Reading the Dictionary

I don't know if it's the cold medicines (anti histamines, decongestants and the like) that I'm eating or just the state of my mind after lying in bed for two days with a miserable summer head cold but one thought seems to lead to another and to another. And, out of that mush, a new post is born. This one's about Reading the Dictionary, something I'll never do but something (certain) people consider from time to time and an even fewer actually do. But now I know of two that have.

Denny just returned from a 3 day trip to Washington's coastal town of Ocean Shores where he spent a few relaxing days alone, walking the beach and unwinding from the traumas of the last few months (Law School graduation, the Bar Exam etc). Musing about Ocean Shores took me back to early April 2002 when D, Laura and I spent a few days in that same motel, right on the beach over Spring Break. Chris was off to Tijuana, Mexico on a school mission trip, painting houses so it was just the three of us on that little adventure to the coast.

I remember lots of little things about that trip to Ocean Shores, snippets mostly. We went into the deserted Visitor's Center and were the only people in there at the time. The guy in charge, either bored, or weird, or a little of both struck up a conversation with Laura. He asked her about school, what grade she was in (8th at the time), and then asked what she was planning to do with her life. Huh? This seemed like an odd question for a random person working in a visitor's center to ask my daughter. My ears perked up a bit but I just listened to their conversation. It went something like this.

"My son, he's a really smart kid. He did really well on his SATs and he's now a...." (something or other; that part I've since forgotten).

"He had his pick of colleges with those SAT scores; 750 on the Verbal", he boasted.

I don't think Laura had even heard of the SATs back then. The guy wouldn't quit with his chattering, hoping to keep Laura's attention and perhaps lend a bit of advice. Meanwhile I kept listening while pouring over pamphlets and other "stuff" looking for activities that might keep us entertained in sleepy Ocean Shores.

"If you want to score really high on the SAT Verbal, you can do one thing that will really pay off. You can read the dictionary, yeah.....I mean, really sit down with the dictionary, the big one, and read it faithfully, day after day as much as you can. You'll get really, really smart that way."

Laura wasn't the least bit interested but smiled politely and said, "Oh, ok."

Hmmm, I thought. Reading the dictionary. That's probably not a bad idea. Tedious work but an interesting thought. Doing so wouldn't have been Laura's thing but maybe there are kids out there that might. All this good advice on getting smart and scoring big on the SATs from a guy working in the Visitor's Center in Ocean Shores? Whoa.

Well now, where is my drug saturated mind going with all this? It all started with Denny's return from Ocean Shores and morphed into memories of our first trip there with this guy rambling on about reading the dictionary and then I opened my email to find the preview of the NY Times Book Review for this week featuring a new book called,"Reading the OED: One Man, One Year 21, 730 Pages". This guy (aka author), Ammon Shea, apparently did just that; read the entire Oxford English Dictionary and wrote about his experience. He had already read Webster's Second back in the 1990's (Might he be the son of the guy in Ocean Shores? I'm clearly losing my marbles here) but the OED was obviously a much bigger challenge. The book review is fascinating reading.

I don't think I'll be reading the dictionary anytime soon but learning about words like diepnophobia, the fear of dinner parties, may have some personal relevance. Had I known about reading the dictionary, I might have scored higher on my verbal SAT way back when. Do I have a point with this post? Not really. I'm just feeling mildly ADD, jumping from loosely linked topic to topic and burning time, trying to get over this cruddy upper respiratory thing. The book looks very interesting though and I put it on my library hold list.

** photo used with permission of author, Ammon Shea. Thanks!
*** It amazes me that I can email the author and get a response within an hour! He sounds really cool, this guy Ammon.