![]() Let The Internet keep its definitions of twerking you can have this naughty little secret exhibit itself on your lap and you can enjoy it even in public especially in public. Let its pages thrill you in response to your eager caress, and titillate you with Chambers’ renowned definitions that border on the heretical, like the definition for éclair, while still being part of the Scrabble™ high society. This is one such romance tale and it is a darn good one. And when you return, you will discover the etymology and true meanings of words that have morphed from language to language like naughty elven changlings in an interspecies romance. Return to a world when reading or browsing through the dictionary was the literate equivalent of surfing. Return to that innocent time in history when sexting was a misspelling of a word only a sailor took serious and when misspellings were not socially acceptable on cell phones at schools across the world. These pre-twerking dictionaries that might describe a word like selfie as a cute way to express an egotistical personality. If there were ever a need for a dictionary it would be for these older ones like the New Edition 1983 Chambers 20th Century Dictionary such dictionaries The Internet has no use for and where the feeling is mutual I am sure. Some of the words that are lost have gone out of the language completely while others have been sacrificed to make space for modern words, like twerk. ![]() I'd like to think he cheated somehow - the alternative is just too depressing to consider.Įvery edition of a dictionary tends to lose a few words as it gains many more. After a few minutes, we were sure we'd found the perfect candidate. ![]() We got out a copy of Chambers and looked around for a word that would be as obscure and hard to spell as possible. So, naturally, we were sceptical, and we thought we'd test his ability. He just knew how words were spelled, that's all there was to it. I'm not sure how we got on to the subject of spelling, but G told us that he didn't need to check spellings. We were sitting around at a friend's place sometime in the 80s. Here's an anecdote to show how good he is. Again, my memory isn't bad, but he leaves me standing. Yet it remains lighter and easier to hold, and now has an even more durable jacket so that it will be a beautiful hardback reference for many years to come. He speaks at least five fluently and can get by in several more. First published in 1872, The Chambers Dictionary contains more words, phrases and meanings than any other single-volume English dictionary. I'm not hopeless at languages, but one of my friends (let's call him G) totally puts me to shame.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |