Just noticed my dictionary is a relic of a bygone age
Call me anachronistic, but I use a real dictionary to look up words.
I like the internets as much as the next guy, but still prefer, more often than not, the look and feel of a solid dense bit of bookery in my hands. It means authority, and presence, and presents language in a more permanent and, I daresay, reassuring way than do bits and pixels.
Mostly. I just noticed that my dictionary is a relic of a bygone age. Not the age of print and type, but the age when terrorism had to do with Them, not Us.
I was looking for a word and happened upon a small picture in the margin that caught my eye: a tiny black and white photo of Manhattan, including the Twin Towers, associated with the definition of "skyline". About three inches down is another pic, a little larger, of just the towers and labeled "skyscraper". Also in the same corner of the page: skyjack. And sky marshall.
on
| § 7
§ 7 Comments
[ You're too late, comments are closed ]
You're anachronistic. And for
You're anachronistic. And for good reason.
When you look up a word on the innernets, you don't generally get to let your eye wander to the words around it, and you never get to just open to a random page and see what words you find.
For all its hyperlinky goodness, the internet pretty much sucks for self-inflicted surprises.
Don't even get me started on the difference between 500 lbs. of paper-based encyclopedia and its 21st century alternative.
Same reason I like real
Same reason I like real bookstores and libraries over Amazon. If you know what you want, Amazon is superterrific.
If you kinda know but wanna see maybe what else is around, there is just no substitute for looking at the other stuff shelved nearby.
Pretty much every time I went into a library as a student, working on a particular project and looking for very specific materials, I found tons of other stuff that had little to do with what I was doing but might have made a much more valuable and fulfilling project than the one I was chained to.
Sure coulda been a case of the grass being greener, but I rather think it wasn't.
We pretend the information
We pretend the information internet isn't linear, but at a minimum, it's accessed in a deterministic manner.
Unlike, say, a stroll through Barnes & Noble or Kroch's & Brentano's.
Agreed 100% on both the
Agreed 100% on both the deadtree dictionary and the vaule (and fun) of brick and mortar book stores and libraries.
Not that I never look words up online, but I still get a lot of use out of the deadtrees...
Yep. Among the rewards with
Yep. Among the rewards with which I plan to reward myself, to the despair of my good wife, when I finish my doctorate, are full sets of the Brittanica and the Oxford English Dictionary.
Ken,
Ken,
DO you know that I semi-seriously considered buying a full OED? Until I realized it was what, 2-dozen volumes...
Of course, if someday I have the space, I'm gonna git 'em.
I've got a friend who did
I've got a friend who did just that, and bought the full OED.
Quite regularly, he'll pull a volume out and just start browsing. Just as I would, in the same circumstance.