Spokane7
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I adore words. I think most writers do. We thrill to the sound of a new one and instinctively store it away for use 
at a later date, like a dog with a bone. Long ago I promised myself I would always look up words I didn’t recognize. I’ve pretty much adhered to that dictum ever since. For many years that meant keeping a dictionary nearby; and later, as my writing ambition grew, I added a thesaurus. But with the advances in technology during the past decade, my word-finding tools have evolved, sadly turning my treasured reference books into dusty relics of a bygone era - dinosaurs in a digital world/Mary Jane Honegger, Writing North Idaho. More here. (Courtesy photo: Writing North Idaho)
Question: Do you enjoy looking up unknown words in a dictionary or its online equivalent?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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MatthewRoot on January 27 at 5:01 p.m.
I remember reading William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” in college (just for fun). I always read with a dictionary nearby, and I looked up dozens of words while reading Shirer’s classic. Several months later when I took my GRE’s, I was amazed how many of those words showed up on the test. Reading was certainly the best study tool for that standard exam.
While engaging in the lively art of conversation with friends at home, we look up words in the dictionary and in our books of word and phrase origins all the time.
I held on to “quotidian” for quite a while before finally using it.
Phaedrus on January 27 at 6:34 p.m.
I, too often, would tell myself I’d look up a word, but was able to decipher sufficient meaning from context and therefore did not bother to make the extra effort. But now, the Kindle, with its built-in dictionary, requires only a tap on the word so I look them all up.
greenlibertarian on January 27 at 6:44 p.m.
I was surprised there were seven or eight words I had to look up in that Dean Koontz book I read, Life Expectancy.
Modern day classic about words, and word play:
The Phantom Tollbooth:
he Phantom Tollbooth is a children’s adventure novel and modern fairy tale published in 1961, written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer. It tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth one afternoon and, having nothing better to do, decides to drive through it in his toy car.
The tollbooth transports him to a land called the Kingdom of Wisdom. There he acquires two faithful companions, has many adventures, and goes on a quest to rescue the princesses of the kingdom, Princess Rhyme and Princess Reason. The text is full of puns, and many events, such as Milo’s jump to the Island of Conclusions, exemplify literal meanings of English language idioms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Tollbooth
Escapee on January 27 at 11:50 p.m.
Every now and then, I’ll consult the Internet Dictionary if I run across a word I’ve never seen before. I don’t enjoy the activity per se’, but if I can come away feeling like I’ve learned something, then at least proved I’m not too old to learn a New Trick, or the Internet equivalent.
TomHamilton on January 30 at 7:14 a.m.
My reading is rather exclusively on the Kindle now. The built in dictionary means a few clicks of the cursor and I can find all of the info on a word I may not know, I must say I do like that tool!