Of Words and Surprises by Konnie Enos

 

I’ve enjoyed Reader’s Digest for well over forty years. I don’t remember the first issue I picked up, but I do know our stepmother had a subscription. One time, I picked up her copy and glanced through it, and enjoyed it so much that I got in the habit of reading it regularly.

Back then I rarely read all the articles but I did read all the humor sections and I’d read an interesting article or two. The “drama in real life” or a condensed story. I first read James Herriot in a Reader’s Digest magazine condensed story.

For years I just read my stepmother’s copies and when I wasn’t in the house for college etc. I just waited until I got back home then skimmed through all the past issues I could find.

Not long after I got married, I got my first subscription and I’ve had it ever since.

I was still only reading the parts that interested me. I’m not even sure when I started reading more but eventually, the Reader’s Digest coming in meant I was spending at least a day consuming it from cover to cover.

As the magazine got lighter (they print fewer pages in each addition now) I was able to read through them in less and less time. Now, I don’t spend a solid block of time reading it but the amount of time I need to consume each issue is only two or three hours depending on how “heavy” their articles are.

When I first started reading it, I might glance at the “Word Power” section and maybe spend a few minutes trying to get the correct meaning but often it meant that I had to “peak” at the answers. But I got older I was finding I needed to peak less often so I started marking my guesses and then seeing if I got those I guessed at correct.

Eventually, I got to where I was marking (or now that I have a digital subscription, writing down) all my responses then turning to the answers and seeing how I did. As a rule, I miss three or four of them though I do remember a few times missing six. There aren’t many times that I missed less than three nor more than five so I was always “middle of the pack” by their score chart.

I’ve always felt I was doing pretty well since I only have an average vocabulary, despite living with a living, breathing, walking, talking dictionary for all those years. (I mean Jacki did try to increase our vocabulary but I never bothered to retain anything I wasn’t using regularly.)

So what brought all this up?

I was reading my most recent issue of Reader’s Digest and finally got to the last pages where “Word Power” is. I read the caption first.

Oh, great. Science. Since that isn’t my strongest subject, I figured my limited knowledge in that department wasn’t going to help my final score. Even the proclamation that the words were also used outside of labs didn’t boost my confidence.

First word. It’s easy. Who doesn’t know that?

Second word. Well, duh.

Okay, they should get harder as we go.

Third word. Really. You’re going to make it that easy?

I continued. For each word, I either knew the answer or it was super easy to figure it out from the available choices, as in only one made sense. Then I got to one that stumped me a bit because I knew one meaning of the word, but it has nothing to do with the scientific use of the word and I wasn’t sure which of the choices to pick. I could make a case for all the possible answers being correct so I made a guess, knowing I was probably wrong because my rate of correct guesses is pretty low. The last few words I was sure I knew the meaning of.

Now I was really curious about the outcome because I had only questioned one answer. I was certain I knew the other answers, but I’d been wrong before.

I turned the page and checked my answered one by one circling each answer on my paper that I’d gotten correct. As I circled I was thinking, see I knew that, or that was easy to figure out.

Then I got to the one I did guess at. Guess what. I was right.

The outcome?

For the first time in my life, I got a full 15 correct answers. It has got to be the easiest Word Power yet. Either that or I know a great deal more “science” words than I thought.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.