Yesterday I went to the Houston office of the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (http://www.jocrf.org/) with my daughter, a bright 17-year-old with several talents who has been a little stressed about future college major and career ideas. Her grandfather kindly sponsored an aptitude testing session. By the way, I highly recommend this outfit for aptitude testing. People as young as 14 can take the test. Johnson O'Connor is a non-profit organization that puts the profit back into research about aptitudes and sponsors some testing for low income secondary students - very good of them, I think.

The testing associate explained that the TOP indicator of success as a business executive is having a large precise vocabulary. He mentioned that The Economist magazine has one of the highest vocabulary levels among magazines and that Bill Gates reads this magazine. Hmm. Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world, founder of Microsoft, worth tens of billions, and can handle this kind of magazine reading daily. As Mr. Webre said, an average to low vocabulary size can cause people to misunderstand their bosses and clients, which can be very costly.

It can also be costly in personal relationships. I'll never forget the time I used the word 'regression' about my yougest child's behavior due to jealousy as a result of an extended family gathering, and one relative thought I was saying that I had regrets about the gathering. Oops. Luckily this relative is the type who was open about being offended, and the situation was explained and resolved nicely.

How best to expand the vocabulary? Keep a small dictionary handy - in the purse or briefcase, on the laptop, an iPhone application...and use it to look up words you are familiar with seeing and the thought always crosses your mind that you wonder what that means precisely. Don't focus on totally unfamiliar words - unless you are going to buy a vocabulary book from Johnson O'Connor that has a programmed approach. Mr. Webre's formula: look it up, memorize the meaning, and use the word soon and several times.

Did you know that vocabulary can decline? Yes, it can. My GRE Vocab score was 710 when I was in my twenties. I took the test again 3 years ago after years of not looking up very many words, and it had declined to 650.

My resolution: start working on vocabulary again. I started following a vocabulary builder on Twitter (@wordexplorer), and so far the words are ones I have seen, many of which I know, but there are a few that are familiar but I was not sure about the meaning.

My other resolution: help others build their vocabularies.You can follow the Twitter feed mentioned above, and you can also go to the Johnson O'Connor Resources page http://www.jocrf.org/resources/vocabulary.html.

My next few Twitter posts are going to be the meaning of words that Mr. Webre asked my daughter and me about, none of which I answered correctly. They are all familiar to most educated adults, and we should know them. Maybe this will be one word a week in the future!

Happy building!