READING UPDATE: The Thesaurus- Part 4- Ransack – Zoom

November saw a crucial resurgence in reading progress. October was a very busy month, and I expected November to be similar. To my pleasant surprise, I found myself blasting out pages in large blocks.

This was most helpful as I hit the letter S. As with the dictionary, the letter S is the longest section of my thesaurus, but there were fewer chunks of redundant prefixes bogging me down mentally. S was not a stumbling block at all.

December began with an extended halt in reading. My family passed a cold around a few times, which left me tired and not keen on reading. We got a lot of holiday shopping done early somehow this year, which left me with plenty of time to pick the thesaurus back up in the middle of the month. I was surprised with how many pages I cranked out in just a few sittings.

While I finished this book off quickly, I didn’t stop looking for words to protest. I couldn’t find any worth protesting in December, however. Maybe the end of the alphabet doesn’t lend itself to the kind of synonym abuse I found in earlier sections.

I’ll post my official review in a few days. For now, here are my synonym objections for the final quarter or so of the thesaurus:


Retract/Palinode- I suppose the latter term has some place still in artistic and literary circles but it’s far from acceptable as a straight synonym. A palinode is a poem or song that serves to retract information laid out in a previous song, verse, or poem. What an artful way to present a contraction!

Rodomontade/Boast or Boastful- While the former initially sounds like a very snotty and boastful way to say boastful, context reveals all. This word comes from the name of an Italian literary figure- a haughty and boastful fictitious king. If you’re a fan of medieval Italian literature, I won’t roll my eyes at you if you use this word. If not, don’t try it.

Scarecrow/Tatterdemalion- The latter is a French term used to describe anyone or anything that is ragged in appearance. I can see how the two words may have overlapped over time but even Merriam-Webster Online doesn’t list scarecrow as a synonym. I’m willing to let it slide for any Frenchies and Quebecois that I may run into but not for anyone else.

Shrewd/Perspicacious-Both words refer to the ability to perceive things clearly, but they have distinct qualities. Shrewdness stems from practicality in mindset, while perspicaciousness suggests something more than practicality. It’s more of an uncanny power, making these words close but not at all interchangeable. Perspicacious is also a few syllables too long to get the point across.

Stupid/Hebetudinous- The latter comes across as a snobbish, condescending way to confuse the very person they may be using the word against. Of course, it’s rooted in Latin, making it more outdated than useful. It’s rooted in the Latin word for dull. Only through extensions of that root term, does one arrive at stupid. Save your syllables and you’ll less like a pseudo-intellectual.

Terpsichorean/Dancer- The former comes the name of one of the Muses from Greek mythology. Terpsichore was the patron muse of dancing and song. It works but only if your audience knows their Greek mythology.

Tintinnabulate/Ring- When checking for specifics on the former, I found that Merriam-Webster Online doesn’t even list it as a word in their database! I’m not an M-W purist or anything but that should probably give one pause. Tintinnabulum is the Latin word for bell, so fans of Latin can argue that this word makes sense and should be in bounds. But I hail from the ‘save your syllables’ school of thought, so it just sounds wordy and unnecessary.


Page Count: 528/528 (100.00%)

READING UPDATE: The Thesaurus- Part 3- Gossipy – Rankness

I never posted a reading update for the month of September. By the time I realized I hadn’t posted yet, October was half over, so I just skipped it and decided to lump September and October into one post. October was a very lean month for reading. I had a few side projects going on and a busy schedule at home.

Two spelling errors that I found during this last batch of pages included an e missing off the end of the word adjective and an s missing off the end of what I assume was supposed to be the word his. Those are the only spelling errors I’ve come across so far. While it is a knock against the editorial staff, it’s still not bad to only have two mistakes in 376 pages. Both mistakes occurred in example sentences and not the main word, making them a little more forgivable.

Reading progress has dipped each month. With the holiday shopping season right around the corner, I have minor concerns about finishing the thesaurus this year. I only need 76 pages per month to complete the journey before we ring in the New Year though. The calendar for November has some busy patches but I believe there will be several opportunities to make up for lost time.

There will be a reading update post for November’s progress. Until then, here are the unnecessary synonyms I came across the last two months:

Heavenly/Empyrean- The latter is a 15th century Latin word derived from the Greek word empurios. I can see the appeal- it’s a flowery, grandiose kind of word but it also sounds a little pretentious to me.

Hypocritical/Pecksniffery- While I love that the latter comes from a character in a Charles Dickens, the word just sounds naughty. I can see Brits getting away with using pecksniffery but American’s should probably stay away.

Introduction/Prolegomenon- Use of the latter word should only be done in the proper situation. Introduction and prologue are suitable for simple, introductory remarks at the beginning of a literary work or theatrical production. Prolegomenon should be reserved only for sophisticated opening remarks on a scholarly work. To suggest it is interchangeable with the other two is inappropriate.

Logical/Ratiocinative- Why waste time and energy on extra syllables? Ratiocinative refers to a very precise form of reasoning. To hear someone use it to describe themselves today, however, would lead me to believe they are a little full of themselves. Call yourself logical and I’ll go along with you. Call yourself ratiocinative and I’ll call you arrogant.

Long/Sesquipedalian- On the surface, this is just silly. Why use a six-syllable word when you can just say long? That’s actually the point though. Sesquipedalian literally means a foot-and-a-half long. It was first used to describe long, unnecessary words in a work of satire. Stuffy literary critics took it too far though, embracing the obscure and ironic word and wielding it as a weapon against authors deemed to use flowery, long, unnecessary words.

Obsolete/In mothballs- Does anyone use mothballs anymore? I took that question to Google and learned that all the advances in central heating and air conditioning over the last 60 years, as well as the boom in synthetic fibers, have all but rendered mothballs and other such clothing storage pesticides unnecessary. Does this mean that the idiom ‘in mothballs’ is itself obsolete? I suppose this idiom was still common 20 years ago but I’m going to check to see if current edition of Roget’s still includes it.

Pabulum/Food- The former is an old Latin word that isn’t a perfect match for the word food. It’s got a history of being used to describe any kind of fodder necessary to keep plants or animals alive, any kind of nutrients suspended in a solution suitable for absorption, and even intellectual food for thought. To present it as such a straight synonym is misleading.

Pusillanimity/Cowardly- French, from Latin, and a few syllables too many, the former may work in the über-intellectual, hoity-toity crowd but it’s not a word to use when communicating with the general public. I’m not anti-big words but you have to respect the fact that they have a very specific time and place to be considered appropriate.


Page Count: 376/528 (71.21%)
Countdown to the Letter S: 26 pages

READING UPDATE: The Thesaurus- Part 2- Craze – Gossipmonger

I came up a hair short of matching last month’s reading pace but I am pleased with my progress so far. If I can keep chewing through 100 pages a month, I should be finished with the thesaurus by Thanksgiving. This is an attainable and optimal goal. December was always a difficult month for commitment to reading due to Christmas shopping and holiday get-togethers. If I do complete this read by Thanksgiving, I may take December off and pick up book number three in 2019.

For kicks and giggles, I checked on where I was in the dictionary at this percentage complete point. I was partway through the letter L at this same point, so there are substantial differences between the length of the letter sections in each book. Letters P and S look to be the longest sections of the thesaurus, which was true for the dictionary as well, so it’s not completely different.

There has been very little value in reading the thesaurus. I’m already familiar with many of the suggested synonyms, even if they weren’t at the forefront of my mind. Many of these suggestions are in bounds but I’m not giving up my distrust of the thesaurus as a writing tool.

The following are some of the most over-the-top synonym suggestions I came across during August. Some of them may have their place in scientific or discipline-specific circles but very few of these should be used outside of those audiences:

Defection/Tergiversation- The latter is an almost archaic Latin term. Ironic that a big, fancy-pants word also means “evasion of a clear-cut statement.” This word is probably only used to trip people up.

Defiant/Contumacious- The latter is legal jargon derived from Latin. ‘Nuff said.

Dithyrambic/Passionate- The former actually refers to a specific type of enthusiastic, short poem of unconventional structure. Not exactly a perfect synonym!

Dress/Habiliments- The latter used to refer to complex outfits, such as a suit of armor. Nowadays it can refer to any kind of industry-specific uniform. Save yourself at least one syllable and find a shorter word.

Eidolon/Ghost- MW Online defines the former as “an unsubstantial image,” not a specter or ghost. It’s also in the bottom 30% of MW’s word popularity rankings. Anyone using this term is just trying to sound smart.

Eleemosynary/Benevolent- The former is a Latin term, the root of which the English shortened to ælmes, which became alms. Thus the direct connection to benevolent. However, MW Online defines it to mean “of, relating to, or supported by charity.” Not a perfect fit but I have to admit that it is in the right vein.

Exuviate/Shed- Biologists can use this word all they like when referring to molting and skin shedding. Everyone else should pick something else to describe any other form of changing or undressing.

Faithlessness/Perfidiousness- Shakespeare used the latter in All’s Well That Ends Well but that should tell you something right there. If it’s old and flowery enough to appear in Shakespeare, it’s probably not best for use in modern day-to-day conversation.

Fastigium/Height- The definition of the former refers to both the angle of a ventricle in your brain or the point during a disease where symptoms are most notable. The thesaurus just says it’s interchangeable with the word height, without specifying which definition of height links best to it. There is a link but the thesaurus fails to safeguard against misuse.


Page Count: 228/528 (43.18%)
Countdown to the Letter H: 6 pages

READING UPDATE: The Thesaurus- Part 1- Introduction – Crawly

There was a point in late July where I thought hitting the 25% mark was possible. I came close but life intervened. This wasn’t as demoralizing as constantly missing my reading goals with the dictionary, because after just a few pages into the thesaurus, I realized how little I was going to take away from it.

Given that I view the thesaurus as a tool rife for misuse, I was not surprised to find only the scantest of cautions against inappropriate use of the words found herein. In the opening introduction, my thesaurus boasts that it will help the reader “find the right words to express your thoughts precisely and add color and variety to your language.” Toward the end of the introduction section, it cautions that “even though two words may be synonymous, they may not be equally appropriate in all contexts.” Rather than encouraging readers to double-check the exact definitions of fancier words plucked from the thesaurus before using them, it just rambles on about certain fields that words might be limited to.

Reading the ‘synonym’ content of the thesaurus is a breeze. My approach to the thesaurus makes this even easier. Unlike the dictionary, I’m not trying to discover or retain much of anything with this book. My goal is to push through it and move on to books with substance. I’ve got a respectable vocabulary but if I didn’t absorb new words from the dictionary, I won’t add to my lexicon from the thesaurus.

I found one or two words with ‘synonyms’ that were highfalutin and seemed completely unnecessary outside of trying to make yourself sound smart. I don’t remember what those words were, but I will keep an eye out for them from now on. Other than that, I don’t have any interesting thesaurus entries to report on because it offers no interesting details about the words like the dictionary did.


Page Count: 118/528 (22.35%)
Countdown to the Letter D: 5.5 pages

NOW READING: Roget’s II Desk Thesaurus- Home, School, and Office Edition (1995)

You might think I would move on to something with a narrative (or at least full sentences) after completing the dictionary, but this next selection for Project Bookshelf is part of a planned process. Trust the process. I do, even after the dictionary left me with egg on my face for years on end.

I chose the dictionary first to expose myself to as many words as possible. The thesaurus serves a specific purpose as well. It’s a doubling down of sorts on vocabulary. It exposes me to similar words. I won’t go so far as to use the term synonyms, because I know that words grouped together in a thesaurus are not true synonyms. Some are but there is a wide array of variation and differentiation that must be respected and understood when choosing words.

My mental approach to the dictionary was a positive one. It is a reference book with a noble purpose- helping people spell and understand the meaning of words. This is not the same approach I bring to the thesaurus. It is a dangerous book that is used as a crutch by lazy writers. I’m sure I was guilty of trying to make my writing look better via a thesaurus back in middle school and possibly even high school, but somewhere along the way I came to understand that a thesaurus is more of a frenemy and best kept at arm’s length.

As with the dictionary, there’s not much backstory to describe with this choice. I believe this particular thesaurus moved into the house with me, but I am not 100% certain. One point to clarify is the pronunciation of this book. Growing up, I heard a few different pronunciations but the primary one was Ro-gets. This is incorrect. It is pronounced Ro-zhays, and it is named after Peter Mark Roget, who created a comprehensive English-language reference work in 1805. This book is different from the original, as it is simply presented in alphabetical order, start to finish. Roget’s original (and more extensive thesaurus) is broken up into categories.

Roget’s II offers larger font, more white space per page, and only a third the number of pages that the dictionary threw at me. I know better than to overestimate my reading prowess, so I will simply say that I am confident that I will not take four years to read this one. Onward!

1,600 Pages in 1,596 Days: My Review of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition

There is a reason some books are classified as reference books. Reading them cover to cover provides little more than bragging rights, if you can find the right person to brag to. I got, and deserved, a number of odd looks from many people when informing them of my decision to read the dictionary.

My overall goal of reading every book in my house as a prelude to putting serious effort into writing my own stories was lost as soon as I told them my first book was the dictionary. It is an odd choice but it made sense in my head. Perhaps I failed to articulate the rest of my quest or frame the dictionary’s place in it. I do know that I was overconfident, foolish, and even a bit arrogant in my early perceptions of my ability to tackle this book. For all that, I apologize.

Before we get any further along the path, let me explain my system for rating books. It’s very different from my movie rating scale, but I feel that the written word can be broken into bigger chunks easier than one can parse the components of a film. This is a young rating system and subject to change.

As a fan of Stephen King’s work, my first two categories are nicknamed Toolbox Level 1 and Toolbox Level 2. Level 1 contains structural essentials like vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and mechanics. More often than not, a published work should score high here because some editor has already made sure that words are spelled correctly and that the work doesn’t fall apart grammatically or mechanically speaking. You don’t get published (or shouldn’t get published) if you don’t have a firm grasp on these things. There is still room for nitpicking word choice and sentence structure though.

Level 2 is the broad category of style. How does the author compose paragraphs, develop characters, and describe the action? How does the dialogue sound? Does the author have a competent and independent voice, or does he or she sound phony, pretentious, or objectionable in some other way? If Level 1 is like engineering (it has to be there to function), then Level 2 is akin to architecture (the little design touches that set it apart, be they necessary or not).

The third category is Fulfillment of Purpose. Does this book accomplish what it set out to do? Here creeps in a little more subjectivity. I take into account the genre of the book with Level 2 to a degree, but it becomes more relevant here.

The fourth and final category is Reading Experience. This is as subjective as it gets. Did I enjoy this book and why or why not? Think of this as the recommendation factor. A book may be well-written and an adequate example of its genre, but if it’s not my cup of tea, I’ll let you know here. Feel free to debate me on any of my four assessment areas, but this is where most disagreement will originate.

All four assessment areas receive equal standing. I award letter grades to each category and use a GPA-style grading scale (A = 4.0, A- = 3.667, etc.) to create a final score. In time, I will create another list section so you readers can browse through my reading history by title, author, and score.

Now then, the dictionary…

Toolbox Level 1: A-
Because most of the dictionary contains brief sentences or fragments for its definitions, there’s little fault-finding here. The introductory section contained a few sentences that wore out their welcome and some instances of clunky grammar. Beyond that, it did a pretty good job of using as many simple words as possible in constructing the definitions. The dictionary is full of vocabulary but it is also a reference book. A few of the higher-level science and mathematical definitions required fancier words, but I was pleased that they stuck with layman’s terms as often as possible.

Toolbox Level 2: A-
Most of my assessment criteria in this category are rendered moot by the dictionary’s genre. Aside from the introductory section, usage notes, and section headers, there’s very little variation from the necessary straightforward delivery of definitions and descriptions. There doesn’t need to be. It’s a dictionary. Nobody expects style and flair from a dictionary. MW gets it, which is why they hold back on style. They did get a little hoity-toity defending MW’s product as the best and putting down the imitators though. The font size was a pain at times, but you either have tiny font or a very large dictionary. Pick your poison.

Fulfillment of Purpose: A-
This is a very good reference book. The only points I have against it are minor quibbles. I caught two or three spelling/sorting mistakes. This looks bad for a book that most people use to ensure accurate spelling, but when you consider that it’s only a small handful of mistakes among hundreds of thousands of entries, it’s hard to knock it too much for these few instances.

The Geographic Names section left me wanting more. It did not provide the meanings of city/mountain/river/etc. names in their native tongue. I’m sure there are some interesting reasons for many of these names, but no etymology was provided. It’s a minor point, and I doubt most people use a dictionary for geographic names (let alone know it’s in there to begin with).

I walked away with two other points to ponder. First, there are a lot of definitions that include the word or a form of the word being defined. That was always considered a no-no in school. Does this mean MW is wrong, or were many of my teachers wrong?

Second, I question the future of print dictionaries. While my dictionary fulfills its purpose as a reference book very well, it was in its prime over 20 years ago. Not long after publication, my copy was already outdated. A dictionary is like a financial statement- it’s a snapshot in time. The English language is always changing, for better or worse. My dictionary is still useful today but not quite as useful as it used to be. With the rise of the internet not long after my dictionary was published, I have to wonder how many dictionaries get purchased in this day and age of Google, spell check, auto-correct, and Wikipedia. The Oxford English Dictionary abandoned publishing physical dictionaries several years ago. I wonder if and when MW might follow suit.

Reading Experience: D-
You knew this was coming, right? I didn’t give it an F because there were interesting words along the way, and some of the usage notes were enlightening and entertaining. An F means that I hated reading the book, failed to connect with it at all, and had to fight to get through it. Those few aforementioned positives don’t change the fact that my will to read was broken several times during this experience.

The slow pace of each page (upwards of 15 minutes each) and the lack of any kind of narrative made it easy to fall asleep while reading. I thought short bursts of information would be easy to work through, but the opposite was true. Some letters were more interesting than others, but all but the shortest sections had their frustrating moments.

Reading the dictionary was laborious and this experience makes me think twice about how soon I want to read my German-to-English dictionary or my wife’s French-to-English dictionary. Perhaps we’ll dispose of them before the opportunity or desire to read them arises.

Overall Score: 2.917 out of 4 (high B-)
This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In a way, I am glad I got this out of the way first. It took forever, I retained little, and I did not enjoy the process of reading razor-thin pages a handful at a time. But I crossed the finish line. For what it’s worth, I can say that I read the dictionary. More than that, I took on an almost impossible task and finished it. I hope this means that I am capable of finishing other, more relevant, tasks that seem difficult to surmount.

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 33- CÚCUTA – Language Research Service

I am happy to report that I have finished reading my dictionary! This final section not only moved quickly but also provided a few more interesting words than the last few monthly entries have. It’s a big relief to be done with this book. I don’t regret reading it; nor do I regret reading it first.

Another pleasant surprise is that I found out the exact date I started reading the dictionary back in 2014. I went back and read some of my earliest posts, which suggested that I did not start on January 1, 2014. I poked around through some old spreadsheets and discovered that my journey with Merriam & Webster began on January 13, 2014. That means I accomplished my goal of finishing the 1,600-page dictionary in fewer than 1,600 days. I wrapped it up on day 1,596. Close call.

The next steps are to finalize my rating system, assign a rating to the dictionary, and write up a formal review. Stay tuned for that. Until then, here are the final interesting words and items from my journey:

ESKILSTUNA- The –tuna at the end of this Swedish city’s name reminded me of the American version of The Office. ‘Big Tuna’ was Andy’s nickname for Jim. I chuckled when I read this word, and laughs have been few and far between with the dictionary.

KADESH-BARNEA- This is the name of a site referred to in over a dozen verses of the Hebrew Bible but the actual location of it still eludes archaeologists. If the exact location is unknown, then why list it as a bona fide geographic location? Perhaps it’s because enough archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists agree that it must have been a real place. This just struck me as a curious inclusion.

KILAUEA- I hit this word a day or two after this Hawaiian volcano began its current eruptive activity. My in-laws hope to visit Hawaii in July. Hopefully it’s not spewing so much ash at that point that it disrupts air travel to the Big Island.

MOLD- If I lived in this Welsh town, I would either move out or lobby to get the name changed. This brings to light one of my gripes with the Geographic Names section- MW doesn’t list what the names of foreign cities mean in their native language or if the name stems from a specific event, characteristic, or some other meaning. Mold might have a beautiful meaning in Welsh but I don’t know what it means. Thanks for nothing, MW.

NEW QUEBEC CRATER- In all my years as a NASA nerd, I never came across this impacted crater before. Its inclusion in my dictionary surprised me. After investigating, I found that it is a very small impact crater, notable for its shape and the fact that the crater is filled in by water. Interesting but not what I would call stunning.

PARIS- This entry was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Throughout the Geographic names section, there are several instances of multiple cities with the same name. My dictionary offers no apparent rhyme or reason as to which location comes first under such circumstances. With Paris, MW lists the Texas city first, even though the French city of Paris is (1) around 10 times more populous, (2) older by a matter of centuries, and (3) a nation’s capital city. I don’t get it.

ROSTOCK- When I was in Middle School (or it could have been 9th grade) my German class had pen pals from the city of Rostock. I don’t remember how many times I actually wrote to my pen pal, what their name was, or if they were a boy or a girl. Do they still have pen pals now? In the era of email and Facebook, I can see it being much easier but also less exciting. There’s something about getting a letter in the mail weeks after sending one yourself. Anticipation is a beautiful thing. We don’t have enough of it these days.

Language Research Service- The final page in my dictionary described this service provided by MW. If you have questions about the dates words were first used or the sources MW traces the earliest recorded use to, you can send them a letter and a self-addressed stamped envelope for their reply. They limit you to three questions per letter though, so you’ll want to stock up on stamps if you’re the inquisitive type.

Nowadays, however, MW online has a Contact Us page. This probably replaces the mail-in service. I wish I’d have known about this at the beginning of my reading journey because I had several questions along the way that I could have asked. Maybe I’ll send in my question about their ordering rational for city names.


Page Count: 1600/1600 (100.00%)

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 32- CALVIN, John – CUBANGO

Mentally, at this point, I am at all-out war with the dictionary. I had a great pace going through the first half of April and then a combination of work and personal matters came up that torpedoed my progress. I couldn’t even meet my last-ditch-effort goal of reaching a page-count below 100 by the end of the month.

But the good news is that I am 102 pages away from finishing the dictionary. The last section of the dictionary is laid out differently and not crammed full of itty-bitty text. I’ve got about 70 more pages of the Geographical Names section to fight through before I reach that point though.

Two updates ago, I wrote about the possibility of finishing the dictionary by May 19th to maintain a 1-page-per-day reading pace. That, like so many of my other reading goals for the dictionary, is no longer attainable. I’d like to think that I can finish it by the end of May but I’m not setting goals like that anymore. I’ve learned my lesson.

The Biographical Names section wasn’t as interesting as I had hoped and the Geographical Names section has been a bust so far as well. Here’s the best of the bunch for April:


CALVIN, John- I never knew that this stick-in-the-mud founder of various reformed Christian denominations was a Frenchy. He was born Jehan Cauvin in northern France. Maybe I should have known that but I’ve only ever known his anglicized name. Apparently anglicizing your name was a popular thing to do if you were a person of notoriety back in the 16th century. Weird.

CARACALLA, Marcus Aurelius-Initially, I thought that this guy might have been the Marcus Aurelius most referred to in history books but I was wrong. Apparently there were a number of Roman emperors who incorporated Marcus Aurelius into their name. Caracalla, however, is notable to me because he was 29 when he died. He co-ruled the empire with his father beginning at age 10, and took over sole rule as emperor at age 23 after having his brother murdered. This guy was emperor of the Roman Empire while he was in his 20s. That makes me look far less ambitious by comparison but at least I don’t have it out for my own family.

HOOVER, J. Edgar- Here’s another person that makes me look like a flyweight in terms of ambition. Hoover became the head of the FBI (then just called the Bureau of Investigation) at the age of 29 and held the position for just a few days shy of 48 years. Would they ever let a 29-year-old hold such a high position in government now? I doubt it.

Clinton Cabinet Members- My dictionary came out in 1996, in the final year of President Bill Clinton’s first term. I was surprised to see the names of so many of his cabinet members. I talked this one over with my wife, and her theory is that they included so many Clinton cabinet members so people would know who the current members are and how to spell their names. It’s a pretty good theory and I have no way of testing it against later versions of the dictionary, as I don’t own a W. Bush-era dictionary to poke around in. I suppose that, over time, the lower-ranking cabinet members who didn’t do anything noteworthy get dropped from the Biographical Names section. They probably have given up altogether on keeping up with President Trump’s ever-changing cabinet.

Confederate Military Men- There were a lot of Confederate names throughout the Biographical Names section, a number of whom still have US military bases named after them. Given the current push to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces, I wonder if MW has been proactive at all about removing the names of Confederate soldiers from their pages. If they haven’t already, then I wonder if they’re thinking about it or if anyone else is looking to push them for it. A commemorative statue is one thing, but is listing a historical figure who stood on the wrong side of history acceptable for the preservation of historical information or should these names be scrubbed from reference books as well?

Explorers- I was similarly surprised by the sheer number of explorers listed in the Biographical Names section. These people led tough lives, venturing out into the unknown with no guarantee of success, let alone safety. In a way, it makes me sad that we don’t have honest-to-goodness explorers anymore. We live in the era of GPS, Google Earth, and Wikipedia. Our oceans and outer space seem like the only arenas left for discovery but I have no doubt that there are still places on solid ground here on Earth capable of blowing our minds that have yet to be discovered.

CAUCACUS MOUNTAINS- The positioning of this word in my dictionary marks what I believe is only the second true error that I have come across. This entry comes after both Caucusus and Caucasus Indicus, which puts means it is not in proper alphabetical sequence. Perhaps the editor read it as Caucasus Mountains by mistake. It’s a minor error but an error nonetheless.


Page Count: 1498/1600 (93.63%)
Countdown to Signs and Symbols: 71pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 31- Wave Band – CALVER, Leonard

While I accomplished my March goal of finishing the alphabetical list of English language words normally associated with the dictionary, I must be honest in my assessment of my goal of finishing the dictionary in full by May 19th. I just don’t see how it will be possible unless I can crank out a dozen or more pages each weekend. I’ll definitely finish this book before the end of June though. We’ll see if I can surprise myself though.

I didn’t draw much from X, Y, or Z but that may be unsurprising as small a set of words those combined for. The first supplemental section was abbreviations. I expected this section to be interesting but I was pretty neutral to it. The next section I conquered contained foreign words and phrases. I also expected this section to be interesting. What I got instead was about 50% Latin phrases and 25% French phrases.

Having not taken Latin, and not being provided any history on why such phrases were significant enough to include in the dictionary, this made for a very boring and disappointing section. In my final review, I will revisit my gripe about MW’s obsession with trying to link as many English language words back to Latin as they possibly can. It’s been a little annoying this whole time, so get handed a section half full of Latin words was not ideal.

The biographical names section has contained some interesting finds but I haven’t seen many worth sharing with you. I’m noticing a lot of dramatists, scientists, military men, and minor philosophers that I’ve never heard of. This makes me wonder why they’re included, as well as which unassuming late 20th Century names will be included in this section 50 years from now.

Here are March’s most interesting words, abbreviations, and names:

WELSH RABBIT- This word is the name of a cuisine consisting of melted cheese over toast or crackers. I didn’t look into it further yet but I suspect it’s a bit of a condescending moniker that refers to the Welsh being of lower means that the British.

WELTANSCHAUUNG- I was introduced to this word by the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes when I was a kid. At the time, I think I probably assumed it was a made up word. I probably learned it was a real word when I took German in school.

WINDBREAKER- My dictionary dated this word, stemming from a trademark for a type of lightweight jacket, to 1918. I was going to celebrate its centennial but MW online can trace it back to 1914 now. Oh well, it’s still much older than I’d have guessed.

WORRY- The oldest three definitions for this word shocked me. They all mean a physical attack. I wish MW would give dates for each specific definition because I would love to know when this word switched from meaning physical distress to mental distress.

ZAMBONI- As a hockey fan, I was appalled to find this word omitted from the dictionary.  Upon researching the term, I found the ice-cleaning machine is named after its creator.  My dictionary failed to include the creator in the biographical names as well.  It turns out that, despite being invented the word Zamboni didn't hit popularity until the 90s.  My dictionary is the tenth edition, so perhaps Zamboni was included in the eleventh.

ZANY- I never knew this word originated as a noun. It described a subordinate clown in a comedy act. The adjectival form of the word describes actions akin to a zany.

ZEPPELIN- I didn’t know that this word was taken from the name of its designer. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was a German general and founded a company that produced the lighter-than-air craft that bore his name. He died before the end of World War I, so he never saw his creation cease to be used for military attack and grow in popularity as a means of peacetime travel.

ZOO- It’s short for zoological garden. I never knew that.

AHL- One of the only interesting abbreviations I found, this was a pleasant surprise. The American Hockey League is a big deal in my area because we have an AHL team in Hershey and a strong fan base that supports them. I did not expect to see an abbreviation for a minor sports league.

EKG- I remember being told once that they call it an EKG because using C to represent cardio would make it look too much like EEC if a doctor sloppily wrote it down or vice versa. Whoever told me that is wrong because it’s called an EKG because its abbreviated from its original German word, Elektrokardiogramm.

UNICEF- Call me ignorant, but I never knew what it stood for: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Needs Fund.

BENEDICT- This showed just how out of date a physical dictionary can become. It defines the name Benedict as being used by 15 popes. It’s 16 now. There were also many names I saw that were listed as being still alive when my dictionary was published back in 1996 that I know are dead now. I pause for a knowing ‘huh’ every time I come across such an instance.


Page Count: 1440/1600 (90.00%)
Countdown to Geographical Names: 38 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 30- Unbeseeming – Wave

Progress is being made! I am close enough to the end of the alphabet in my dictionary that I regained a fervent desire to read. Part of this is surely due to my growing desire to be rid of this book. Another factor is in play as well. I did the math- if I can finish the dictionary by May 19th, 2018, then I will have read 1,600 pages in 1,600 days. Failing to achieve at least a one-page-a-day pace is unthinkable to me.

I still believe that it will get easier once I complete the letter Z. All I can do now is to prove it to myself and to those of you who have been reading along with my journey. As I’m reporting my progress monthly now, there are fewer interesting words popping up:

VERBALISM- The second definition for this word is ‘words used as if they were more important than the realities they represent.’ Nowadays they just call that social media, right?

VERRUCA- This word means a wart or a wart-like lesion. How appropriate for the namesake of Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

VIGINTILLION- This word has really good flow and denotes a form of large-scale counting I had not encountered before. A score is 20. A vigintillion is 20 million.

VIOLACEOUS- This word also has very good flow, though it sounds bad. It means ‘of the color violet’ but it can also sound like it means something inviting violation. Thank goodness it’s the former and not the latter.

VODKA- This word comes from the Russian root word voda, which means water. Why doesn’t that surprise me one bit?

Page Count: 1374/1600 (85.88%)
Countdown to the Letter X: 32 pages
Countdown to the Supplementary Material: 42 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 29- Tiercel – Unbending

The fourth quarter of 2017 was a bust.  I am almost positive that I only read two pages during those three months.  Other pursuits took my focus away in October and November and December reading time was lost to extra hours at work and the Christmas season.

January, however, was a very productive month.  I determined that reading two pages a day would see me finish the letter Z by my birthday.  I have fallen just behind of that target pace but just knowing that I have fewer than 100 pages separating me from the easier supplemental material is a huge mental boost.

Perhaps my renewed vigor for finishing the dictionary causes me to read faster and not slow down for quirky words or unique etymology, but I’ve seen fewer words worth noting.  The letter U has been void of notable words thus far.  Perhaps my February post will include a few.  We’ll see.

TIMES SIGN- The fact that this term dates only to 1948 had me wondering what they called it for centuries before then.  My search for this information was a quick one.  Common sense should have told me right away that it was just called a multiplication sign.  ‘Times’ is a shorthand word for ‘multiplication,’ so this term was merely a shortening of ‘multiplication sign.’

TODAY- As often as I hear people pronounce this word ‘too-day,’ I was surprised to find that my dictionary only offers ‘tuh-day’ as a correct pronunciation.  I checked MW online and they’re still only offering one pronunciation.

TOSS- Even into my fifth year reading the dictionary, I still enjoy seeing common words come from Scandinavia.  I must be biased.

TRAGUS- It’s the mass of skin and cartilage that juts out in front of the opening of the ear canal.  It’s not just for decoration though.  It’s actually important to helping you hear what’s behind you.

TRUMP- One of the definitions for this word amused me greatly.  Trump can mean “a dependable and exemplary person.”  A certain world leader certainly isn’t living up to that meaning of his surname, now is he?

TURNSPIT- I laughed out loud when I read the definitions for this word.  A turnspit used to be the term for a small dog placed on a treadmill that was rigged up to turn a roasting spit.

TURTLE / TURTLEDOVE- I often wondered how the turtledove got its name, considering it looks nothing like a turtle.  As it turns out, the turtledove was named first, by over 300 years.  It seems they came from separate but similar-sounding origins.  Fascinating stuff.

Page Count: 1322/1600 (82.63%)                                      

Countdown to the Letter V: 19 pages

Countdown to the Supplementary Material: 94 pages