the society for the prevention of hostility toward unabridged dictionaries

where have all the unabridged dictionaries gone

long time a passin

where have all the unabridged dictionaries gone

long time ago

where have all the unabridged dictionaries gone

gone to dumpsters every one

when will they ever learn?

when will they ever learn?

When I  was in school, the unabridged dictionary sat like an alien death weapon on a podium too small for the monstrosity. Most of the boys and girls in my class were afraid to even touch it. The librarian treated it like some kind of ancient relic from Remulac.

Then, one day, it disappeared. It was piled in a gargantuan book-pyramid with numerous other dishonored lonely books. The speckled-faced librarian gathered them in a wheelbarrow and positioned them behind a hideously wide red truck.

In the morning, as I walked to school, I saw the red truck parked haphazardly upon the mound beyond the northern end of the school building. I walked over, peered into the bed. Below the truck bed, a few pieces of browned paper lay scattered about,  I reached down and found they crumpled into dust when touched.

The unabridged dictionary- along with other notable books- met their death that day…before I found the remnants of ash-like fragments.

I confess today that I do not own an unabridged dictionary. Some day, I will buy one….in secret. But for now, it has become a problem.

It is because I get words stuck in my head and often have to search to find their meaning.  So many times I cannot find it in any of the mamby-pamby dictionaries online or any in the public library.

In fact, while I was writing my last post, I got a word stuck in my head. Not like a song stuck in my head, but an “unknown” (for best effects, please pronounce with a Scottish accent) word. I flung open my dictionaries, scavanged the online dictionary venues, to no avail. I nearly flailed myself upon a piece of plastic to buy a subscription to the unabridged dictionary…OK, I am exaggerating…but repented when I did some cost analysis.

The word was…

parsipitous

Yes, that’s right. Not precipitous. Not parsimony. It probably has something to do with “to parse” I imagine. But I do not know.

But surely I would know if I could just find an unabridged dictionary…somewhere.