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

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 28- Steady State Theory - Tierce

Note: This update covers the pages I read between July 1 and September 30, 2017.

The third quarter of 2017 was a very productive one when it came to reading. My fourth quarter progress has been all but nonexistent, so I guess that balances out. I ended September close to the mid-point of the letter T. If I can avoid too many more distractions (which is nigh impossible between birthdays and holidays at the end of the year), I may be in the homestretch come 2018. I’m going to temper my expectations but we’ll see what happens.

As you'll see, I've added a new countdown to the end of my posts. The last 200 pages or so of my dictionary are supplemental material. I suspect these sections will be easier to read through than the definitions section. As I am excited to grow close to those sections, I added a page countdown to them.

Now then...


STEATOPYGIA- If you have ever seen someone with almost shelf-like buttocks, this is the technical term for it. It’s a genetic trait that comes originally from certain ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa.

STELLA- This term amused me because I have seen A Streetcar Named Desire and I enjoy Stella Artois. This was the name given to a prototype universal currency developed in the United States. It did not catch on and several of the coins wound up being incorporated into jewelry worn by Washington D.C. brothel madams.

SUNBOW- Technically, this is what you’re seeing when you see a rainbow-like prismatic effect when there is mist of vapor in the air but it has not rained. It seems to me like there would be more science weenies advocating the usage of this term for accuracy’s sake.

SUNROOF- My dictionary and MW online date this term all the way back to 1952. The age of this term for an automobile feature surprised me. Then again, I’m not much of a car guy.

SURD- We’re all familiar with the word absurd but this root word is not the opposite of that. Surd means irrational or lacking sense. Absurd just takes it to a higher degree of irrationality. I think I may add this word to my personal lexicon for situations or statements that are just irrational and instead of wildly so.

SYRUP- Did you know this word is of Arabic origin? I didn’t either until I got to page 1,235.

TABLOID- This word was originally a trademarked name for a condensed pill created by a London pharmaceutical company. The term became widely used to describe other condensed goods for sale, including short, sensational publications.

TAXIDERMY- This word dates back to 1820, not long after it became popular for hunters to take their trophy skins to upholsterers instead of tanners to have their kills stuffed for a more life-like look rather than tanning the skins for clothing and decorative pelts or rugs. I have an uncle who is a taxidermist, so this word would have interested me anyway. Researching the history of the trade was fascinating because early mounts had to have looked crude and taxidermists used to use very toxic chemicals in treating their work.

TEEN- The second definition for this word is the term for a young person, which predates the word teenager by over 100 years. The first and oldest definition for this word is now archaic, unused, and means misery and affliction. One could argue that this coincidence is fitting.

THINGNESS- This word from 1896 blew me away with its weirdness. It means the quality or state of objective existence or reality. If existence and reality are subjective, then does anything possess thingness? Does the word thingness itself possess thingness? Does your head hurt yet?

THONG- Even my 1996 dictionary doesn’t list the barely-there form of underwear among its definitions. Nowadays, that’s the first thing one thinks of when they hear the word.

Page Count: 1271/1600 (79.44%)
Countdown to the Letter U: 47 pages
Countdown to the Supplementary Material: 145 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 27- Sidecar – Steady State

Note: This update is actually coming a month later than when I finished my last reading session.  This post represents my reading through June 30th.

Despite still working my way through the letter S, this is a very upbeat progress report. I set a goal for myself this time. While I failed to meet that goal, I only missed it by a little bit. I came just three and a half pages short of my target for the last three months.

I’m still not averaging even a page a day (hey, I’ve got a life, a wife, and two kids!) but if I can match my page count from the second quarter, I will be on the letter T the next time you hear from me. I consider the letter T to be the final battle. Once I move on to U, the letter sections are far shorter and I will be within 100 pages of the supplemental material at the back of my dictionary.

I’ve got a lot of work to do, but the reward is coming. In a few more months I just may see it on the horizon. Here are the many interesting words that I came across on this leg of the journey:

SISTER- This word originates from Old Norse. I still have not lost my love for words of Scandinavian origin.

SITH- The Star Wars geek in me could not pass up the chance to include this on my list. It’s an archaic word equivalent to ‘since.’

SIZZLE- MW traces this word back to 1603, which is far older than I could have imagined!

SKEET- It comes from the Norwegian word for ‘shoot.’ This makes perfect sense, as it is also the name of a type of clay bird shooting.

SKIRT- This word is of Old Norse origin. The root word is kirtle, which is a garment worn by men and women alike back in the Middle Ages. Kirtles started out as a loose, full-body garment but I can’t seem to find a clear explanation of how kirtles morphed into what we now know as skirts.

SKIVVIES- I’ve always hear to underwear being called this word as a nickname but it was actually once used as a trademark for a brand of men’s underwear.

SKOAL- How ironic that this 17th Century word for a toast to health is now used by a chewing tobacco company.

SKUNK- No, it’s not another Old Norse word. This one is of Algonquian origin. We took their land and their words. Go figure.

SKY- Now we’re back to the Old Norse words. Sorry, I just can’t help myself! Take that, Greek and Latin!

SLACKER- This word dates back to 1898. I guess work ethic was pretty good until the cusp of the 20th Century or they would have had a word for a lack of it by then.

SLOGAN- I like the etymology of this word and its original meaning. I haven’t come across too many Scottish-Gaelic words that were very interesting but everyone knows what a slogan is now. It’s basically a catchphrase. Originally, slogans were the war cries of clans. Pause, let that sink in, and then imagine corporate and political slogans being shouted like a war cry.

SLUSH FUND- This word now gets bandied about as a pejorative but it used to be a novel thing. A slush fund was an accumulation of monies by a ship’s crew from the sale of scrap and refuse. They would use the money to purchase small luxuries. When life hands you refuse, turn it into a slush fund!

SMART- The oldest definition (12th Century) means to cause someone pain. The one downside to my dictionary, is that it doesn’t list dates for subsequent definitions. Thus, I cannot tell you how ‘smart’ went from meaning painful to intelligent.

SNARKY- This term hit critical mass a few years ago and has grown stale. I was surprised, however, to learn that it dates back to 1906 and the meaning hasn’t changed much at all since then.

SPOOF- Anyone who has a basic understanding of comedic terminology is familiar with this word. Did you know that the word actually come from the title of a game created in the late 19th Century? It was a card game that involved nonsense and deception.

Page Count: 1187.5/1600 (74.22%)
Countdown to the Letter T: 48 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 26- Scarious – Side-by-side

The best laid plans… Despite my determination, my reading progress waned in February and was virtually nonexistent in March. Needless to say, I have almost no chance of completing the dictionary this year now. With the NHL playoffs looming, I might be able to get some reading in between periods and during overtime games. Time will tell.

Interesting words for January, February, and March of 2017:

SCOUNDREL- Star Wars fans know the appeal of this word but it’s also another surprising word with no traceable origin. It’s an old word of unknown origin to, dating back to 1589.

SCOWL-This word is older than I would have guessed but the date has shifted. My dictionary placed it in the 14th Century, while MW online now dates it to just 1520.

SCRAM- I never consciously knew that this word was short for scramble. It makes perfect sense but it never clicked until I reached this word.

SEQUACIOUS- This word flows and sounds beautiful but it is not a very kind word. It means intellectually servile. It’s a shame that such a pretty word can mean something so nasty.

SET- I was blown away by how many definitions there are for this simple little word. It took my dictionary over half a page in itty-bitty dictionary font to get through them all.

SEVENTEEN-YEAR LOCUST- Their life-cycle phenomenon had been recorded well before, but the term itself finally became official in 1817, making this word 200 years old this year!

SHADE- What you might think is the most recent definition of shade (expressing sadness or displeasure at something or someone) was actually included in my 20-year-old dictionary. Seems throwing shade isn’t as new a phenomenon as one might think.

SHAMPOO- It’s etymology is Hindi and only entered the English language in 1762. Perhaps that’s around the time those big white wigs started going out of style.

SHELTER- Yet another common word with an unknown origin. What a misfit language English is.

SHRAPNEL- Did you know that this word comes from the last name of 19th century English artillery officer? Neither did I.


Page Count: 1126.5/1600 (70.41%)
Countdown to the Letter T: 110.5 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 24- Pressboard – Read-Only Memory

There is the desire to read and the will to read. While I am still full of desire to read (who wouldn’t desire completing the task I was silly enough to take on first in my reading mission?), the first half of 2016 saw very little will to read.

I finally passed the 1,000 page mark but it feels like a hollow victory considering how little I’ve read since then. With fewer than 600 pages to go, I want to really rev up the page count per day but we’ll see if that becomes a reality. Summer should be a good time to crank out the pages but I’ve been wrong about my ability to get through the dictionary so many times before now. We’ll see where I’m at by the end of July.

Interesting words from March, April, May, and June:

PRESTIGE- I’ve been fascinated several times by words like this, where they have or had opposite meanings throughout their history. Prestige can mean either a trick or honor. Context in using this word makes all the difference.

PRETEND- How many of you pronounce this word with a hard E from time to time? If you do, you’re wrong. I was expecting to see two pronunciations listed for this word but there was just one: pri-tend. I even checked MW online just to make sure the hard E hadn’t become acceptable in the 20 years since my dictionary was published. Nope.

PROTON- In only four more years, this word will turn 100. I thought it should be older than that but I guess microscopes and chemists hadn’t gone that far yet to discuss the building blocks of matter.

PROVOST- I’m most familiar with this word meaning an administrator at a college or university. I was amused to learn that it also means a prison keeper. I’m sure plenty of college students would argue that they their provosts have the mindset of the latter.

PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM- This is an evolutionary theory that I will have to read more about in the future. Rather than slow, incremental change, this evolutionary theory sees rapid periods of change coming after long periods of stability marked by little to no change whatsoever. I wonder if it can explain the evolution of the woodpecker better than Darwin.

PUNK- It’s origin is unknown, making it one of the cooler words classified as such. It is much older than I would have thought. First appearing in 1596 as another term for a prostitute, the word ‘punk’ has evolved quite a bit over the centuries.

PUNK ROCK- What’s interesting about this term is that it’s earliest use is dated to 1971, a few years before the bands that would be most famous for their contributions to punk rock hit the big time.

QUANDARY- As few words begin with Q, I’m surprised that there are any of unknown origins. Shouldn’t most Q-words be traceable? It’s origin is unknown but it hit the scene in 1579. Maybe quandary gets together with punk every now and again to ponder why they both apparently are made-up words.

QUARANTINE- This word comes from French and is a derivative of the Old French word for forty. It’s use came about because ships suspected of carrying contagious passengers were held in isolation for 40 days until the disease was believed to have passed. If you are ever held in quarantine and get out before the 40-day mark, you can at least take comfort in knowing you beat the original detention duration.

QUESTION MARK and QUOTATION MARK- These terms are traced back to 1869 and 1859 respectively. I’ve pondered this before with other punctuation marks but I have to ask again. What were these symbols called before these terms came about? This symbol was refined into what we know over the course of centuries. Why did modern English fail to come up with a name for it until the mid-19th Century?

QUICK- You can bash Scandinavia all you like for whatever reasons you like but the region has produced some cool and unexpected words. This one stems from a 12th Century Old Norse word meaning alive. That helps the line in the Apostle’s Creed about Jesus judging the quick and the dead make more sense doesn’t it?

RAMJET- I don’t know much about airplanes but this type of jet engine sounds fascinating. Words like these get noted in these posts so I can come back later for interesting concepts to read about.

RAPSCALLION- This most excellent name for a rascal or troublemaker is also aged quite nicely. Dating back to 1699, this word is due for a comeback.

RASTAFARIAN- Here is another word I never knew was rooted in a person’s name. Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 was born Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael. Before becoming Emperor, he held a rank akin to duke called a ras. So he was officially known as Ras Tafari. See it now? A few Jamaicans viewed him as a deity who fulfilled biblical prophesies and a religious movement was born.


Page Count: 1010/1600 (63.13%)
Countdown to the Letter S: 55 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 23- Poker Face – Press Agent

January came and went without any reading but February saw a few pages turned. Sadly, progress was slow and uneventful. I find myself tiring of ‘pr-‘ words already. Too bad I have around 20 more pages of them to slog through.

On a positive note, I am nearing another milestone. That 1,000th page is on the horizon and I am going to try my hardest to reach that mark by the end of March. Beyond that, it is too early yet to tell if my slow start to the year will prevent me from finishing the dictionary by the end of the year.

February’s interesting words:

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS- It took over half a century for the adjective below to develop a noun form. MW can trace this term back to a few fleeting uses in the 1980s but it achieved critical mass in the 1990s. Now it runs amok. Isn’t it just a bit Orwellian to advocate the elimination of language and practices that might offend someone somewhere? I think this concept has come full circle on its early advocates. Just look at the spate of colleges where students are demanding ‘safe spaces’ where their opinions are protected from critical examination.

POLITICALLY CORRECT- MW traces this term back to 1936. Having been exposed to the term and concept for the entirety of my life that I can remember, I never wondered when the term came to prominence. Its relevance and usage certainly increased during my lifetime.

PREMENSTRUAL SYNDROME- I included this term because my dictionary (20 years old mind you) dated this term back to 1982. I was shocked, so I checked MW online to see if there was an earlier date for its origin. MW online now dates it to medical journals dating to 1944. A little further research revealed that most of the early medical journal articles proposing PMS as a legitimate medical condition were largely ignored until the late 1970s and early 1980s. Isn’t it interesting that the condition only got taken seriously when more women entered the workplace? I think there is a connection there.


Page Count: 960/1600 (60.00%)
Countdown to the Letter Q: 31 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 22- Paramagnet – Poker

No, I did not abandon my quest. Rather, my wife had a child. There was absolutely no reading during November and December. I may be disappointed to a minor degree but barely, because family comes first. With the new year, I am renewing my quest to complete the dictionary.

There were a few interesting words in September and October (which we’ll get to in a minute) but first, I want to share something that I am very proud of. I found a spelling mistake in the dictionary. That’s right, a spelling mistake. I did a lot of checking around to make sure it actually was a mistake and lo and behold it is.

The mistake I found was not the spelling of a word being defined or a word within the definition of another word. The mistake I found was a synonymous cross-reference (in other words, it’s a word in all caps appearing within a definition, indicating that the definition of the capitalized word can be substituted interchangeably with the word presently being defined). Under the third definition for the word ‘phony,’ it listed ‘conterfeit’ as a synonymous cross-reference. It should have listed ‘counterfeit’ instead.

It stood out to me immediately and I went back to the C-words to make sure that I hadn’t overlooked some archaic word. There was only one word beginning ‘conter-’ and that is ‘conterminous.’ Still not fully satisfied, I checked MW online to make sure they hadn’t left ‘conterfeit’ out of my dictionary by accident. Once again, I received more evidence suggesting I had found a mistake. Finally, I ran a Google search for ‘conterfeit’ and I was finally able to accept that I had indeed found a mistake.

It’s pretty minor but it is a cross-reference to nowhere. It doesn’t hurt the usefulness of the dictionary but it does show that even the mighty MW editors are fallible. Other than some sketchy grammar and definitions that include the word being defined, this is the first true mistake in the dictionary and I’m over halfway through. I’ll let you know if I find any more in 2016.

Now for September and October’s interesting words:

PARESTHESIA- This is the technical term for that pins and needles sensation in your hands and feet. Sometimes it’s just due to the return of full blood circulation after cutting off the flow or it can be caused by damage to the peripheral nerves. It’s a very interesting word and a very interesting concept.

PASSION- It’s interesting that a word that originally meant suffering has come to be mostly associated with emotion and love. I’d love to know where the meaning of the word splintered off.

PECKING ORDER- We all know that this term means hierarchy but it comes from a literal hierarchy among certain types of birds. In some bird species, primarily chickens, social strata develop where more dominant members of a group can assault other birds of lower standing (usually displayed through pecking) without fear of reprisal or even the lower bird defending itself. The fact that bully birds exist just goes to show you that nature can be a cruel and nasty place.

PEEPING TOM- I never knew that the term Peeping Tom came from the legend of Lady Godiva. For the record, I never read the legend of Lady Godiva but I knew the basics. I didn’t know the one person who saw her naked was from then on called Peeping Tom. He was struck blind by God for his indiscretions. Apparently the Peeping Tom part was added later and historians doubt the real Lady Godiva even rode through town naked, so modern-day pervs don’t have to fear a repeat of Peeping Tom’s punishment.

PENINSULA- The literal translation from Latin means ‘almost island.’ How fitting and direct.

PHENOMENOLOGY- This is an interesting field- the study of the development of human consciousness. I’m going to look into this someday to see if it’s really as interesting as it sounds or if it is a bunch of conjectural hooey.

PHILISTINE- The first definition of this word is obvious, referring to the people mentioned in the Bible and history. The second definition, however, is very interesting. “A person who is guided by materialism and is usually disdainful of intellectual or artistic values.” My, oh my- how many people these days fall under that definition! I can think of one or two people in my weekly life that qualify. How many do you know? I wonder if this definition arose as a description of how the historical Philistines were perceived by other cultures.

PIC- While you may be tempted to write this off as more recently-developed slang, this truncation of the word picture goes all the way back to 1884!

PILTDOWN MAN- This is the name of a skull of a supposed early human found in England in 1908 that turned out to be a hoax. Instead of the real McCoy, it was the jawbone of an orangutan, the teeth of a chimp, and the skull of a medieval-era human. To this day, no one knows who planted the forgery but it derailed research on human evolution for a few decades before it was scientifically proven to be a hoax in 1953.

PIMP- While it doesn’t surprise me that this word is of unknown origin, I am dumbfounded by its age. The word pimp dates back to 1701. My outdated dictionary placed it in deeper in history at 1600 but I guess they found reason to disregard that older supposed documentation. Still, this word is older than I would ever have guessed.

PIMPMOBILE- Yes, this word is actually in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. My jaw hit the floor when I saw it too.

PINK- My dictionary had five separate definitions for this word- three nouns, one adjective, and a verb. That’s a pretty impressive resume for such an unassuming word.

PLUS SIGN-My dictionary only dates this word to 1907 but MW online now dates it to 1841. I previously ranted about the age of the term ‘multiplication sign’ but I don’t have as much to complain about here. Apparently the western world used to place a P between two numbers to signify addition and an M between them to signify subtraction (P for plus and M for minus). Somewhere along the line, someone probably decided that all the higher level mathematics involving numbers were complicating matters and formally adopted a symbol for the operations. The actual plus sign is older than 1841, so the question must be asked again- what did they call it before they settled on plus sign?

POINSETTIA- These lovely flowers are named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, who was at one time the US ambassador to Mexico and amateur botanist. He first saw the popular Christmastime flower on a trip south of Mexico City. In Mexico it is called the Christmas Eve flower. It is a winter blooming plant. That and its native habitat of Central America helps explain why these flowers are so popular at Christmas and why greenhouses need to be so warm in order to grow them.

Page Count: 937/1600 (58.56%)
Countdown to the Letter Q: 54 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 21- Mull – Paralyze

I ran so late into August that I decided to just put this post off and cover two months. That turned out to be a good idea, as August only yielded three interesting words. As my wife and I prepare for the birth of our second child (due late October), I am realizing more and more that I probably won’t finish the dictionary until the end of 2016. That puts the start of my reading journey at a full three years- far beyond my initial expectations.

After giving up on my two-year goal, I hoped two and a half years would be enough. I have about 540 pages to go before I hit the supplemental material at the back of this dictionary, which should be an easier read. Considering I haven’t been averaging 50 pages a month for some time now, another full calendar year seems like the most logical conclusion.

P is the second-longest letter section in the dictionary. Don’t be surprised if it takes me two or more months to finish this one off.

Here are the interesting words from July and August:

MULTIPLICATION SIGN- This one baffles me. The word multiplication comes out of the 14th century. The actual “x” symbol for multiplication was introduced in the 1600s. This term didn’t come into existence until 1907. What the heck did they call the “x” before that? Did it just go unnamed for almost 300 years?

MUMBO JUMBO- This terms comes to us courtesy of the Mandingo peoples of western Africa. To them, Mumbo Jumbo was the term for a masked dancer who took part in religious ceremonies. For we English speakers, it began its life in our language meaning something superstitious in nature. Now it means gibberish. What a strange journey.

MUNDUNGUS- Any Harry Potter fans in the house? This one caught my eye because of the character Mundungus Fletcher from the Potter books. The word comes from butchered Spanish for a foul-smelling tobacco. How appropriate for that traitorous character. Also interesting is that Microsoft spell check doesn’t think mundungus is a real word.

MUSCAE VOLITANTES- My eye doctor just calls them floaters but now I know the technical term for the little translucent grayish spots I see every now and again.

NAG- I have to say that the Scandinavian languages have really produced some fascinating words that I would have otherwise assumed come from Latin or Germanic roots. The Dutch brought us the noun form for an old horse but those wily Scandinavians gave us the verb for petty fault-finding.

NAMBY-PAMBY- This term was originally a nickname for Ambrose Phillips. Not knowing who he was, I looked him up. He was a British poet and politician who lived from 1674 to 1749. Who liked to write sentimental pastorals. Some of his peers and other literary folk who were not so keen on the pastoral style mocked him with this nickname. Rough legacy.

NEANDERTHAL- I always assumed that the term Neanderthal had Latin origins. It’s actually named after the valley in Germany where the remains of pre-modern humans were found. That valley itself was named after Joachim Neander, a Calvinist pastor from the 17th Century who wrote the hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation.” He died when he was only 30. His last name means “new man,” which boggles the mind because people actually found remains of a new form of prehistoric man in the valley named for him.

NERD- They still credit this word to Dr. Seuss. How cool is that?

NEWFANGLED- This word was newfangled in its popularity at one point but can you believe that was centuries ago? My dictionary dates it to the 14th century but MW online now places its origins to the 15th century. An oldie but goodie!

NONFLAMMABLE- This word is celebrating its centennial this year. Historically speaking, though, it’s still just a newfangled catchphrase.

NOR’EASTER- This term has been around for centuries, yet it does not appear in my dictionary. MW online even refuses to give it a formal definition. Instead, it just lists it as a variant of the word northeaster. Maybe it’s because I live in the Mid-Atlantic region, but I have never heard storm systems called northeasters before. Perhaps they shrug it off as dialectal but the term itself has been used for over 400 years. I find this omission shameful.

NUGGET- They can date it back to 1852 but there are no known root origins for this word. It feels like I haven’t seen a surprising unknown origin word in a while. Looking back through my posts, I see the last one that made my interesting words list was the word dude. I hope this doesn’t mean I’m going to come across a slew of these buggers again.

OAF- Another cool word of Scandinavian origin. I love these guys!

OCCIDENTAL- This one is actually cool to know. Every time I heard someone mention Occidental College, I wondered why they named it that because occidental sounds like accidental. As it turns out, occident means west. I’ve always know that orient and oriental refer to the east but now I know there is a corresponding term for the west. The Latin terms for north and south both start with A but must not have made an impression on me.

PAGE-TURNER- This phrase entered our language in 1972. I refuse to believe that books prior to 1972 were any less exciting. The young age of this term is just sad.

PAPER CLIP- My dictionary dated this term to 1919 but MW online now dates it to 1875, making the term 140 years old. Interestingly enough, the first paper clip bearing any kind of close resemblance to the ones we use today was not patented until 1877.

Page Count: 880/1600 (55.00%)
Countdown to the Letter Q: 110 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 20- Microelectronics – Mull

Reading progress in June was horrendous. The only positive that came out of it is that I have crossed the halfway point. From here on out, my bookmark will officially be closer to the end of the dictionary than the beginning. I’m frustrated that it took me a year and a half to reach this point but I underestimated how big a challenge this book was and I have not been consistent in my effort and discipline to sit down and read.

Reaching the halfway point is a big accomplishment but there is more danger on the horizon. The two longest sections of the dictionary (P and S) are coming up. Hopefully I find the drive to plug away at this book consistently or those sections may leave me stagnant.


Interesting words of the month:

MIDDLE CLASS- The official definition states that the middle class is composed of “business and professional people, bureaucrats, and some farmers and skilled workers.” This definition does not line up with what liberals want us to think is the middle class. The definition goes beyond just economic resources; it also speaks to social characteristics and values. When I hear the term middle class, I think of what my parents worked their way up to. When liberals talk about it, it’s as if anyone making more than minimum wage is part of this class. I’d like to see the current crop of presidential candidates define middle class. Let’s put them on the record because some politicians are puffing this class way out of proportion.

MONETARISM- This is an area of economics that I plan on reading more about after I finish all the books in my house. Economics, while potentially bland and stuffy, is actually a pretty riveting subject if you care to pay attention to it.

MONTEZUMA’S REVENGE- I find it hilarious that this phrase is in the dictionary. Hey, if bling, selfie, and cray can get in the dictionary, the inclusion of Montezuma’s Revenge seems pretty tame and understandable.

MOOSE- This word is of Algonquin origin. I did not know that and I think it is neat. If you think about it, it makes sense because I can’t think of any language that ‘moose’ sounds like it might come from. I would probably have guessed French because they settled a lot of Canada.

MORNING SICKNESS- Both my dictionary and MW online date this term to 1879. The condition obviously has been around longer, but this begs the question- did people have another polite term for it before ‘morning sickness’ hit the scene? Or was anything dealing with pregnancy and its side effects just taboo until 1879?

MOUNTAIN DEW- This phrase proved both amusing and educational. This term used to be hillbilly slang for moonshine. I wondered if the creators of the soft drink Mountain Dew knew of the illicit connection to their product’s name, so I did a little research. Oh, did they ever know! Mountain Dew was originally formulated as a powdered mix for people to mix with their favorite liquor. The two men who created it could not get their favorite flavor of soft drink in their Tennessee town so they did their best to imitate the flavor. Eventually they sold the formula and rights to their product in the 60s. The name of their product has now been around for 75 years. Not too shabby.

Page Count: 801/1600 (50.06%)
Countdown to the Letter N: 7 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 19- Lyonnesse – Microelectrode

May was a very bad month for progress. Between the Stanley Cup playoffs and other extracurriculars, I failed to read much for days on end. June looks like it will be the same but I am going to try to reach the half-way point by the end of the month.


Interesting words of the month:

MACADAM- I always assumed that macadam and asphalt were the same thing but they’re not. Many people use them interchangeably but they are slightly different substances. Also, macadam is named after the person who invented the process that yields the paving surface we know today.

MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING- My dictionary dated this term to 1984, which I thought was too recent. Turns out the term actually dates to 1977. Still younger than I thought but it makes sense given the technological advancements that came about in the 70s.

MALARIA- The word itself means ‘bad air.’ It makes sense for it to be name as such, since it affected people mostly in tropical regions. The dainty Europeans, not accustomed to the steamy weather of the tropic regions they sought to explore and exploit, naturally assumed the disease came from something in the air. They didn’t realize that malaria wasn’t from bad air itself, but rather the mosquitos transmitting microorganisms between meals.

MARGARITA- Here’s another one that didn’t seem old enough to me. My dictionary dates it to 1963 but MW online now dates it to 1956. That makes a little more sense but I still expected it to come from the 1920s when rich Americans were living large and traveling to exotic Latin American locations.

MARSHMALLOW- While we mostly know this word to refer to the sometimes fluffy, sometimes gooey confection, the marshmallow is actually an African herb. It was used for several medicinal purposes and the root was eventually used to create a confection. The junk food marshmallows no longer contain any marshmallow root though.

MARTINI- This drink’s name comes from the Spanish surname Martinez. It’s much older than Margarita though. MW online dates it back to 1894.

MENNONITE- I never knew that Mennonites were named after a person, though that probably should have made sense. Menno Simons started out as a Roman Catholic priest but later rejected Catholicism to become an Anabaptist leader. His teachings became popular enough for his followers to be known as Mennonites. Pennsylvania has sizeable populations of both Mennonites and Amish (who broke away from their Mennonite peers in 1693). It’s always nice to incorporate a little of the local flavor into these posts.

MENSHEVIK- These guys were the minority party in Russia in the years leading up to the overthrow of Czar Nicholas II and establishment of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks sought to use force to overthrow the government and institute their socialist ideologies. The Mensheviks, on the other hand, thought socialism would be more successful if it was introduced a little bit at a time, much like gradually turning up the water temperature instead of throwing a live frog into boiling water. The Bolsheviks won out and forced millions into socialism but we know how that worked for the Soviet Union. The Menshevik philosophy seems alive and well in many nations across the globe, including our own.

MESOTHELIOMA- I should know better than to post something potentially controversial in any of these posts but I have to be honest here. I apologize if this sounds insensitive but when commercials raising awareness of this cancer first hit the airwaves, the name mesothelioma sounded more like a spell from Harry Potter than a medical condition.

Page Count: 772/1600 (48.25%)
Countdown to the Letter N: 37 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 18- Kick – Lyonaise

I came up just a hair shy of my goal of finishing the letter L by the end of the month. With the NHL playoffs in full swing, May probably won’t be a very productive month. I’m closing in on the halfway mark, so that is what’s keeping me going right now. I don’t know that I can reach page 800 by the end of May but I’ll do my darndest.

Interesting words of the month:

LAMARCKISM- This is an evolutional theory that suggests that environmental changes cause changes to animal and plant DNA that is then passed on to future generations. Years ago I probably wouldn’t have questioned this but now I find it harder to swallow. Maybe it’s because I can only think in short-term levels of time but I haven’t seen environmental changes cause evolutionary genetic changes in my lifetime nor does there appear to be any over the course of the 20th century. I’m starting to view the reality of evolution less as survival of the fittest and genetic changes to help future generations and more as a sheet probability outcome of one member of a species living long enough to reproduce.

LAMMERGEIER- This word just sounds awesome and not just because it is of German origin. It’s a huge falcon capable of making off with a lamb in its clutches. Even the word itself sounds intimidating.

LAWN MOWER- MW traces this term back to 1869, which raise some questions with me. I looked up when lawn mowers were first invented. Turns out it was in 1830 in England, so the term took a while to catch on. It probably took those 39 years for mowing a lawn to become popular enough for the term to enter common usage. Other questions that come to mind are as follows:

What did people use to trim their lawns prior to lawn mowers? Sheep? Scythes?
When did mowing the lawn become a socially accepted and expected thing?

LEAF SCAR- I never heard of this before but it makes sense. We always look at the leaves when they are either on the tree or on the ground. When on the ground, we just look at the leaves. The next time I’m up in a tree after the leaves have fallen, I’ll see if I can’t find leaf scars on the tree branches. Or I’ll just look for them on low-lying branches. That’s probably safer.

LEAGUE- Jules Verne is lucky his titular unit of measure is for distance and not depth. Going 20,000 leagues beneath the surface of the ocean is impossible. Travelling 20,000 leagues while under the surface is possible.

LILITH- Did the organizers of Lilith Fair realize that rabbinic legend not only lists Lilith as the first wife of Adam but also as a demon? If so, does that say anything about what Lilith Fair promoted?

LUDDITE- This one brings back memories of college. I had a professor in my major who’s faculty website had “Luddites and Technology” either as its title or at the top of the page. The term comes from a man named Ned Luddite who allegedly destroyed two pieces of textile equipment in a fit of rage. A few decades later, a group of textile workers began destroying textile equipment in protest of technological advancements that they viewed as a threat to their livelihoods as cheaper, unskilled laborers could run the machines instead of skilled artisans doing everything by hand. The named themselves the Luddites. Now the term means anyone leery of new technology but it has its origins in revolt.

LUGGAGE- It makes perfect sense but I never put two and two together. This word comes from the verb lug- to carry, drag, or push something around. It’s so simple that I overlooked the obvious.

LUNACY- This word has luna in it because this sort of mania was once believed to be associated with the phases of the moon. Oh how silly people once were! I wonder how many documented cases it took to make that association?

LYME DISEASE- My dictionary dates the term to 1980 but MW online now dates it to 1979. First of all, I am shocked that what is now such a common concern went so long without being a scientifically identifiable disease. It’s also named after a town in Connecticut where the disease was first reported. Did people just not get Lyme disease until the 1970s or were people just horribly unobservant about it until then? This one is just frustrating to me.

LYNCH / LYNCH LAW- Named after William Lynch and/or Charles Lynch, men connected to the American Revolution. William and some of his associates allegedly formed a pact to carry out their own brand of law enforcement to protect their properties. Charles Lynch, a Virginia judge went above and beyond his jurisdiction to suppress a supposed uprising by Loyalists to Britain that included all sorts of nasty punishments and penalties that would without question be an abuse of power. Two guys, one last name, and a lot of dirty deeds. History is fascinating.

Page Count: 733/1600 (45.81%)
Countdown to the Letter M: 0.5 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 17- Independent – Kibosh

Don’t let the apparent letter progress fool you. My pace has slacked significantly. I only made it about halfway through the letter K by the end of April. That’s not too bad but I hoped for better. April’s pace has been even worse and with the start of the NHL playoffs eminent, I don’t see it getting much better. I’m going to try my darndest to finish L by the end of April.

Interesting words of the month:

INDO-EUROPEAN LANGAUAGES- This has fascinated me for several years. It is also quite the confounding subject. It is astounding to think that half of the world’s population speaks in languages that share a common root. Uncovering that common root is difficult to process and, I believe, requires a few leaps of faith. While reading the dictionary, I have seen MW try to link languages in strange ways. If a word originates from Old English, sometimes MW lists similarities in Old High German and Latin. The trouble is that neither of the supposedly similar words look nothing like each other, seemingly nixing that attempt at tracing them back to the theorized Indo-European language. This is a subject that I can see myself looking deeper into once Project Bookshelf is complete.

IN SITU- This makes my list of interesting words/phrases this month because it is the name of one of our vendors. One of the phrase’s meanings is “in position,” which makes sense because our vendor calibrates equipment to ensure proper readings.

INTERROBANG- This word is the term for a most unusual typographical symbol: ‽ It is the fusion of a question mark and an exclamation point. Created in the 1960s, it was meant to simplify exclamatory questions so writers didn’t have to use two symbols and fret over which one to put first. Like a lot of things from the 60s, the interrobang didn’t have staying power its creator may have hoped for.

IRREGARDLESS- Don’t ever let anyone tell you that this is not a word. It is a word. MW speculates that it is a fusion of ‘irrespective’ and ‘regardless.’ Either way, the word means ‘regardless,’ so you probably still shouldn’t use it.

IS- MW doesn’t even give this word a formal definition. It provides conjugational context as the third-person singular form of ‘be.’ So maybe we should stop picking on Bill Clinton for his “that depends on what your definition of is… is” comment from the Monica Lewinsky trial. Or not. Is is what it is. There are no other definitions, Bubba.

JESUS- I like MW’s definition: “The Jewish religious teacher whose life, death, and resurrection as reported by the Evangelists are the basis of the Christian message of salvation.” There’s something very simple but elegant about that phrasing. It strikes me as completely free of bias.

JEWISH CALENDAR and JULIAN CALENDAR- Calendar systems have been intriguing to me for some time. Though time does exist, man created the way we measure it. It’s also intriguing to me the origins behinds some of the major calendar systems. The Jewish calendar begins with the creation of Adam, not the creation of the universe. The Julian calendar was created to fix the Roman calendar but it was eventually replaced by the Gregorian calendar.

JUNGLE GYM- This term was once trademarked. I never knew that. I remember a multi-level metal jungle gym at a nearby park when I was growing up. That thing was amazing because there were endless routes up and through it. The original jungle gym format is probably banned now because it’s not safe enough.

KARAOKE- My dictionary dates the term to 1982 but MW online goes back to 1979. Still though, I’m surprised at how young the technology is. That just goes to show you how spoiled I was to be a lae-80s/early 90s kid. And yes, I have performed karaoke once. I did well.


Page Count: 678.5/1600 (42.41%)
Countdown to the Letter L: 8 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 16- Hair Follicle – Independent

To be honest, the letter H was a pretty boring letter. No offense to anyone fond of the eighth letter of the English alphabet, but there weren’t many interesting words to be found. I’m about 35% of the way through the letter I and it is a similar story. It hasn’t been painful to read but it also hasn’t been very intriguing. It just is.

I thought I had a good pace going through February but my required pages-read-per-day count snuck up by a fraction again. I will trudge on, doing my best to average three pages a day. Weekends tend to see four or five pages a day, which will hopefully start making up for the ground I am apparently losing.

March might feel like a successful month for me because I should finish I around mid-month. Both J and K are short sections, so it is entirely possible that I will start April on the letter L or very close to it. I’m trying to keep my goals small for now and my immediate focus is making my way to the 50% mark. That will be exciting for me. Who knows, maybe that will be the key to picking up some momentum.

Now check out my interesting words for H and I:

HALF-BAKED- This word is much older than I ever would have guessed. MW traces it back to 1621. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because, well, people were baking back then and were probably familiar with food and ideas that don’t live up to expectations.

HASSLE- This word is much younger than I would have guessed. MW traces it back to just 1945. They speculate it to come from a combination of ‘harass’ and ‘hustle.’ Probably not a bad guess but I’d love to know for sure where and how this word came to be.

HEIGH-HO- I never thought about what this term might mean while watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As it turns out, heigh-ho is an expression of boredom, weariness, sadness, or encouragement. That puts the seven dwarfs in a whole new light. Were they encouraging each other about going home and weary about going to work?

HEPATITIS- I thought it was interesting that my dictionary has entries for hepatitis A and B but not hepatitis C. I checked to see if hepatitis C had been either discovered or became more widely known after my dictionary was published. It was theorized in the 1970s but discovered in 1989. My dictionary was published in 1996, so I’m not sure why it wasn’t included.

HERMETIC- This word comes to us via the name of a deity blending Greek and Egyptian gods and traditions together. His name was Hermes Trismegistus. This deity supposedly invented a magic seal that keep containers airtight. Truth (of word origins) is sometimes stranger than fiction!

HIGHFALUTIN- Now I know how to spell it in case I should ever need to use it. I don’t know that I will but thanks anyway MW!

HIGH FIVE- I was shocked- SHOCKED- I say to learn that this term is only traced back to 1980. That means it has only been around for a few years longer than I’ve been alive. Shocked, stunned, and flabbergasted. When did the act of the high five originate and what did they call it before 1980?

HIPPIE- Bring up the subject of hippies around me and you’ll get an earful. In short, they bear a large proportion of the blame for why America is so screwed up right now. MW traces the term back to 1965. Happy 50th anniversary you dirty, good-for-nothing hippie!

HONCHO- I honestly always kind of assumed this word came from Spanish. To my surprise, it is actually of Japanese origin. In its native tongue, it means squad leader and it entered the English language around 1955, making it 60 years old. My dictionary dated it to 1947 but MW online now puts it at 1955, marking the first time that I have seen MW make a word younger than what my dictionary says.

HUG- MW lists the origins of this word as probably Scandinavian. That is amusingly appropriate since Olaf from Frozen likes warm hugs and he’s a Scandinavian snowman. These are the quirky things that actually make me laugh while reading the dictionary.

HYSTERIA- The root of this word ‘hyst’ means womb. Originally, hysteria was a fit of uncontrollable laughter or emotional excitability. Since the ancient Greeks thought this condition was limited to women, they assumed it had something to do with disturbances of the uterus. Once again, truth is stranger than fiction.

ICE HOCKEY- My dictionary dated this term to 1883, which surprised me because the Stanley Cup was first awarded in 1893. MW online now dates the term back to 1868, which makes much more sense. I mean, hockey is awesome but going from an obscure sport to common usage in English and then have a trophy awarded for it in 10 years’ time seems a bit of a stretch to me.

IDIOT LIGHT- I couldn’t believe that this term is in the dictionary. I love it! I always assumed it was just a joke term that mechanics and car people used. Sure enough, it’s circulated widely enough to warrant a spot in the dictionary. Too cool.

IFF- This word means ‘if and only if.’ It was too odd to be left alone; I had to look this one up. Turns out this word is mostly used as a sort of shorthand in logic, math, and philosophy. That helps it make a little more sense. If I ever see this word used in literature, I may giggle because I don’t think it’s meant to be used outside of the aforementioned areas.

IMBECILE v. IDIOT- I was surprised to learn that these terms formerly held a level of scientific classification for the intellectual capabilities of a mentally handicapped person. They’re obviously not used anymore and are for the most part interchangeable but did you know that an imbecile used to be categorized as smarter than an idiot? An idiot had the mental capacity of a child under the age of three, whereas an imbecile had a mental capacity falling between three and seven years.

IMPASSIONED v. PASSIONATE- Now here was a very interesting usage note! You often here the term passionate bandied about in a good way but know this- it is better to be impassioned than passionate. Impassioned suggests being full of emotion and intensity of feeling. Passionate actually goes overboard and implies the use of violence or a wasteful display of emotion. So a passionate display or a passionate speech is actually something to be avoided. Try to keep that in mind.

INCOMPETENT- This word only means unsuitable for a particular position or purpose, yet it seems to be used these days as a sly way to call someone a moron. I’ve heard it on all the major news networks whether they were describing George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and any number of the members of their respective parties and administrations. Veiled insults are still insults. Use the word properly or don’t use it at all.




Page Count: 628.5/1600 (39.28%)
Countdown to the Letter J: 33.5 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 15- G – Haired

The new year did not bring as much renewed commitment to reading as I hoped for. I did get through the entire letter G and the first two pages of H during January but I need to step up my game if I want to finish the dictionary this year. At times this month I have caught myself pondering other books that I could be reading. Somehow I will find the determination to get through this and it better be worth it in the long run.

I don’t see how it will take me this long to read any other book in my house. The dictionary is just so different from anything else. Even an encyclopedia would be an easier read because there is flow and purpose to each entry. The dictionary just is. Reference books are not meant to be read this way but I will finish.

Here are the notable words from G and one from H:

GADGET and GALE- Here are two more seemingly common words without a verified origin. I’m beginning to tire with this trend of everyday words that cannot be traced. Either they entered the English language on their own because they were made up or they come from somewhere. If they cannot be traced to another language root, then why can’t Websters just state that the word was made up?

GAMER- My how this definition has changed in the last decade! It used to mean an athlete who relishes in competition but now we know gamers as adolescents and young adults with questionable priorities on how they spend their time. Oh sure, modern gamers enjoy competition, but they certainly aren’t assumed to be anything close to athletic.

GAS MASK- This term is traced back 100 years to 1915. That is when poison gas was used as a weapon in World War I. It’s amazing and sad how many words entered the English language due to their relationship with war.

GAZELLE- Even a year into reading the dictionary, I still enjoy finding a unique word origin. This word comes from Arabic.

GEE- Originally it was a substitute expression for Jesus. It sure seems tame and harmless now but I wonder if all the goodie-goodies of the world realize what this phrase means. It’s enough to make me pause before saying it again.

GEEK- There are two completely opposite definitions for this word. One is the obvious- a super smart person that is subject to ridicule. The other is an ultra-meathead carnival performer who does wild things like biting the heads off small creatures. I’m pretty sure all my peers in middle and high school meant the first definition when they tormented me. I certainly never bit off anything’s head.

GENEVA CONVENTION- I like history but even I was ignorant to how far back this term goes. Most know about the Geneva Convention held after World War 2. Until now, I did not know that there had been three previous Geneva Conventions, the first of which occurred before the American Civil War. They all relate to humanitarian treatment in war and each successive convention updated and built off of the previous one.

GERMAN WORDS- Not a term itself, but I was surprised on a stretch of pages just how many German words had entered the English language directly without being translated. Words like gemeinschaft, gemütlich, gestalt, and gesundheit all entered English because they are used as concepts or principles.

GERRYMANDER- Did you know this term for manipulation the boundaries of electoral districts for political gain is named for a man who was not only a member of the House of Representative, but also the governor of Massachusetts and served as Vice President of the United States? Elbridge Gerry is the man to thank for this term every time new electoral districts are disliked by one political party or another. While he was from Massachusetts, I could not determine whether Gerry can be classified as liberal or conservative. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican party, which were generally opposed to federalism (big government) but would probably have sounded more like the Libertarian Party now than the Democrats or Republicans.

GEYSER- This is the first word I can remember seeing of Icelandic origin. It is also an actual place! It was the first natural hot springs phenomenon of its kind to be described in print, so the general term for the phenomenon was named for it.

GIGAWATT- The first documented usage of this word dates back to 1962. That’s seven years after Doc Brown has a cow about the 1.21 gigawatts needed to travel through time. I’m willing to Back to the Future some slack. As a man of science, Doc Brown would have known what a gigawatt was even if the term wasn’t commonplace yet in scientific circles.

GILL- The word meaning the slits through which fish breathe is from Scandinavian origin. Yeah, it’s still not old to find origins beyond Greek and Latin.

GOUDA- This cheese is named after a city in the Netherlands. So, gouda cheese can say “I’m Dutch! Isn’t that weird?”

GRANNY SMITH- This now omnipresent apple is named after its creator- Maria Ann Smith. She created the species of apple in Australia. I never knew any of that but I assumed it was named for someone.

GREASER- Coming across this word reminded me of The Outsiders. I read that back in high school and loved it.

GREAT VOWEL SHIFT- I had never heard of this before and I had to look it up to fully understand it. There is no agreed upon cause for the normalizing of certain vowel sounds over the 350 years this phenomenon occurred but we’re stuck with it now. This also explains why there are some strange and varied pronunciations for vowels and vowel groupings that are spelled the same way. Look it up for yourself, it’s a real trip.

GREAT YEAR- I looked up a detailed explanation of what this is and I’m still confused.

GRIFT- This word celebrates its centennial this year. I recall both a book and movie called The Grifters, which is to my knowledge the only reason I now the term, but I have not read nor seen either.

GRINCH- This word is in the dictionary and the English language because of Dr. Seuss. It didn’t exist before his book, evidently. As a fan of the classic animated short film, I think this is awesome.

GROUNDOUT- As old as baseball is, I was shocked to learn that this common term is only 50 years old.

GUILLOTINE- This symbol of the French Revolution (also a part of one of my favorite books of all time- A Tale of Two Cities) is named for a French physician who advocated for a quicker, efficient, and painless way to perform executions. He did not, however, invent the device. Antoine Louis, a French surgeon, and Tobias Schmidt, a German engineer, designed the first prototype.

GUNK- This word used to be trademarked for a cleaning solvent. I’m not sure if it is still a trademark because the word has become such a common term.

GYMNASIUM- The Greek origins of this word mean ‘to exercise naked.’ Bet you’ll never think of gym class the same way again!

HACK- I cannot stand the modern usage of this word. People are writing internet posts offering ‘life hacks’ or ‘cooking hacks’ and so on. These things are not hacks. They are tips and shortcuts to bypass an otherwise lengthy or routine process. Calling these things hacks is just a stupid way to try and sound hip. These people don’t even realize that the word ‘hack’ also means to do something in a crude and unskillful way. I consider anyone who writes these ‘hack’ articles to be hack writers.


Page Count: 560/1600 (35.00%)
Countdown to the Letter I: 50 pages