THE GREATS

Who do you think of when some mentions " the great American authors"?

Twain

Faulkner

Frost

Whitman

Hemmingway

Steinbeck

Sandburg

Cather

Dickinson

Emerson

Wealty

Hawthorne

Sinclair

Well, those have their merits, but for my money, the Miriam brothers, (Noah) Webster and (Peter) Roget are "the greats", although technically Roget is British. I would certainly be inept without them. I have had these two books--the dictionary and the thesaurus--since high school. Yes, they are yellowed and showing signs of extreme wear (notice the missing covers) but I love them. I keep them handy, on the bookshelf behind my seat and I use them both several times a day.

I use spell-check but I love the feel of flipping thru an actual dictionary and searching for the proper spelling of a word. Sometimes it's a hunt. Sometimes I confirm my own suspicions. I especially love going to a library where there's a huge, unabridged dictionary. I used to get a kick out of telling Julian "the library has a dictionary that weighs more than you do", although that's no longer true so I had to stop. Apparently, the dictionary is growing at a slower pace than one son. :)

I

would like to do a dictionary scrapbook someday, with specialized definitions as the journaling.

So, now you know.