Superior in words
How to become a spelling master

What makes some kids the superstars of spellings? Is it an inherent quality or is it mastery acquired through sheer hard work and perseverance? I am sure many of you would have played word games, watched such word game shows and even participated in a few yourselves. A lot of kids these days have access to word games like scrabble, word twist, cryptograms, brain teasers, anagrams, hangman, the good old crossword and many more challenges to increase their vocabulary. Just a few years back, there was virtually very little to kindle your passion for words. At best, a student's finest tool would be a good dictionary and a crossword or sometimes a game of scrabble for stimulation.

A good vocabulary makes a good writer or a good speaker stand apart. Though the skill sets required for both the streams are different; the common link is a superior vocabulary.

Learning the word roots is a good way to increase one's grasp over difficult words.

A root is a morpheme (the smallest unit that a word can be divided into) that underlies an inflectional or derivational paradigm, as dance, the root in danced, dancer, or ten, the root of Latin tendere "to stretch."

The English language has a strong Greek and Latin influence, approximately half the words in English are derived from Greek and Latin roots. You must have seen how contestants on spelling shows get to the correct spellings of complicated words through the etymology or the roots.

Take the word philosophy for instance, "sophy" is related to knowledge and "phil" means love, which makes the meaning very clear — a love of wisdom. The word philanthropy is made up of "phil" again, and "anthropy" comes from the same Greek root that gives us anthropology, which is the study ("logy," means study of any kind) of anthropos, humankind. So a philanthropist has to be someone who loves humans and works around this obsession by helping the poor directly or maybe through community building. The root 'phil' gives us some more words like philharmonic which means devoted to music and bibliophile describes a person who loves or collects books. The root 'doc' means teach and the linked words are doctrine, indoctrinate, dogma etc.

Let's look at this set of roots: 'acer, acid and acri', all have similar meanings like bitter, sour and sharp. The words derived from these roots are acerbic, acidity, acrid and acrimony. Knowing the roots definitely makes the task easier. The Greek and Latin roots of several prefixes and suffixes also help us determine the meaning of words. Prefixes which show time are ante, fore, pre, pro, post etc... all refer to some time in place. Prefixes that show quantity are semi, uni, bi, centi, milli etc. A number prefix 'oct' which means eight gives us words like octopus, octagon, octave, octogenarian etc. Suffixes modify the meaning of words and determine their function. The noun ration, for instance, with suffixes becomes the adjective rational, the adverb rationally, and rationalize a verb. Some typical noun suffixes are -ment, -list, -ism, -ship, -hood, -dom etc. Verb suffixes include -en, -ify, -ize and -ate. Adjective suffixes are -ible, -al, -tial, -ous, -tive, -less, -ish etc.

A lot of words consist of a root, a prefix and /or a suffix. The root word port means to carry or to bear, attach the prefix ex, meaning out or out of, and you get the word export which means to carry out.