When I was in
graduate school, my roommate’s father came to visit. We were in the middle of moving out of a
house that we had been renting. As we
cleaned it up, packing boxes and mopping the floors, he sat on a bar stool and
read entries from a dictionary out loud.
At the time, I found the behavior inexplicable. Just another part of being a goofy old
guy And yet he was clearly fascinated by
what he was finding and that made us interested as well.
As so often
happens in my life, now I understand. At
some point, I began using the dictionary as more than a spell-checker, and I
found it contained amazing information.
Meanings. Etymologies. Odd
juxtapositions. And, as the poet said,
“way leads on to way.” One word leads to
another. Now, I sometimes find myself
doing the same thing my friend’s father did, occasionally looking up a word and
then looking up another word and then randomly browsing the dictionary and even
reading it out loud to others (usually my poor captive students). There is a pleasure in learning what words mean,
and used to mean, and sharing the information.
A dictionary is like a Field Guide to Language.
Someone once
told me that he couldn’t write poetry because he didn’t have a big enough
vocabulary. He didn’t have the
words. I explained that I didn’t have
the words either, but the poems teach them to me. I learn them as I need them.
Writing isn’t always
an expression of language, sometimes it’s an exploration of
language. You discover the words as you go.
As a kid, I developed a fascination for words. My parents, English teachers, nurtured this by explaining what certain words meant when I asked. Because I couldn't see well enough to read the print dictionary, Dad often looked up words and read their definitions to me.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in the seventh grade, I got my very own Braille dictionary, thirty-six volumes that took up two shelves in our basement. I spent hours looking up words, words, and more words.
As I grew older, I lost interest in the dictionary, only using it when necessary, but I never lost inteest in words. I guess that's why I'm a writer.e