WHY ONE ISN’T ENOUGH!

I’ve long loved dictionaries, and mine currently crowd seven bookshelves. I can just imagine the gasps, chuckles, and maybe eye-rolls out there about now. 

But think about it. Depending on who and when you ask, the number of English words varies widely, but all agree the number is humongous.

As of June, 2018, according to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) there were 171,146 words currently in use in the English language, plus 47,156 obsolete ones.  The main page of the OED official website said they covered over 600,000 terms.

In June, 2021, the official edition of the Merriam-Webster online dictionary included approximately 470,000 words.

And new words are added daily. In the 20th century, 800 to 1000 new words were added to the English language each year. In 2022 so far, new words include hellacious, fast fashion, supposablyhiggle, long hauler, vaxvaxxer, megadrought, mesovortex, and charging station, and new acronyms, such as EV, HEV, PHEV, etc., etc., etc. And as you no doubt realize, words are included in the vernacular before they make it into any official dictionary.

Clearly, one comprehensive, agreed-upon dictionary isn’t possible. And the sheer scope of the language would make it cumbersome and daunting to navigate.

The Cavalry to the Rescue!

Fortunately, there are (by actual count) a gazillion dictionary makers out there to sort and organize words for us.  Whatever your need or interest, there’s a dictionary for that!

I’m a writer, so my word needs are many and varied. An inspection of my dictionary shelves shows a touching popularity of slang dictionaries. Slang is a true love because it’s the language of much realistic dialogue, and can set time, class, and subculture.

In this regard, Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (8th edition) is a classic. I recently acquired Partridge’s Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English edited by Paul Beale as well. Why? Because it’s slimmed down the original and added new material.  

But slang isn’t a unitary thing! Therefore, I have dictionaries of war slang, hippie slang, and many volumes of “American” slang. Some years ago, I was extremely please to find the first two volumes of the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang.  I am devastated—well, perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration—that there will never be a third volume. The project was too time-consuming and expensive to complete.

Speaking of price: dictionaries tend to be big, and specialized ones, expensive. If you want a standard Merriam-Webster for general use, one can be had for very little money, especially used, because they are printed in huge runs and sell widely. 

But if you want something like the Dictionary of American Regional English, in six volumes, the price tag is currently $635 used. I picked up my six volumes one by one, from library discards and secondhand stores, and that can still be done if you are tightfisted and determined. FYI, I find these volumes cumbersome to use, so take that into consideration.

Recently I came across the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English, on Amazon for $128.35 hardcover and $74.99 on Kindle, the only two formats out there. And these are the lowest prices I found!

These are just two dictionaries recognizing the differences in language across the country. Such differences have long been acknowledged. One of my dictionaries is Yankee Talk Another is Butter my Butt and Call Me a Biscuit. (You can imagine the regional connections of that one.)

Words—Like People—Age 

The OED recognizes “archaic” words. I have a dictionary called The Word Museum, one example of a dictionary of such outdated words. Dictionaries of colonial English or slang by decades inherently acknowledge aging. As a writer, I need to be aware that word choices can easily seem too modern—or too old.

Then there’s the question of which English. During my first trip to Europe, I discovered that I actually speak “American.” Now, more aware, I have on my shelves dictionaries of American, British, Australian, and South African English.

Apart from—or in addition to—the above, I love having dictionaries that give me age-graded vocabulary for children, the meaning of symbols, and abbreviations, and sailing terms. 

Abbreviations are part of virtually every “in-group.” For example, not even all psychologists would recognize that VTE means vicarious trial and error. 

When writing about a subculture not one’s own, Talk the Talk: The Slang of 65 American Subcultures is invaluable. Just to tempt you, check out the Table of Contents!

Not dictionaries in the traditional sense… 

Many of these “dictionaries” are books word lovers enjoy anyway. For me, these include dictionaries of dreams, body language, superstitions, proverbs, phrase and fable, and word origins.

Reading dictionaries is not only entertaining, it’s also educational.

For example, people may not know that the following words, among others, not only have Yiddish roots but also came into common usage in the 1930s.

  • Mensch
  • Yenta
  • Bagel
  • Futz around
  • Schlep
  • Schmaltz
  • Schmooze

Not in my wheelhouse… 

Although I do have a rhyming dictionary, I don’t have scrabble or crossword puzzle dictionaries. Nor do I have dictionaries geared toward medicine, architecture, engineering, music, farming, the law…

Should I decide to delve deeply into such professions/topics, the dictionaries are out there.

No doubt there are people out there who believe that one good standard dictionary, and maybe one good thesaurus, suffice. Clearly, I beg to differ! 

Bottom line: Whatever your interests and/or needs, there’s a dictionary for that! Explore!

MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT

(No cats were harmed in the making of this blog.)

Which is to say, there is more than one way to say just about anything. Idioms, slang, and dialect vary greatly by geographic location and by time, so they can be a great way to ground a character in a particular time and place. Here, for your enjoyment and inspiration, are some variations on common concepts.

Drunk

Commode-hugging drunk
  • Inebriated
  • Intoxicated
  • Buzzed
  • Blitzed
  • High
  • Knee-walkin’ drunk
  • Commode-hugging drunk
  • Boozed up
  • Feeling no pain
  • Plastered
  • Ploughed
  • Bladdered
  • Liquored up
  • Under the influence 
  • Seeing double
  • Wall-eyed
  • Goggled
Sloshed
  • Stewed
  • Pickled
  • Battered
  • Blotto
  • Pissed
  • Three sheets to the wind
  • Drinks like a fish
  • Lit up like a Christmas tree
  • Drunk as a skunk
  • Pissed as a newt
  • Tight as a tick
  • Rat-arsed
Legless
  • Under the table
  • Bend an elbow
  • In the bag
  • In his/her cups
  • On Liquorpond Street
  • Away with the fairies
  • Have a load on
  • Well oiled
  • Lush
  • Worse for wear
  • Off the wagon
  • So drunk he opened his shirt collar to piss

Evil/Mean

Covidiot
  • Devil
  • Scum bucket
  • Sinner
  • The second half of saints and sinners
  • Troublemaker 
  • Villain
  • Benighted
  • Snake in the grass
  • Back-biting
  • Oxygen thief
  • Lower than a snake’s belly (in a wagon rut)
  • Sonofabitch 
  • Abbreviated piece of nothing
  • Farging icehole

Frigidity/Arousal/Sex (Female)

Amazons
  • Colder than a witch’s tit
  • Cold fish
  • Like making love to a corpse
  • Enough to make a man choose celibacy 
  • Built like a brick shit-house
  • Body to die for
  • Man magnet
  • Everyman’s wet dream
  • Wanton
  • On the pull
  • Always ready to ride
  • Just call her Eveready
  • Get a bit of sugar stick
  • Make a sausage sandwich
  • Give juice for jelly
  • Little Miss Roundheels
  • Celing Inspector
  • MILF/ GILF
  • No better than she should be
  • She’ll put out for anything in pants
  • She’s had more pricks than a secondhand dartboard
  • Scarlet woman  
  • Cougar
  • Cure for an Irish toothache
  • Go like a herd of turtles

Impotence/Arousal/Sex (Male)

Bro or Dude-bro
  • Can’t get it up/ can’t keep it up
  • Wilts like cut flowers in the sun
  • Drained away like an ice cube in the desert
  • Get a hard on
  • Get his rocks off
  • Carrying a woody
  • Hung like a prize bull
  • Butter her buns
  • Put his little hat on
  • He’s a regular Energizer Bunny
  • Manwhore
  • Roacher
  • Rake
  • Lounge lizard
  • Beau-nasty
  • Dipping his wick
  • Jumping her bones
  • Doing a little front-door work
  • Ring her bells/chimes
  • On the make
  • Jesuit boxer
  • Punk
  • Gym rat
  • Tosser
  • He’d fuck anything with a hole in
  • He gets more ass than a toilet seat
  • All mouth and no trousers

Incompetent

Not the sharpest tool in the shed/ brightest crayon in the box
  • All foam, no beer
  • Doesn’t have all her cornflakes in one box
  • All the cheese slid off his cracker
  • Body by Fisher, brains by Mattel
  • Can’t find his ass with both hands
  • Her sewing machine is out of thread
  • Receiver is off the hook
  • Skylight leaks a little
  • Not up to XXX
  • Not cut out for XXX
  • Out to lunch
  • Just doesn’t have it
  • Can’t walk and chew gum at the same time
  • He would fuck-up a wet dream
  • Not able to hit the ground with his hat
  • Batting zero
  • One step forward, three steps back

Lazy

Permanently set to “Stand-By”
  • Layabout
  • Do-nothing
  • Shiftless
  • Slow as molasses in January
  • Doesn’t have the gumption God gave a turnip
  • His get up and go has got up and gone
  • Too lazy to scratch an itch
  • Wouldn’t even scratch his ass if he could get someone else to do it for him
  • Laggard
  • Goldbrick
  • Freeloader
  • Sponger
  • He counts sawing logs as working

Mentally Unbalanced

Coocoo for Cocoa Puffs
  • Insane
  • Bonkers
  • Crazy
  • Berserker
  • Cracked
  • Lunatic
  • Deranged
  • Mad as a hatter
  • Nut case/job
  • Fruitcake
  • Potty
  • Psycho
  • Mental
  • Unglued
  • Batty
  • Bats in the belfry/attic
  • Looney (Tunes)
  • Has a screw loose
  • Sees the world slant/sideways
  • Has his/her own reality

Stupid

The lights are on, but nobody’s home.
  • World’s only living brain donor
  • Musclebound between the ears
  • Not enough brains to give himself a headache
  • Not the sharpest tool in the shed
  • A few clowns short of a circus
  • A few fries short of a Happy Meal
  • An experiment in Artificial Stupidity
  • A few beers short of a six-pack
  • Dumber than a box of rocks
  • A few peas short of a casserole
  • Has an IQ of 2, but it takes 3 to grunt
  • The wheel’s spinning but the hamster’s dead
  • One Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl
  • Sharp as a corner on a round table
  • One taco short of a combination plate
  • A few feathers short of a whole duck
  • Warning: objects in mirror are dumber than they appear
  • Couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel
  • Fell out of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on the way down
  • An intellect rivaled only by garden tools
  • As smart as bait
  • His chimney’s blocked
  • She’s so dumb she thinks her bottom is just to sit on
  • Elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor
  • Forgot to pay his brain bill
  • Antenna doesn’t pick up all the channels
  • His belt doesn’t go through all the loops
  • If he had another brain, it would be lonely
  • Missing a few buttons on her remote control
  • No grain in the silo
  • Proof that evolution CAN go backwards
  • Several nuts short of a full bar
  • Surfing in Nebraska
  • Slinky’s kinked
  • Too much yardage between the goalposts
  • One of her dogs has slipped the leash
  • Dead from the neck up
  • Only 50 cards in his deck

Ugly

A face like the south end of a horse walking north
  • A face only a mother could love
  • A face not even a mother could love
  • Should have been drowned at birth
  • As for how s/he looks, s/he has a great personality
  • Homely
  • Ill-favored
  • Not much to look at
  • As attractive as hairs on a mole
  • Beaten with an ugly stick
  • Doesn’t need a mask for halloween
  • A face that could crack mirrors
  • Face that could scare the walking dead
  • “If my dog was as ugly as he is, I’d shave his butt and walk him backward!”
The Bard is a very useful friend to those looking for creative insults.

For more feline desquamation alternatives, browse through variations of slang used in countries where English is spoken around the world. Some of my favorites are Irish, Scottish, Jamaican, Kiwi, Australian, South African, and New York English. (Yes, New York English deserves a separate listing.) If you really want be specific about a character’s background, consider idioms and slang distinct to a particular region within a country.

Bottom line for writers: fresh phrases or clichés, take your pick.

Reasons I Love Dictionaries–And You Should, Too!

Top Ten Tuesday
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature created by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they provide a prompt for bloggers. This week is a freebie, so I’m writing about Ten Reasons I Love Dictionaries.

I once said that if I were stranded on a desert island with only one book, I’d want it to be the Oxford English Dictionary. Given that this is hypothetical, I’d define the entire 20 volumes as one book. Alas, I have only the condensed version at home.

 oxford-english-dictionary-websters-third-new-international-dictionary

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Lots of Information

The joy of big, encyclopedic dictionaries such as the OED and the Dictionary of American Regional English—dictionaries too big to fit in one volume—is that they give you so much information: multiple meanings, pronunciation, origin(s), where and when it was used. They give you archaic words and highly specialized ones. Often they include examples of the usage, past and/or present. Altogether good reads.
dictionaries-on-shelf

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Specialized Topics

At the other end of the spectrum are dictionaries that cover very narrow or specialized topics, such as a medical dictionary, or dictionaries devoted to lust, wrath, body parts, or texting.

 Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Passions

 There are dictionaries that help one follow one’s passions. Everyone knows about cross-word puzzle dictionaries. Rhyming dictionaries fall into this category as well.
dictionary-rhyming

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Subcultures

I own several dictionaries acquired for writing authentically about specific subcultures.

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Time Periods

Some cover only certain regions of the country or time periods.

dictionary-colonial-american-english

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Regions

Not all English is created equal. You might remember the line sung by Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady:
There even are places where English completely disappears. Why, in America, they haven’t used it for years!
So it’s no surprise that there are various versions of the Oxford English Dictionary, including the Oxford Dictionary of American English. Given the breadth of the British Empire, it’s no wonder that there are dictionaries such as this one.
dictionary-south-african-english

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Age & Decade

As a writer, some specialized dictionaries are helpful, for example, when writing about children or when wanting to use slang appropriate to the age or year.

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: What’s That Word Again?

There are even dictionaries for people who know what they are looking for but don’t know the word for it!

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Foreign Words in English Usage

I enjoy The Browsers Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases. For one thing, it points out words that are in such common use that one forgets they are foreign!  Words like operetta and wanderlust.
dictionary-foreign-words

Reasons I Love Dictionaries: Slang

But my all-time favorites for fun reading are the books of slang. They are full of colorful and often funny usages, and they come in both specialized and generalized forms.

Tip for Writers

Open any dictionary at random, close your eyes, put your finger on a word, and write it down. Repeat 3-5 times. Write a sentence, paragraph, scene, or story that uses all of those words appropriately.

Takeaway for Writers and Readers

Find your perfect dictionary and enjoy a good read!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Feel Differently About After Time Has Passed

Top Ten Tuesday, Broke and the Bookish
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature created by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they provide a prompt for bloggers. Today’s prompt is Ten Books I Feel Differently About After Time Has Passed.

BOOKS I LOVE—OR NOT SO MUCH!

 

Some books seem to get better every day—or at least year by year. I find that many books I first read for entertainment have grown over time—or maybe I have! Into this category I put anything by Jane Austen.

 

Jane Austen

Her observations of human behaviors, foibles, and motivations are timeless. And I smile at the humor, even when re-reading.

Books by Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Top Ten Tuesday picks
Books by Jane Austen

Mary Renault

Then there are Mary Renault’s books. She brings history to life and dealt with delicate issues of sexuality long before most mainstream authors.

Mary Renault books, book shelf, Top Ten Tuesday picks
Books by Mary Renault

Lewis Carroll

I first approached Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as children’s books. Indeed, my elementary-school granddaughter read them recently. But reading them with an adult eye and understanding, I find the plot line and magical realism rich and the writing superb.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, book, Top Ten Tuesday pick
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Waverley Root & Richard de Rochemont

I’ve had Eating in America: A History by Waverley Root and Richard de Rochemont on my shelf of unread books for years. But recently, The Food of Italy by Waverley Root turned up on a list of recommended reads for people planning a trip to Italy, and having started that book, I turned to Eating in America. It starts with seafarers and Native Americans and continues through refrigeration and the modern American sweet tooth. Why did I let it languish so long?

Eating in America: A History, Waverley Root, Richard de Rochemont, book, history, Top Ten Tuesday pick
Eating in America: A History

Cookbooks

And that segues into cookbooks. Of all my book loves, cookbook loves are the most fickle. I’ve had my low-calorie, low-fat, low-glycemic-index, low-carb, pressure-cooking, microwaving, slow-cooking, blending, cooking-for-one-or-two infatuations. But two cookbooks have held steady in my heart: The Doubleday Cookbook—the best encyclopedic cookbook out there—and Culinary Classics and Improvisations—the best leftovers cookbook in the world!

Memoir & biography

As a category, I’m coming to a greater appreciation of memoir and biography. For example, The Glass Castle by Jannette Walls, West With the Night by Beryl Markham, and at the recent Gaithersburg Book Festival, I bought “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” by Annette Gordon Reed and Peter S. Onuf, a recent and atypical biography of Thomas Jefferson—which is still untested but very promising.

The Bible

When it comes to books about which my feelings have undergone a sea-change, the Bible is in a category by itself. Once upon a time, I believed it was literally the word of God. Now I don’t. Enough said.

Ryrie study Bible, The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, books, Top Ten Tuesday picks
Ryrie Study Bible and The New English Bible

Mysteries

As I’ve become a writer, my interest in the mystery genre has waned. I lost interest in Patricia Cornwell early on because her protagonist, Kate Scarpetta, didn’t grow or develop. But former favorites from Sue Grafton to Rex Stout just don’t grab me anymore.

Depraved Heart, Patricia Cornwell, book, mysteries, Top Ten Tuesday pick
Depraved Heart

Strange Maps

One of the books I bought on a whim, Strange Maps, turned out not to be as interesting as I expected it to be.

Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities, Frank Jacobs, book, Top Ten Tuesday pick
Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities

The Dictionary of American Regional English 

And last but not least, I’m no longer in love with the six volumes of The Dictionary of American Regional English. I really regret it. But being able to look up a word and find out where it’s used isn’t nearly as useful as it would be if I could look up a region and get typical word usage!

The Dictionary of American Regional English, dictionary set, Top Ten Tuesday pick
The Dictionary of American Regional English

What books are waxing, waning, or shifting ground in you heart?

Research Roundup

research: library

Love Your Research 

I can’t imagine a writer without some tools of the trade, even if those are only a good dictionary and a thesaurus, preferably a good manual of style as well. I share a few of my favorite resources.

Writers on Writingwriting 101: love your research

There are lots of ways to get inside writers’ heads.

Bicycle History to Celebrate UCI Road World Championships 

When my interest is piqued, of course I turn to research.

Books for Writers: Deborah Tannen 

Deborah Tannen has published numerous books that might be of interest to writers.

On Writing by Stephen King book cover
Stephen King’s On Writing

Dictionary of American Regional English 

Somewhere in my public life, I mentioned that I collect dictionaries. I have whole shelves of them, everything from slang to carnival jargon to common usage during the Civil War to books of insults and dirty words. I ordered all six volumes of the Dictionary of American Regional English—and then thanked my husband for his birthday present to me.

Wonderful Words 

I was much taken with Ammon Shea’s book, Reading the OED, a memoir of the year he spent reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary.

Beware Beautiful Words Beware Beautiful Words

Writers are readers, by and large, and also word collectors. We tend to fall in love with words. Some writers make a career of writing about words as well as with them.

 

Dictionary of American Regional English

Dictionary of American Regional English, Harvard University Press
Dictionary of American Regional English, Harvard University Press

Somewhere in my public life, I mentioned that I collect dictionaries. I have whole shelves of them, everything from slang to carnival jargon to common usage during the Civil War to books of insults and dirty words. I ordered all six volumes of the Dictionary of American Regional English—and then thanked my husband for his birthday present to me. (Let me hasten to add that I did not buy them new directly from Harvard University Press!)

But there you have it: I am among the legions of wives who, if they want something, must buy it for themselves, and who then graciously announce to their husbands that anything bought in the vicinity of the date (e.g., birthday, anniversary, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc.) is a gift for said occasion.

Aside from the true confession above, the point of this missive is that dictionaries are beautiful, wondrous companions. Even if you aren’t a collector yourself, do browse the dictionaries in your local library. Who knows what gems you might uncover? Besides telling you the acceptable spelling(s) and pronunciation(s) of a word, you learn what part(s) of speech it can be, and something of its historical roots and evolution. And as with so many other things, often one good word leads to another! I was once asked what one book I would want if I were stranded on a desert island and I said, “The complete Oxford English Dictionary, full-size print edition.”  Technically, this might not qualify as one book, as it runs to many volumes, but if many volumes were allowed, I might have to switch my answer to the complete Dictionary of American Regional English! It sounds that delicious. I can’t wait to find out!

And while I’m on the subject of books, here’s a tidbit for another post of some sort, sometime. Awhile back I talked a bit about a book titled Why Women Have Sex, Or at least, I started off talking about that, until the conversation drifted. Well, in fairness to the breadth of my followers, let me mention MANTHROPOLOGY: The Science of Why the Modern Male is Not the Man He Used to Be, by Peter McAllister, St. Martin’s Press. This book purports to span continents and centuries creating an in-depth look into the history and science of manliness. From speed and strength to beauty and sex appeal, it examines how man today compares to his masculine ancestors. Surely it would be an informative and entertaining read!