Alan: Every home should have at least one good dictionary, preferably with brief integrated etymologies.
Webster's New Collegiate Edition - whose previous incarnations date back to 1916 - is highly recommended.
This edition, with "thumb tabs," is easy to find in used book stores... a lamentably vanishing species.
This edition, with "thumb tabs," is easy to find in used book stores... a lamentably vanishing species.
The bathroom is an excellent storage location since it insures ready reference.
Use the dictionary every time you come upon a word whose meaning you don't know; whose meaning is vague; or whose etymological roots "beg" investigation.
"Sinister" and "supercilious" are good examples of the latter.
If you think this is a silly suggestion, read:
Mark Twain, Adolf Hitler And The Dunning-Kruger Effect
When I was a boy, Dad would play a thought game based on the question "What five --- books, records, foods etc... --- would you take with you to a desert island where you've been banished for the rest of your life?"
Although Dad included the Bible, he made a special point of emphasizing Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, a leather-bound, rice-paper edition of which was the first optional purchase made by my "newly-wed" parents after their post-Depression economic situation stabilized.
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