Looking Up Unfamiliar Words

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. We heard from Tim Wilson, who grew up in Minneapolis and now lives in Delray Beach, Florida.

And he wrote us to say that when he was growing up, he was surrounded by books.

And his family made lots of trips to libraries and bookstores.

And his family actually kept a dictionary in the kitchen.

And his dad would use all these big words.

And it was expected that if his dad used a big word that he didn’t know, then Tim had to go look up that word so he could understand the conversation.

And he said his initial thought was that this is kind of ridiculous.

But then he said, paradigms are made to shift.

And so mine did one Saturday when I was 16.

I was preparing eggs for breakfast and was made to realize that I must keep my fork parallel to the pan’s bottom, using the word tyne, heretofore unknown by me, as in the tines of a fork.

I dutifully found the word, pronunciation, and demonstrative sentence in the foreboding OED.

After breakfast, I drove to the high school to take my SAT test, and lo and behold, what was the first word in the vocabulary section but time?

I knew it. I owned the test from that point forward.

Also, I never begrudged my father compelling me to search a definition.

That is the most concrete example of why looking words up as you’re reading is a good idea.

Or having a word-a-day calendar or a word-a-day email or whatever it takes.

It accumulates.

Yeah, it does.

I cannot imagine reading a text and not looking up words I don’t know.

I know some people do that, but I cannot imagine it.

Yeah, I love the digital dictionaries because they track all the words I looked at.

And I like to go back and browse.

I’m like, wow, I looked up a ton of words, like on your Kindle or wherever.

Yeah, yeah.

I will tell you, I had a similar experience to Tim where we were at the zoo and we were looking at the okapis, which are these beautiful animals.

They’re kind of as tall as a small horse, and they have striped legs that look like they’re wearing stockings.

And then the very next day, I was able to use this in my word feud game, which is kind of a Scrabble-type game that you play on your phone.

And I remember the person I was playing challenged me and said, like, you must be cheating.

How could you know that?

And I was like, I was at the zoo yesterday.

I know what a no-copy is.

It was a nice moment.

We know that you’ve had moments like that, too, where your word study or paying attention to vocabulary or just looking things up has made a difference and you were able to stick it in someone’s face or at least beat the SAT.

Put it on a tine.

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Email words@waywordradio.org.