Webster - 400,000 Words that Frustrate My Word-Finding

I'm  unhinged by the magnitude and efficiency of the 1968 Unabridged, Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary. Did you know that there are twentysix columns of Un-words. One merely needs to look up what follows un and know that it's not that… Bam! Words that start with water fill more than two pages. Whoa. It's too bad the earth is running out of water when there are so many words associated with it. Will they be extinct?

I remember hearing on NPR that the word take has more meanings than any other. Unless I look at every page in Webster’s, I can’t say whether the comparison is true, so, I looked it up…online. Take indeed tops the list followed by break, turn and set. For take, the first entry in the ’68 dictionary is a verb that includes 55 meanings plus another column of terms used, such as, to take care or to take it lying down.  There’s a second take-verb relating to getting possession with 12 meanings, followed by a noun with six, relating to the process of taking. The 2015 online list indicates 127 meanings suggesting that in the ensuing years creativity in word making is down. By the way, only the game of Bridge used the term "take out" in '68. No chicken nor synonyms for murder, I guess. 

What a turn in vision Noah Webster took when he set the foundation for this book. It includes 157 pages of supplements including practical business mathematics and terms, air distances between cities, the history of the English language, forms of address, abbreviations, pages of signs and symbols and the history of Canada. It even spells out the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence.

In an attempt to speed the user's interface, (1968 interface, n, a surface that lies between two parts of matter or space and forms their common boundary); the book is constructed with black wells with letters along the edges. I learned from a brochure I found tucked between pages that these features are “stamped in gold” and called “thumb indexed.” They claim and I don’t disagree, that the book is “richly appointed throughout.” The paper is fine, thin and yellowed... both on purpose and now with its 47 years of age. The book is heavy with so many pages and so much information to offer. The description on the insert says its “Monumental- 2.304 pages”, and “Massive- weighs 11 pounds, 4 ounces, 11 inches high x 8 ½ inches wide”. It includes “400,000 word definitions, 2,132 illustrations, many in full color bound in handsome sturdy, buckram”. (I had to look it up. A coarse cotton, hemp, or linen cloth, stiffened with glue or a gluelike substance.)  

The insert includes, in the purchasers hand writing, a curly fine style that reminds me of my grandmother’s, that says, “ordered, 10/28/68 4.65/mo. 13.95 Total.  Seems a bargain now for this massive, monumental resource. That was fall of our senior year.  I remember chipping in coins from fifty or seventy-five cent an hour babysitting jobs to fill up our dad's cars to go to football games, Blazo’s or Big Boy. The gas at the Sunoco station cost around twenty-nine cents per gallon. I never would have purchased something so extravagant. It would take 28 hours of babysitting for me, and I had more critical purchases like 45s, Villager outfits, Sebago Mocs, Bonnie Bell and Monet earrings.

Watching TV one night, I sat Webster’s on my lap, leafed through and noticed an illustration of a zorapteran. Bored, I pulled out markers and colored it, then found other bugs in nearly every letter of the alphabet. I colored from back to front until an acarida. Since '68, publishers replaced engravings, the little pictures with photographic processes, (I learned from Wikipedia), but, it made me wonder how editors determined which words to represent. Pictures aid in understanding a concept. I could never conjure a halberd without the drawing. The little engravings aren't on every page making the information dense... intimidating… so much to know. The illustrations are a relief, a resting place for the eyes and the brain. I wonder whether the priority came from a layout decision or the information? By the way, the first illustration in the book is of an aardvark, already a cool word with its double-a beginning, the last a zoospore balancing out coolness with its double-o middle.

Though I access Thesaurus.com much more than the dictionary, I don’t learn nearly as much using it. I find my word, you know… the one… right… on the tip… of my tongue. I copy the word, X the webpage and edit my Word doc. Done. Each time, I am reminded that at this point in my life, words are precious. They don’t reliably show up for me. Use of Thesaurus.com is increasing. I get as frustrated with myself as I did with my mom when words don’t emerge when I need them. Word finding. It’s part of aging, I’m told. It must be a modern term, because it’s not in the ’68. It, however, doesn’t make me feel modern.

I so love this dictionary for helping me mind my Ps and Qs. 

Word. (as in, to flatter in 1968.)