For Want of the Right Word

One of the things I dislike the most about getting older is that the synapses don't 'snap' as quickly as they used to. It happens most frequently when I try to say someone's name and can't think of it or when I am trying to think of a particular word. It's frustrating.

I have always loved words; learning new words and what they mean and using them correctly as well as discovering their etymologies. If I try to pinpoint the reason it most likely goes back to learning to read - the sense of achievement I felt with each new word I learned and understood. 

After reading came spelling and learning that words weren't always spelled the way they sounded. I remember when I was in fourth grade in our one room country school asking the teacher how to spell a word. She told me to "look it up in the dictionary". "How can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it?, I asked. She told me to "sound it out". I did. And I found the word. (Now I'm wondering what that word was.)

Being sent to the dictionary helped teach me self-reliance but it also opened up a whole new world of words. You've heard of people reading the dictionary? I was one of them. I might go to the dictionary for the spelling or definition of a word but then get lost in it discovering a whole slew of new words.

I had to consult younger brother about the dictionary in our home while growing up. (That memory thing again!)

We concur that it was a 1950's-60's Webster's.

Now when we want to know the meaning or spelling of a word, it is at our finger tips online. 

But I still keep a dictionary by my chair if I want to look up a word while reading or I jot down words on a of a piece of paper to look up later.

The impetus for this post was this pristine 200l, Tenth Edition Merriam-Webster's.  

The empty house next door is being cleared/cleaned out in preparation for listing for sale. A lot of things are just going into the dumpster which is where Bud found this - did I want it?

Yes. Do I need it? No. But it is hard for me to see books thrown away. Especially a book I have always valued greatly.

To paraphrase Tennyson's Tears, Idle tears - Words, idle words, I know not what they mean - thanks to the dictionary, I can find out. 😊