Attention Verbivores: On Day #23, Read a Page of the Dictionary

Credited to Life on Michigan Avenue

As my family will gladly tell you, I am an enormous word loving, grammar and punctuation freak. Annoyingly so at times, like last night when we went to dinner and spent ten minutes debating why a guy’s sweatshirt was incorrectly punctuated. I won’t go into the details. Like I said, some people find it annoying, even though I find it fascinating and could discuss it for hours.

So, how great is this? Day #23: Read a page of the dictionary. Heaven!

By the way, I use my grandparents’ dictionary, which I got when my Grandma Lola moved out of her home. It’s Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. I hope my sibs aren’t reading this. They may be jealous that I inherited this family heirloom, which used to sit on Lola and Trube’s coffee table on a lucite stand. Every Sunday, we would haul it into the dining room for a big Scrabble game and Lola would win, just as she does today, at age 99. Only now I have the dictionary (not that it’s given me any advantage).

I just opened my dictionary to the M’s and saw the word, “malapropism.” Great word. A malapropism is “a humorous misapplication of a word or phrase”, according to my dictionary. I used to work with an art director who frequently used malapropisms. One morning her creative partner walked into her office and asked how things were going. She looked up from a drawing board buried in layouts and said, “I’m just undulating with work!” When she told me the story, I imagined her writhing and flagellating around her office.

Anyway. Hope I haven’t inundated you with too much on this subject. Go read your dictionary.