Reading The Dictionary

[Teddy Bear Brian]

When I was growing up if ever I wanted to know what something meant or how to spell anything my dad would NEVER just tell me. He would always say look it up in the dictionary. I would roll my eyes and look it up and then as soon as I read that word and definition I would invariably end up reading other words that looked interesting. I would often spend an hour reading and I do have to say it seems to have increased my vocabulary and spelling abilities.

I still get things wrong of course. I worked in customer service for years and it was 3 years into the job before someone pointed out I was spelling customer as costumer. It took a while to untrain my typing fingers!

So out of curiosity was anyone else a crazy dictionary reading geek like me? Does etymology really fascinate you?

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Bib...erm...Big [that is one typo I will leave in place; it could be a Freudian slip*] Time: And what do you mean by Was"?

* Is that what you wear under a Skinnerian skirt?

[gah!ghost]

I was more of an encyclopedia reader. I only became interested in grammar and language after high school. In particular I really enjoy the visual aspects of grammar like ligatures and obscure punctuation like the various types of spaces and dashes.

I'd like to think I have a pretty decent vocabulary due to a lot of reading and a decent ability to retain information.

[Guest gnappies]

As long as I remember being at school, I was rubbish at spelling. I knew the dictionary meaning but putting it on paper was a different matter.

Spellcheck has improved my spelling no end, and the odd grammar Nazi, (banter ) .

[Diapered Jason]

I just took the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), which is similar to the SAT, but for graduate school, a couple of weeks ago. In the process of preparing for this test, I now have a large part of the dictionary memorized. There are many words, but not that many definitions. From what I can remember now, a simple word like praise also meant accolade, adulation, approbation, encomium, paean, and panegyrical, but in different contexts. I did not like the verbal section of the GRE, but my results were most auspicious, especially for an engineer.

As far as etymology is concerned, I have taken a course on Latin and Greek use in the English language. I have noticed that while it is interesting, it cannot be relied upon to determine the meaning of a word. I say this because I had very poor English teachers in high school that advocated learning the stems of the words so you can determine the meaning of other words with the same stem or stems. As it turns out, most of the time, the stems are very misleading when determining the meaning of the word, especially when a prefix can reverse the meaning. Also, exceptions are rampant throughout the English language. Still, while it is not that useful to me, I would imagine people in the medical field would find Greek use in the English language quite useful.

[Bettypooh]

Yes, I used to do that too And I still find myself doing something similar as I link-hop after looking up a webpage and become engrossed in it. That's usually Wikipedia these days But my main claim to fame was reading the entire World Book encyclopedia set when I was 10 That kept me occupied (and out of my parents hair) for 8 weeks- and that was just my after-school time I have always loved well-written words, proper grammar be dam%ed so long as it sounds good and is accurate

Bettypooh

[spark]

I think on of the best purchases my parents ever made was a set of World Book Encyclopedias from 1974. I very possibly taught myself to read by reading the encyclopedia (it definitely was critical to me learning how to read). Nowadays I can basically live in Wikipedia and jump from topic to to topic. I can get lost just looking up stuff, and sometimes would love to see the whole chain of topics I look up.

[timmyc]

Mine was the Atlas, I could look at maps for hours. I still love to travel have visited all but 5 states and have called 11 of them home at one time or another.

[Teddy Bear Brian]

Visited all but 2 states myself. Only lived in 5 though

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[BabyJune]

As a writer and editor, I use the dictionary--or an online dictionary--all the time. I also own some technical writing books from college that I still refer to when grammar fails me. I'm one of those picky "grammar police," but only because I write.

[Pootattoo]

Dictionaries can be a lot of fun.

I like to read the two words at the tops of pages columns,

Sometimes, they make hilarious phrases!

Try it!