Look it up! Dictionary are great resources
Let me ask you a question: Is the computer’s spell check your sole dictionary?
Please don’t say yes. I’ll have to weep for the future if you do. Spell check is a wonderful invention, but it can’t replace good ol’ Webster’s.
When was the last time you cracked a dictionary open? A real one. With pages and word origins listed in there. Do you know how many cool things there are in the dictionary? You can see the Greek and Sanskrit alphabets. You can find out which “to, too, or two” is the right one. You can even find out what words mean, not just how to spell them.
What an amazing invention!
As you can tell, I’m a big fan of the dictionary. When I was little, my parents had a set of encyclopedias with a two-volume dictionary. No, you wouldn’t find “dot.com” in there or “tonight,” but it was wonderful anyway. In my house, you didn’t ask what a word meant. You looked it up. And I still do it.
In the first week of classes in Fall Semester 2000, I made the best purchase of my young life – Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Sure, some made fun of my obsession over that book, but others revered it as I did. It wasn’t a particularly expensive book – only $25 – but it’s served me better than any text I’ve bought.
Often I would be arguing with my roommate over the meaning of a word or definition of a particular species of bear (which actually happened). If not for the dictionary, neither of us would know who was right. Fortunately, the book wasn’t far from my bedside table and we were able to sleep having the question answered. Phew!
I know this sounds a bit fanatical, but if you had the pleasure of reading through friends’ papers and reading A-frame signs outside the TSC and knowing words were misspelled or misused, you’d be frustrated, too.
Not that I’m trying to blow my own horn and say I’m better than those making the signs or writing the papers, but Kermit the Frog once said everyone has a talent, and mine just happens to be spelling and grammar. Well, not grammar so much, but I can generally tell when something’s off in a sentence. Of course, my roommates will laugh at me for saying that since I couldn’t tell you a prepositional phrase from a noun, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t articulate it, but I know it.
Everyone has a talent. But when you see others haphazardly doing what you do so well, it’s frustrating. Especially when it’s something as easy as spelling. No, not everyone knows how to spell offhand. My officemate Marcus couldn’t spell to save his life and therefore relies on spell check. But if he would crack a dictionary to check his spelling and meanings (“beat” and “beet” mean two different things, as do “residence” and “residents”), he’d be so much better off.
The worst part is when people don’t take the time to check their spellings before printing, publishing or painting the words out in public. Last year, there were plenty of A-frames in front of the TSC that announced “millenium” parties or celebrations or discounts. Do you have any idea how dumb it looks when you don’t care if a word is spelled right? It’s carelessness, that’s all. And it’s an epidemic in our generation.
What was it called in the early ’90s? Generation X? We were labeled a generation of slackers, ne’er-do-wells and lazy kids. Well, those of you who rely on your spell check to proofread your work, you are proving that title right. How sad. I was born in the wrong era.
If I had the money, I would buy every child in the world a dictionary in their native language to start them off right. There’s no excuse for not looking up a word.
It’s just plain lazy. And it’s frustrating. Next time, please, please, please, please, please look the word up before putting it before another’s eyes. Otherwise that person, if they know better, will probably laugh at you.
Especially me.
Heather Fredrickson is a senior majoring in journalism. E-mail comments to her at slr4h@cc.usu.edu.