OOPS!
Have you ever been wrong? I mean 100% certifiably incorrect. I found myself in that position recently. For years (like decades), I thought ameliorate meant to wipe out. In reality, ameliorate means to make better. This revelation came as quite a surprise. If you are a lover of words like me, imagine my shock when I realized I had been mistaken and misspoken for years!
I wonder what people thought when I used the word ameliorate incorrectly? Maybe:
What an idiot!
Huh?
What the heck does ameliorate mean?
I’m a big believer in reading with a dictionary nearby. In fact, when my nieces were young, we had a book club every summer. I instilled the habit of using a dictionary by asking them to explain the definition of unfamiliar words we read. I loved those book clubs. I think the girls were 7 or 8 when we started, and we continued until they went to high school. If you have littles in your family, I highly recommend a summer book club. It’s a wonderful way to spend time with them…and…they are reading in the summer! What a great way to ameliorate their reading skills!! (See the difference😊)