Word of the Day Dilemmas

I once had a subscription to receive Word of the Day's through email from Merriam Webster Online several years ago. I would then challenge myself to use that word during that day at least once in it's proper meaning. Why would one do this, you may ask...just for the simple reason of wanting to intimidate my peers by blowing their minds with my wide range of vocabulary. That got old after awhile and I became completely unmotivated to use my new words. I mean, let's be honest, the words just got too hard to use. Cancelled that subscription.

Now I'm re-motivated and ready to equip myself with new verbiage! But this time I'm going through Dictionary.com. So on the subcription form on Dictionary.com I ran into some dilemmas...

They ask "year of birth." Why, I wondered...is it to prove that I am of legal age to receive Word of the Days? What exactly would that age be? OR, my main fear is that, will it base the word to give me on my age??? Yikes! Do I put my real age and challenge myself with a word appropriate to my education level and allow them to push me to my limits? OR Do I put a few years younger so that the word won't be too difficult to my using? I compromised. I put my year of birth 4 years after the year I was born. I'll show them!

Then they proceed to ask "Primary Job Function," "Industry," and "Interests." I'm sort of taken back...Are they going to send me words that only pertain to my job and what I like to do? What if I want to learn vocabulary that applies to all areas of life? I compromised here too. For Primary Job Function and Industry, I selected what I really do, and for Interests I selected ALL of them. Now my vernacular will extend to subjects from "carpentry wood-working" to "bowling!"

I'm excited about my new endeavor because I only see postive goodness coming out of this. I encourage you all to learn a word a day and I promise you can only become a better person for it!