Books And Magazines Of Our Younger Days

 (Which Would Seem Strange to Our Grandkids)

"The Dictionary"

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

One of my many high school graduation gifts was a hardbound copy of a collegiate dictionary, for which someone knew I would have to call upon many times in my quest for a college degree – especially since my major of choice would be Journalism. The one I received was the most common of books of that type. The one I received was Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary.

Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as G & C Merriam Co. in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1843, after Noah Webster died, the company bought the rights to An American Dictionary of the English Language from Webster's estate. All Merriam-Webster dictionaries trace their lineage to this source. In 1964, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. acquired Merriam-Webster, Inc. as a subsidiary. The company adopted its current name in 1982. The G. & C. Merriam Company lost its right to exclusive use of the name "Webster" after a series of lawsuits placed that name in public domain. Its name was changed to "Merriam-Webster, Incorporated", with the publication of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary in 1983. Previous publications had used "A Merriam-Webster Dictionary" as a subtitle for many years and will be found on older editions.

Throughout my college studies, I called upon the dictionary. If Mrs. Parks was still alive she would testify to my lack of spelling proficiency. Looking back at my early report cards from my elementary school days, my grades were usually “G” or “E” for spelling, but by the time I got to high school that trait seemed to have diminished. By the time I would be headed to college, someone must have been aware of that and therefore bought me the dictionary to help me with my academics.

I doubt very much if most high school or college students even own a dictionary – not a real one. With word processing programs such as Microsoft Word having a spell-check program built into its workings, there is not as much a need for one today as back when we were learning our A-B-Cs. Even while I am writing this I see words pop up underlined in red to show a word is misspelled. Sometimes when I am not even close to spelling a word correctly I will have to turn to a dictionary. These days I use dictionary.com as my primary dictionary. Sometimes I am even a little lazier and ask my Amazon Echo “Alexa, how do you spell ….”

I could do a whole issue on how bad “auto-spell” and “auto-correct” messes up the text we sometimes try to send with our text apps on phones. Here's a little poem by Jerrold H. Zar to drive the point home.

"Ode to the Spell Checker."

Eye halve a spelling checker

It came with my pea sea.

It plainly marks four my revue miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a quay and type a word and weight for it to say

Weather eye yam wrong oar write.

It shows me strait a weigh as soon as a mist ache is maid.

It nose bee fore two long and eye can put the error rite.

Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it,

I am shore your pleased to no.

Its letter perfect awl the way.

My checker told me sew.

So, as I have shown previously in these writings, there are a lot of books that were common to us that the kids today do not even own – or need to own. If you are a writer like me, I not only rely on spell check, but I also use a program name Grammarly to not only help me with spelling but also suggest wordage tips to improve my writing. It is a free program found at grammarly.com.

Now it is your turn to send in some of your personal thoughts about the use of dictionaries in your lives or times your auto-correct made mistakes in what you were trying to type. Do you still own or use an actual dictionary/ Bring it on!

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Word Crimes

Thanks for the group of readers who commented on their personal experiences with the World Book Encyclopedias (yes I had to sing it to spell it right, like Skip). 

Let's see what you have to say this week about the use of dictionaries in your lives.

Last Week's Questions, Answers, Comments