Words, words, words

[desperance]

Wherever I sit to read, upstairs or down, there's always a dictionary close to hand. However much I'm enjoying the book, however swept up I am in the story, I'll still reach for the dictionary if I need it, if I meet a word I don't know. Even if the meaning is obvious in context, or unimportant to the narrative. Someone once said they found this odd, but I assumed they were being ironic.

But - it occurs to me to wonder - does anybody else set their reading or their writing aside to look up a word they know already? I do this all the time, too. Like, I just used the word "derelict" (about an abandoned kitchen garden, since you ask). And stopped, and thought, and reached for the dictionary. Of course I know what the word means, in the context in which I used it; but it gets used in other contexts too, there's that notion of neglect-of-duty inherent in "dereliction", and a "relict" is a widow, and I don't have enough Latin to take the word apart myself, so what's going on there, what am I missing...?

So, yup. I stop work and look it up. [Turns out it's all from "relinquere", to leave behind.] And I'll do that again and again through the day. It's a sort of cheat's version of being educated: having the book rather than the knowledge always at my fingertips...

Comments

[green_knight]

I have a dictionary next to me and several in reach; and I occasionally read for fun, but most of my use is 'did I use this word correctly.' My backbrain, being cleverer than me, often suggests words I am not entirely certain I *really* understand. (Usually, it's right.)

I do not stop reading when encountering an unknown word. I started to read almost exclusively in English at a time when I did not have a lot of opportunity to speak it; and much of my vocabulary was acquired _through_ reading. I also occasionally read in languages I don't speak, but for this to work you cannot focus on any single word, any single sentence - if you do, you will find that you don't understand anything at all. (Ahem. This works for Romance and Germanic languages as well as for Welsh, of which I have rudimentary knowledge. You need _something_ and basic grammar and vocabulary to build a framework.)