Lost Without a Dictionary

All four of my dictionaries are packed away for a move to Portland, OR. I miss them. I stopped using dictionary.com because it's germy. You can pick up more goobers from that website than a frosted doughnut dropped face down at a swimming pool locker room. Just consult the Wall Street Journal.

It's been maybe four or so days living without them, but I've gone to the place I usually keep them several times now to look a word up, only to remember they're packed. With four, I usually look up a word in at least two dictionaries and compare. The definitions are always different. Word choice is everything, isn't it?

The NYT Book Review from April 10 has an article about a book of poetry, Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr, and the reviewer, David Kirby, writes that more poetry readers tend to love poetry than simply like it. He uses an unscientific method to conclude this (ubiquitous Google search), but it's interesting. I'll apply that to my dictionary habits. I think I love words.