Oh woe is me!!! The other day, I heard that Merriam Webster will no longer be printing dictionaries -- everything will be on-line. I can't tell you the distress I felt when I heard this piece of bad news.
How could it come to pass that soon there will be no more dictionaries in the land? How could anyone, anywhere think that replacing all the printed words with electronic ones would be an improvement?
Certainly, sometimes I look up words on my computer -- but that is not nearly as satisfying as turning the pages in my old 1947 American College Dictionary to find the word I'm looking for. Once the proper word is found -- there are words above it and below and next to it -- all to be explored. Using the dictionary isn't just about finding out how to spell a word - it is a quest, a search, a quiet drift among the letters. And then we come to the words in these new electronic dictionaries. I'm sure they will include LOL, 'hashtag', BFF and any number of quick-to-type 'symbols'. Its no wonder I'm getting the collywobbles -- its enough to bumfuzzle even the strongest of us. "Every time I have to look up a word in the dictionary, I'm delighted." - Vivienne Westwood
