The Bible, a collection of Shakespeare’s plays, maybe War and Peace are likely to be at the top of the one-book-to-bring-to-that-remote-island list, but I favor a dictionary. Asking for the Oxford English Dictionary’s twenty volumes is probably cheating. I would settle for the concise, single tome.
In my younger years I often heard, “If you don’t know what it means, look it up.” Grudgingly and reluctantly I would. But this sense of drudgery abated and was replaced with the pleasure of acquiring a new word.
Deciphering the schwa and other diacritical marks was enticing. I was hooked. This was when 30 Days to a more Powerful Vocabulary was a best seller. Strengthening my lexicon seemed like a good thing and much more enticing than Charles Atlas’ promise of a strong body, knowing his target audience was men.
“That’s an SAT word.” “A what?” I asked some adolescents years later. “We learned loquacious for the SATs” “But it’s a real word to be used, not just for the SATs.” I answered defensively. My detractors were not convinced.
I have been accused of snobbery, aloofness, and unnecessarily obfuscating– confusing– meaning. “You’re using a ten-dollar word when a twenty-five cent word will do.” Who knew?
My quest for clarity and precision, and my love of words has been misunderstood. I delight in the sound of “fecund”, “verdant”, and “supercilious” when gliding off my tongue.
I suspect I will be no less off-putting if I direct individuals to, “Go look it up.”
