Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

The article that the link points to left out a couple of interesting details (I read more about it in a news magazine). Yes, it was a leather-bound Webster's Dictionary, but it was a 1,553-page dictionary! The uncle who checked it out claimed that he "forgot" to return it before they moved to New York. Let me ask: When it's 1899 and you're packing up to move from Ontario to New York, how do you forget that you're packing a 1,553-page leather-bound dictionary? Also, why would a public library allow such a book to be checked out? Such an expensive resource would surely have been kept at the reference desk? I guess we can't get answers to these questions now, because the uncle, no doubt, has also been checked out.