I love my lexicon. No, that is not the diminutive little guy dressed in funny green clothes that lives around the corner. I mean, I love my dictionary.
I am old-fashioned and not ashamed to admit that I still prefer actual paper to web-based reading and Microsoft Spell Check. Spell Check has its place and I do use it from time to time. My problem with it is two-fold. First, just because the machine says that I have now spelled the word correctly does not mean that I have used the word correctly in the text. Secondly, and here is where I think Spell Check will ultimately be a downfall to our young students, (future adult citizens) is that is does not promote learning how to spell. If I am, at least, using a dictionary, I must have some basic knowledge (in other words: a clue) of how to spell the word in the first place or I will not locate the word any time in the near future. I am convinced that when Spell Check is used, little, if any retention takes place of how the word is actually spelled. 'We' are content to let the computer make the appropriate adjustment time after time.
What I really enjoy about the dictionary is when new words (to me) catch my eye. This most often happens when searching for a word and I note the words printed at the top of each page's outer corner that alert the user to what the first and last words of that page are.
I'll see a word I do not know the meaning of and I'll pause to check out this 'new' word.
Here are three words, new to me, that I'd like to share with you. Riveting, isn't it?
(All definitions are from my Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.)
Bethink (pg. 117): 1a: REMEMBER, RECALL b: to cause (oneself) to be reminded 2: to cause (oneself) to consider
Bhang (pg. 118): a mildly intoxicating preparation of the leaves and flowering tops of uncultivated hemp.
Bifurcate (pg. 119) to cause to be or to be divided into two parts
Allow me to include those three words into a sentence.
I bethought the birthday bash when the bhang became bifurcated and blew beneath the bishop's bicycle.
I'll leave you with that thought.
Ancora imparo
