Teacher Discussion Forums

I've been searching for materials to upgrade my own vocabulary. Does anyone know a magazine that has liberal doses of erudite literary vocabulary (i.e., not necessarily jargon) for this purpose? I'd like to buy a subscription to one or more magazines and mark them up to study the words and how they're used in context. I'm just having trouble finding a good magazine; so far, I've identified The New Criterion as a good possibility, but there must be others. Or perhaps someone could direct me to an author whose books I could purchase. Any help would be appreciated,
All journals have interesting vocabulary and it usually depends on the writer, but it's not altogether uncommon that in just one article of The New Criterion, for example, I can find at least six or more interesting words or usages — or at least interesting to me. I list examples in an article below:

http://newcriterion.com:81/archives/26/ ... est-folly/
The notebooks of the English aesthete...are a trove of amusing aperçus, anecdotes, and apothegms.
This 7,500-word philippic appeared in...Harper’s...with a brief hiatus...
...not the heat of its invective...but its mendacity.
Mr. Lapham intoned...
...neglected to take the elementary precaution of publishing his piece
Confronted with his dereliction, Mr. Lapham waxed petulant
Mr. Lapham’s cavalier disregard for historical fact...
...it is ironical (not to say contemptibly risible)
...magazine ostensibly dedicated to history...requires a disinterested respect for the truth
It is lavishly produced
...consists mostly of promiscuous gleanings from the past
The sophomoric identifications provide a good index
The pretentiousness adumbrated in that list emerges with febrile ostentation
His command of inconsequentiality has elicited comment
Along with his patrician drawing-room leftism
Mr. Lapham’s logic is errant
Mr. Lapham’s incontinent logic is disorienting
...it stymies forthright discussion
...addiction...to the ephemeral, bequeaths us an intellectual poverty
But by swaddling that important commonplace with his baroque, politically tendentious verbiage
...disaster of historical nescience
...a symptom of the cultural cataclysm it pretends to diagnose

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I don't know of a good magazine, but following the discussion on the other thread, I'd like to say that there are lists and there are lists. Some lists of vocabulary - a good dictionary for instance (and you can buy dictionaries relating to particular subjects of course)- will give a number of examples in context. You can also reread such things and note down such things to aid your memory, and if you can stomach that, it will be a very time-efficient way to learn vocab.
I think that's true for foreign languages, but especially true for English, because the words will probably feel less abstract.
There are also lots of stimulating lists on the web, of course, and it is easy to seek out examples yourself on-line. Reading magazines and novels etc has the drawback that you will get involved in the content and forget to focus on the task in hand.

Thanks for the post and advice.
I've studied the Wordsmith website for some time, which has sentence-per-word examples. But I really need something on paper that I can mark and just flip pages, to help me review really fast — and not something unwieldy, like a dictionary, so I can study in public while on the subway or waiting in line, etc.
I actually prefer the "drawback" of interesting content. I'm hoping for a magazine with news and educational content so that I'm learning more than just words, thus making even better use of time. It will be maximally interesting only on the first read; upon review, the novelty will wear off, I'm sure.
And I think having theme-unified paragraphs reinforces the vocabulary by association rather than a compilation of desultory sentences that aren't connected to each other. I only say this because I've studied that way before with some success; but I'm looking to experiment and to improve my study techniques, which I think a theme-unified, vocabulary-packed magazine or novel can.
It seems National Review and American Spectator are good for news and education, but the vocabulary is only slightly above average; I'm hoping for something more. In terms of vocabulary, the New York Review of Books is a little better, and the New Criterion is much better, but perhaps not as educated in the news realm.
In the end, if there are no other suggestions or options, I see myself finally subscribing to The New Criterion.

Sounds like a good idea. I don't mean to say that interesting content is necessarily a drawback, I just mean that certain lists get a bad rap, they have their good points. When I took a course in international politics I bought the relevant dictionary and I think it would have been a long slog to go another route.
I have long looked on the web for a good highbrow history journal so that I can maintain my feel for how history is written, because the conventions differ from social science. You'd think it would be easy, but basically, if you want big words and academic footnotes it seems you have to pay, nobody seems to read it or post it for laughs.

I don't much like to pay. Wife, kid, ESL wages, it's no joke.

There, there, woodcutter. It must be awful to just get a parsnip or so in your stocking. Fluffysanta will post something from the Sampson soon on the other thread to make you feel better.