READING UPDATE: Word Roots and Combining Forms- Part 2- Mad – Some Common Combining Forms

February started out as a very poor month for reading. So much seemed to be going on. When I did have free time, I found myself falling asleep on the couch in the evenings, worn out from whatever taxed me during the day. I started worrying at one point that my three-month goal for reading this book would fail.

Somewhere not long after Valentine’s Day, however, a switch flipped. I tore into this book, making huge dents on the weekend. At first I was just glad to catch up to January’s pace. Then I started wondering if I might actually finish the darn thing a month early. That is exactly what happened.

After finishing the dictionary component of this book, I hit a handy guide for creating words from these roots and the rules that scientists tend to follow. That was interesting to read through, and I thought it might have been better for that to come at the beginning of the book. I’m on the fence on that issue, because I can see it working both before and after the portion that fulfills its purpose.

Despite reading at a faster pace, I still came up with a number of intriguing finds:

Narc- We’ve all seen this root before but I never bothered to look up what narcotic meant. Narc means numbness or stupor and tic means relation or belonging to. Put them together and it makes sense.

Obnoxi- While the word that comes immediately to mind now means annoying, its root is far more serious. This Latin nugget means hazardous or liable. That makes sense, considering the root word is itself composed of two roots- ob, meaning reversed or against, and noxi, meaning harmful.

Presby / Presbyt- This root is known mostly for its association with a Protestant denomination. It means old or an old person. This Greek term follows a logical path to become the name of a body of believers. The Presbyterian church is led by elders. While an elder isn’t always an old person now, they probably were back in the day.

Pristin- When you see a pristine landscape or a pristine room, you probably don’t mean old-fashioned or primitive. But that’s what this Latin root means. The word pristine comes from a Latin word, pristinus, which draws on this root word but meant former. See how we got there? Old-fashioned, leads to describing something as if it existed in a former state, which leads to our current definition.

Sceptic / Skeptic- In today’s understanding, this word has a negative tone. But rather than doubtful, the original meaning of the root means reflective or observant. So if someone calls you a skeptic, you can thank them for the compliment and leave them puzzled.

Stimul- Latin words gave me fits while reading the dictionary. Should I be surprised that they gave me fits here as well? I often questioned how Merriam-Webster determined that seemingly unrelated Latin words somehow formed the basis of words that look nothing like it. Here, I’m left to wonder how this root, meaning to goad, shifted over the centuries to its current meaning. I can see how it made the journey. It’s not a big stretch, but the connotations are so different.

Thesaur- Having read the thesaurus, I got a good laugh out of its root word. Perhaps Roget thought a little too highly of his creation, because thesaurus means gift or treasure. The thesaurus was a more enjoyable read than the dictionary, but I wouldn’t call it a gift. Then again, gift means poison in German, so maybe it is appropriate?

Torrid- This root caught my eye because I’ve seen a store by the same name in the mall. The only reason I can come up with for why they named a plus-size women’s clothing company something meaning dried up or parched, is that Torrid is a sister company to Hot Topic. Otherwise, I’m not sure it was a wise choice.

Vaccin- A cool story goes along with this one. The Latin root means of a cow. How did something as common as a shot get named after cows? A physician and scientist named Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids who contracted cowpox did not contract the smallpox virus. He correctly surmised that exposure to cowpox, a milder form of smallpox, made these dairy workers immune to the more aggressive human form of the virus. The scientific name of cowpox is Variolae vaccinae. Later scientists advocated for calling all inoculations be called vaccines in honor of Jenner’s work.

Non-Greek/Latin Word Roots So Far: 141

Page Count: 142/142 (100.00%)

READING UPDATE: Word Roots and Combining Forms- Part 1: Preface – Macula

January was a good reading month. My methodical approach to reading this book definitely slows down the momentum but it’s been a worthwhile exercise. I’m starting to get the itch to read books that don’t fall under the reference genre but not rushing things along is a welcome break from the pace of the rest of my life at the moment.

I decided to track the number of word roots coming from sources other than Greek and Latin. To be more specific, I’m lumping Low Latin, Middle Latin and New Latin together with Latin. New Latin may be the one source that you could argue against me ignoring for my tally but it’s all Latin to me and I grew bored with Latin while reading the dictionary. I’m also not counting anything that comes from Greek or Latin mythology or Greek and Latin formal names.

The number of non-Greek and non-Latin word roots surprised me a little but not very many of them stood out in ways beyond just being not Greek or Latin. I did come up with a few notable word roots to share with you, so let’s get to it.

Aedoe & Aidoi- Both of these roots come from Greek and both of them mean either to regard with reverence or the genitals. Either the Greeks were a bunch of perverts or they regarded their genitals with great reverence. I’d love to know how this split-meaning came to light.

Aig & Aix- Another split-meaning root. Once again, both come from Greek. They can mean either a goat or waterfowl. I’m not always the most observant person alive, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve never gotten goats and waterfowl mixed up in my head before. How on earth did the Greeks settle on leaving these two animals under the same word root? Maybe the Greeks were lazy perverts.

Alkali- This was the first non-G/L word that got my attention. As a lover of science, I’m familiar with the word root and some of the words that come from it. I did not know it was of Arabic origin. I checked back through my dictionary write-ups to see if it stood out to me all those years ago but it must not have registered then.

Arch- Depending on which vowel or consonant structure you follow this Greek root with, it could have four different meanings. Two meanings, ancient and first/beginning, go hand in hand and make sense. The other two? Not so much. Arch- can be the start of something that means chief/principal/superior/ruler or it can be the start of something that means the rectum or anus. A word root that puts rulers and rectums under the same umbrella? Perhaps the Greeks were lazy perverts with a sense of humor.

Candidat- My root words dictionary made this term and its meaning a little misleading. It’s Latin and means clothed in white. It’s easy to assume that this is some kind of reference to purity but you know what happens when you assume. Rather than suggesting that those running for office are pure in heart or conviction, this root word comes from the fact that candidates in ancient Rome wore white togas. This probably helped them stand out from the rest of the populace, inviting questions.

Corolla- Ever wonder what the Toyota model’s name means? It means a little crown or wreath. They’re not the biggest cars, so a diminutive crown be what they were going for. If they wanted to name a car after a wreath, then I’ve got nothing to say about that.

Echel- A French word root meaning ladder. That makes sense when you think of the term echelon.

Galax- This Greek word root means milky. It makes sense that the ancient Greeks, lacking anything close to the light pollution we have today, would think that the portion of our home here in the universe that’s visible in the night sky resembles milk. But does that mean that the phrase Milky Way Galaxy is redundant?

Galen- Yet another Greek root word. It should come as no surprise why I was drawn to this one. It means calm or restful. It can also mean lead ore, so consider this one another baffling split-meaning term. For the record, I consider myself more similar to calm and rest than lead ore.


Non-Greek/Latin Word Roots So Far: 67
Page Count: 61/142 (42.96%)

NOW READING: Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms (1960)

It may come as a surprise that I chose another sort of dictionary for my third book but this is one I’ve been looking forward to. While the word dictionary is in the title, it’s a very lean book- just 142 pages. I’m taking a relaxed approach to getting through it though. This will be another very dry read, but one that I want to pay more attention to than the thesaurus.

I bashed plenty of words of Latin origin during my read of the dictionary, so karma has me swimming against a current of Latin and Greek prefixes and suffixes with this book. Donald J. Borror assembled this reference piece to provide students and members of the scientific community with a handy guide for discerning both the meaning and pronunciation of many of the naming roots in many areas of science, especially biology. It may be small but it is dense and broad in scope.

This is the first book in Project Bookshelf that has a story attached to it. I acquired my copy of this book when I took an advanced biology class during my senior year of high school. It was a hard but rewarding class. At times, I spent a couple of hours each night reading and working on homework, making it one of the five most study-intensive classes I think I ever took.

I don’t remember how much of my study time involved my nose being stuck in this book in particular, but the book itself was significant enough to leave a mark. Its cover is worn, folded, and cracked. The page corners are all curved out one direction or another, some even still bearing the scars of being folded over for quick reference. I come to it not as an adversary, but as an old friend.

I plan on highlighting the most interesting prefixes and suffixes that I come across. That aspect of my update posts will be completely subjective. I also plan on looking for the root words in this book that come from sources other than Greek and Latin. Perhaps I’ll even keep a tally. This all will slow me down a little but I’m confident that this book won’t even take me as long as the thesaurus.

What’s Another Word for Thesaurus? Finished!: My Roget’s II Thesaurus Review

All the way through reading the thesaurus, I was hard on it. I’m not some ivory-tower dwelling linguist, but I know enough words to not need to use the thesaurus the way the introduction section sells it. Using the thesaurus to add color and bigger words to your writing may feel satisfying but it can also make you look foolish. I do, however, have to concede a few points its way.

Toolbox Level 1: A-
Remember this category? It’s the engineering of writing (vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and mechanics). Much like the dictionary, the thesaurus is all about vocabulary. I only caught a handful of spelling errors, none of which were the main word entry. Rather, all spelling errors came in the short sentence or fragment examples of proper use of the word. This rating is a bit of a cop-out when you consider that most of this book was just single words in rapid succession. The dictionary was the same way.

Toolbox Level 2: A-
Just like the dictionary, the thesaurus, as a reference book, defies much of what anyone can throw at it from a stylistic analysis perspective. The only style here lies in the introduction section, which was pretty straight-laced. The rest is just words, fragments, and occasional sentences. This feels like a cop-out too but I am hopeful that I can rein in this category and Toolbox Level 1 more as I hit books with actual style to evaluate.

Fulfillment of Purpose: B-
The people at Roget’s want you to use this book to fluff your writing and possibly expand your everyday vocabulary. The former makes me gag and the latter seems like a lofty goal. Vocabulary is something you either have or you don’t. You can build it up but only if you expose yourself to it in use. I think you are more likely to remember words when you hear them coming from the mouths of others. I found a few new-to-me words while reading the dictionary, but I haven’t put many of them to use. The environments I find myself in certainly don’t use them and they may not even be appropriate for most of them anyway.

At the end of the day, I have to concede that most of the synonym suggestions my thesaurus lays out are in-bounds. I still hate the fact that there was only a halfhearted caution about context. If you want to use a word that you aren’t 100% comfortable with because it’s not already in your vocabulary, please look up the definition of the word in the dictionary and pay attention to all possible definitions and even the etymology.

Similar to the dictionary, I have to wonder about the future of print thesauri. Having one handy may be useful for a quick check in an office, dorm room, or the home, but most people are carrying around smartphones that double as powerful inquisitorial tools. Merriam-Webster keeps some information behind a pay wall with their definition contents but I don’t see how an online thesaurus could keep much hidden without being abandoned and becoming irrelevant.

Reading Experience: C-
The thesaurus rates higher than the dictionary in this category because it was so much easier and faster to read. After a bitter fight to the end with the dictionary, I kept myself detached while reading the thesaurus. There’s very little to latch onto here, so I made “it’s just a bunch of words” my mantra for the 175 days it took to read it.

Points of interest were few and far between. Maybe part of that is due to my cold approach to the book. I didn’t give it much of a fair shake but I still believe it didn’t warrant much of one to begin with. There were times when the act of reading became a bit of a chore but there weren’t spirit-crushing lengthy ruts to contend with. I read it to read it and get it out of the way. The thesaurus gave about as much pushback to that goal as I expected.

Overall Score: 2.917 out of 4 (high B-)
Of course the thesaurus would come away with the same score as the dictionary. Why not? Their journeys to a high B- had different paths but it’s a fitting score. One was informative but bothersome to work through. The other was easy to read but void of anything approaching engaging reading. The thesaurus is another book that’s just not meant to be read cover to cover like this but it can be done. To do so in such a short span of time after completing the dictionary gives me the feeling of momentum. I hope it’s not a false sense though.

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.