Look It Up

Google's new Dictionary, announced last week, spurred me to poke around comparing online dictionaries.

For simplicity, speed and its cute tagline, my favorite may be Ninjawords which uses Wiktionary as a source.

A Failure to Communicate

Here's a signage failure from my neighborhood (and no, I'm not dropping the "ure" just because everyone else is doing it). What do you think? Do they have emergency services or not?

Your answer depends on whether you notice the red letters "NO" on the red brick background. Yes, red traditionally means "no," but you only have to use your eyes to evaluate how (un)successful this sign is. It was no doubt designed by someone who writes e-mail in all caps when it's VERY IMPORTANT.

Linguistic Sidetrack: Haberdashery

I'm always fascinated when I run into a word with an unknown or uncertain origin. Haberdashery is one such word, and while most dictionaries will point to a likely connection to a word for a kind of cloth in the Anglo-French period of English history, a delightfully tweedy chap called the Oxford Etymologist will set you straight. His exhaustive list of proposed origins is fascinating reading. And I was also delighted to learn that, in counterpoint, millinery is word with a very well documented origin. Quite simply, fancy hats and accessories for ladies used to come from Milan.

And, by the way, I'd link to an online dictionary for those two words, but I really haven't found one that I think is very nice. They all seem to have so many poorly placed ads obscuring the actual content. I'm open to suggestions, if anyone has any.

Lifelong Learning. It's not just for oldsters anymore.

I was all wrong about this phrase. When it started flying around lately, I assumed it was just code for "educating the old folks." Well, I've investigated it (yes, on Wikipedia) and expanded my definition.

I think it currently means a combination of Adult Education (getting your GED, retraining after a lay-off, learning to weld) and Personal Enrichment (foreign language classes, rug-hooking, the history of baseball) with a strong chaser of Technological Literacy (learning to type, how do I get on the e-mail).

The bland vagueness of the term bothers me, but behind it is a sincere need to express how much more there is to learn now. You can't possibly learn it all; I mean, look at the Internet, look at all the menus on your camera, look at all the things for sale on Amazon, look at all those tiny sharing icons at the bottom of every article on every page of every web site. (Stop looking, now. You'll be sick!) And, since all the new things that technology brings are more bewildering for older folks, that connection is not entirely wrong. Clearly, too, this is a good concept to keep in mind at a public library.

I do think, though, that even in the past there was always more to know in the world than any one person could handle (semaphore, how to hunt lions, complicated knots, lost languages). We just feel more frantic about the whole concept now, because we're expanding the definitions of what's necessary for life (plasma TVs, probiotic yogurts) and because the Internet has made it so easy to know about everything.

Which brings me to the personal enrichment angle (the focus of a certain slideshow). This side of the concept implies a kind of fear or at least unwillingness to learn new skills. I'm not immune to phobias, myself. In fact, one of my biggest ones is a deep and abiding fear of setting goals and formulating objectives.

If a formal, detailed list of strategies helps you overcome hesitations to learning, then I guess I know of a presentation you should watch. If you're more like me, well, then you're probably in trouble. But perhaps I can recommend a good book or we could grouse about how people misuse apostrophes. That's stuff I'm good at.