LOS ANGELES-
Norman Lewis, who wrote or edited more than 60 books on language and grammar, including the best-selling “30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary” and “Word Power Made Easy,” has died. He was 93.
Lewis died Sept. 8 of age-related causes at an assisted-living home in Whittier, said Ted Snyder, former director of public relations at Rio Hondo College, where Lewis was once a faculty member.
Lewis was highly regarded as an authority in English-language skills, and in “30 Days” promised to teach readers “how to make words your slaves” in 15 minutes a day. The book, which Lewis co-wrote with publisher Wilfred Funk, is considered one of the most widely used and popular how-to books of its kind. It was first published in 1942, and the latest edition came out in 2003.
Lewis, who taught English at Rio Hondo from 1964 to 1995, also edited the well-known “Roget’s New Pocket Thesaurus in Dictionary Form.”
A man knowledgeable of many words, Lewis used few when lecturing, Snyder said. Often, Lewis would stand before a class and not say anything, waiting for the students to engage first.
“Students participated in the whole learning process, which is the way most of his vocabulary books were written,” Snyder told the Los Angeles Times in Tuesday’s editions. “They were filled with a series of exercises and quizzes that turned you into a participant.”
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1912, Lewis published his first article, a book report that appeared in the now-defunct New York Telegram, at 11.
In 1939, he sold his first nonfiction work–a quiz on the varieties of manias–to Leisure magazine for $1.
As a student at Columbia University, where he earned a master’s degree, Lewis wrote his first book, a sixth-grade textbook called “Journeys Through Wordland,” in 1941.
Lewis is survived by his wife, Mary; two daughters, Margie and Debbie; and two granddaughters.
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