The dictionary
Today I went to a used book store to buy a dictionary. My main motivation in buying the dictionary was to learn new words. Words like swelt (v, to overpower with heat), oppidan (adj, of a town; urban), and aardvark (n. a large nocturnal, borrowing mammal, feeding on ants and termites and having a long extensive tongue, strong claws, and long ears). I already knew the word aardvark (we didn’t have cable when I was a kid, so I watched PBS), but I’m including it in my examples because it allowed me to give an Arthur joke.
As a sad side note, when trying to copy over the description for aardvark, I first went to the dictionary, imputed Ctrl + C, returned to my computer, imputed Ctrl + V, but then realized this wasn’t possible… That’s not how books work. To hide my chagrin I imputed Ctrl + Z and got on with my life.
I was having trouble finding a dictionary so I asked the store manager for help. She threw a smoke bomb at the ground, disappeared for a bit, but returned with three large briefcases. To my surprise, the briefcases were actually dictionaries. The dictionaries were ginormous, colossal, mountainous, bloated, voluminous, cumbersome, ample, obese (I also bought a thesaurus). The copy I ended up buying was over 2,000 pages, 8-inch by 12-inch, hard bounded, weighing 20+ lbs.
It’s a lethal book. If someone ever broke into my apartment, the first thing I’d grab is my dictionary, not my baseball bat. They say the pen is mightier than the sword; I’d like to append that the dictionary is mightier than the pen. Give me a dictionary, give my opponent a pen, and put us in an octagon for a fight to the death. I guarantee you I’m the one walking out of that octagon.
Apparently so few people buy dictionaries that none of my three options were priced. The store manager hadn’t even bothered to value the books. For decades, the dictionaries had served unfulfilled lives as bookends without the prospect of finding a better home. Yet, I was able to step in and haggle the adoption fee down to a reasonable $6. The new member of my family, The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition, printed in 1966, has already improved my vocabulary by two. Obviously a great purchase; I’ll swelt anyone who says otherwise.
