"Moderate" - "Monel"
The only dictionary that I own, often to my detriment (because, who would of guessed, but Graduate students in creative writing sometimes have to look words up), is a 1938 Webster's Student Dictionary (Upper School Levels). Now, this dictionary itself I like quite a bit - it was a gift to me from my Great Aunt Betty before she died, and she had received it as a gift from her brother Donald, who died in World War II, and if I read the inscription on the inside cover correctly, the dictionary was given to Donald by someone named Hans Englert in 1942 on Christmas Island.
In terms of having any kind of family heirloom-type objects, I enjoy having this dictionary. Between the pages that contain the words "beat" through "beget," there is a scrap of paper upon which Betty drew too small birds in pencil (in two different wing positions) and rubbed a couple other colored pencils a few times, presumably to sharpen their tips. I'm not sure why this piece of paper is in this particular page; though there are a few words that, to me, are candidates for having been looked up: "bedight" (to deck out; adorn; array), "bedizen" (to dress conspicuously, exp. with vulgar finery), "beestings" (the first milk given by a cow after calving).
Between another set of pages - "ensilage" through "ephor"- is the only scrap of paper that is obviously serving the role of bookmark. The scrap itself appears to be a corner torn from a TV Guide, Saturday, August 4, 1995, page 25/26. The words visible on page 25 are:
Live Phone-In)
1671371
Weather National
Television The la-
m New York; inno-
in compact cars;
84
The words visible on page 26 are:
erected in
clysm. 'G' (
33 Local F
Features
5
15 John Avanz
5
15 Efrem Zim
The presence of a bookmark makes my interest in knowing which word was being looked up much greater than the page with the piece of paper with two small birds. On this page, as well, there are several words that are likely suspects: "entrain" (to put or go aboard a train), "eolithic" (relating to or designating the earliest stage of human culture characterized by the use of stone implements), "eosin" (a reddish dye made chemically, used in making red ink, for staining in biology, etc.), "ephor" (one of a body of five magistrates in ancient Sparta, advisers to the kings).
Sadly, I can never do more than just speculate as to what word it was that made Betty decide to bookmark that page in 1995, but in the meantime, I bring this up because the other day I was looking a word up (I don't remember what the word was - it wasn't in the dictionary), and again was frustrated by the fact that the word I didn't know wasn't deemed necessary for Upper Level Students in 1938 to know either, but did happen to see another word which I had never heard of that I thought was funny: "milksop."
milksop, n. A mollycoddle.
And I didn't know what a mollycoddle was either! This was great!
mollycoddle, n. A pampered person; an effeminate man or boy. -- v. t. To pamper.
This dictionary is great!
In terms of having any kind of family heirloom-type objects, I enjoy having this dictionary. Between the pages that contain the words "beat" through "beget," there is a scrap of paper upon which Betty drew too small birds in pencil (in two different wing positions) and rubbed a couple other colored pencils a few times, presumably to sharpen their tips. I'm not sure why this piece of paper is in this particular page; though there are a few words that, to me, are candidates for having been looked up: "bedight" (to deck out; adorn; array), "bedizen" (to dress conspicuously, exp. with vulgar finery), "beestings" (the first milk given by a cow after calving).
Between another set of pages - "ensilage" through "ephor"- is the only scrap of paper that is obviously serving the role of bookmark. The scrap itself appears to be a corner torn from a TV Guide, Saturday, August 4, 1995, page 25/26. The words visible on page 25 are:
Live Phone-In)
1671371
Weather National
Television The la-
m New York; inno-
in compact cars;
84
The words visible on page 26 are:
erected in
clysm. 'G' (
33 Local F
Features
5
15 John Avanz
5
15 Efrem Zim
The presence of a bookmark makes my interest in knowing which word was being looked up much greater than the page with the piece of paper with two small birds. On this page, as well, there are several words that are likely suspects: "entrain" (to put or go aboard a train), "eolithic" (relating to or designating the earliest stage of human culture characterized by the use of stone implements), "eosin" (a reddish dye made chemically, used in making red ink, for staining in biology, etc.), "ephor" (one of a body of five magistrates in ancient Sparta, advisers to the kings).
Sadly, I can never do more than just speculate as to what word it was that made Betty decide to bookmark that page in 1995, but in the meantime, I bring this up because the other day I was looking a word up (I don't remember what the word was - it wasn't in the dictionary), and again was frustrated by the fact that the word I didn't know wasn't deemed necessary for Upper Level Students in 1938 to know either, but did happen to see another word which I had never heard of that I thought was funny: "milksop."
milksop, n. A mollycoddle.
And I didn't know what a mollycoddle was either! This was great!
mollycoddle, n. A pampered person; an effeminate man or boy. -- v. t. To pamper.
This dictionary is great!
3 Comments:
And when they look at you in complete bafflement you can call them an insult from the 1930s, which you can only define in terms of another insult from the 1930s. That does sound like a great dictionary.
Thanks for sharing, Pete. Sounds like a good book to have.
Dan, that is absolutely the least useful pun I've ever heard.
I'm not sure if I'm comfortable just walking around and calling people milksops. Or mollycoddles, for that matter. Although, I used to work with a guy from Philadelphia who had a milk allergy, and he was always eager to point out that an allergy to milk is NOT lactose intolerance, so, to me, that complicates the matter. (That guy was also actually the co-creator of the giant blue pennsylvania tattoo on one's stomach idea (where, when people ask you why you have a giant tattoo of Pennsylvania on your stomach you smack your gut with both hands, then raise them in the air and say "I'm from Pennsylvania!").
Post a Comment
<< Home