Two, covering Chapters 9 through 13, builds momentum with four thematic chapters and a second comprehensive test. Chapter 9 teaches 10 action verbs, including disparage, equivocate, proscribe, obviate, militate, malign, condone, and placate, exploring the contrasting Latin roots malus (bad) and bonus/bene (good) to generate extended families of words: malediction and benediction, malevolent and benevolent, malefactor and benefactor. Chapter 10 addresses speech habits through adjectives like taciturn, laconic, garrulous, verbose, voluble, cogent, vociferous, and loquacious, using the root loquor (to speak) to branch into soliloquy, ventriloquist, colloquial, and circumlocution, and somnus (sleep) to reach somnambulism, insomnia, and soporific. Chapter 11 presents 10 insulting terms, including martinet, sycophant, dilettante, virago, chauvinist, iconoclast, atheist, and hypochondriac, and uses them to teach an extensive network of roots covering family relations (pater, mater, frater, soror, uxor), forms of killing (patricide, fratricide, genocide, regicide), various manias (kleptomania, pyromania, megalomania), and common phobias (claustrophobia, agoraphobia, acrophobia). Chapter 12 introduces 10 complimentary adjectives, among them convivial, indefatigable, ingenuous, perspicacious, magnanimous, stoical, intrepid, scintillating, and urbane, exploring roots for life (vivo, vita), belief (credo), looking (specto), sharpness (acuo), mind (animus), trembling (trepido), spark (scintilla), and city and country (urbs, rus/ruris). Chapter 13 provides the second 120-item test so readers can compare their scores against the first.

Part Three, spanning Chapters 14 through 17, finishes the program with three thematic chapters and the final test. Chapter 14 teaches words for common phenomena: penury, vicarious, ephemeral, euphemism, badinage, bovine, nostalgia, cacophony, carnivorous, and clandestine. From the root carnis (flesh), Lewis reaches carnivore, carnage, incarnate, and reincarnation; from voro (to devour), he branches into herbivorous, omnivorous, and voracious; and from omnis (all), he covers omnipotent, omnipresent, and ubiquitous. Chapter 15 introduces 10 verbs ending in -ate, including enervate, castigate, recapitulate, simulate, alleviate, commiserate, and vacillate, extending into synergism, decapitate, capitulate, dissimulate, levitate, levity, ambivalent, and oscillate. Chapter 16 teaches 10 adjectives ending in -ous, such as obsequious, querulous, supercilious, obstreperous, impecunious, chivalrous, innocuous, bibulous, cadaverous, and dolorous, with roots covering following (sequor), complaining (queror), cattle (pecus), horse (cheval), drinking (bibo), falling (cado), and suffering (doleo). Chapter 17 presents the final 120-item comprehensive test, and readers record all three scores side by side to gauge their progress.

The book closes with Chapter 18, which supplies detailed answers to etymological "teaser questions" posed at the end of earlier chapters, and an appendix cataloguing dozens of specialized phobias using Greek roots readers have encountered throughout the book. Chapter 19 outlines five steps for continued vocabulary growth: staying actively receptive to new words; reading at least one book and several magazines every week; pausing to engage with unfamiliar words rather than skipping them; deliberately exploring new fields of knowledge; and setting a daily goal of finding several new words. Lewis stresses that vocabulary building gains momentum over time, as the process snowballs with sustained effort.