The Art of Reading a Dictionary

Learning English used to mean stashing new words to memory, groking usage and

grammar, and acing exams. The last came from the first two efforts and my life's

dreams, in turn, were built on top of the exams. Reading anything other than

textbooks was more for amusement or, once out of school, for acquiring practical

knowledge and skills.

 

Reading a dictionary might have occasionally crossed my mind but the imagined

dire boredom felt so daunting that I never attempted. I had better things do,

I told myself, and going through that ordeal was nothing but for bragging.

 

Every few months there came an urge to expand vocabulary and over the years, I

did go through a couple of books with the word dictionary in the titles, e.g.,

The Dictionary of Cliches by James Rogers and Longman's American Idioms

Dictionary. In the end, however, I doubt I gained much more than entertainment.

 

It was not until I was 46 years old and had collected enough inspiration from

the likes of Ammon Shea, Andreas Kluth, and Malcolm X, that I decided to read a

dictionary. It reminded me of St. Augstine's prayers at different stages of his

life. (First, "God, make me pure but not now," then, "God, make me pure but not

entirely," and at last, "God, please make me pure.")

 

I forgave myself when I forgot an entry word, because its definitions and examples

that I was copying down could be more interesting. For example, to understand the

4th meaning of the word 'dip,'

    

    To form (a candle) by repeatedly immersing a wick in melted wax or tallow.

 

I had to look up 'wick,' which was colorful in its own right, and 'tallow' which

led to 'suet.' I had never met this meaning of dip in the wild and doubted I ever

would. But from this short definition, I just learnt how to make a candle and with 

what and Warwick, the name of the neighborhood down the road, would never sound

the same again.

 

Even if there is nothing interesting, simple repetition has its own virtues. For 

one thing, when something bothers me regularly, I have to fix the cause. For

example, I was often troubled by the lack of articles in front of nouns, such as

the 'aircraft' in

        

        Restricted airspace for the passage of aircraft.

 

from the definition of 'corridor,' and the 'muscle' in

        

        Muscle is a contractile tissue.

 

as an example usage of 'contractile.' I thought 'a' and 'an' should be inserted

in front of the two words, respectively, or the plurals should be used, when talking

about things in general. Native English speakers were of no help here as they

simply knew the unexplainable. I ended up buying and reading a usage book for a

satisfying answer.

 

Meanwhile, as my reading progressed, I met the word aircraft again in the 5th

definition of 'director'

        

        An electronic device that continually calculates and displays information

        used for firing weapons at moving targets, such as missiles or aircraft.

 

and was puzzled by the same question, I couldn't bear it and finally looked aircraft

up and noticed that the plural is the same word! I sure won't forget that soon.

 

[7grizzly]

回复 '暖冬cool夏' 的评论 : So I guess each of these xxxcraft must has the same singular and plural form. Thanks! And thank you for liking and your compliment. I sure hope I'll live up to it. Have a great weekend.

[暖冬cool夏]

Very interesting and observant, and thank you for the word "aircraft". I was not aware of it. Googling online, I learned that word "air-craft" is like the word "sheep". And the word "craft", such as "space-craft", is a collective term. I won't forget it too:)).
Your never-dying passion towards English and the vocabulary is unsurpassed, and that's the secret!