� the conversations invariably brought out a word or subject unfamiliar to at least one of us. Dad's response would be to hand us one of the books and direct us to, "look it up". �
Before I learned to read, I could ask "What does
'xxxxxxxxxxx' mean?" and one of the grown-ups would tell me.
After I learned to read, the answer was always "Look it up," so I grew-up with dictionaries. The wrinkled pages of the huge unabridged were always open and handy. I now have three unabridged dictionaries on my hard drive, including the long-coveted OED, and I use 'em daily
to confirm that I'm using the right word and spelling it right, never to look for a fancier word than whatever is already on the tip of my tongue or the tips of my fingers.
(Tongue didn't look right, for some reason, so I just looked it up in the Random House unabridged to make sure that I was spelling it right.)
