The ENDURING DELIGHT of the DICTIONARY

Every unknown word is a solvable mystery

- Rachel del Valle

I can't remember how old I was when I learned the words denotation (the definition of a word) and connotation (the suggestion of a word). But I do remember feeling a little betrayed by the idea that there was a whole layer of language that couldn't quite be conveyed through a dictionary. Like most young people, I enjoyed learning but thought of it as something I would eventually be done with. At some age, I assumed, I would need to know everything. Understanding the nuances of language seemed like an obstacle to that goal.

It wasn't until after I graduated from college, and subsequently realized that there's no such thing as all-encompassing knowledge, that I was able to read for pleasure. A sense of curiosity, rather than desperate completism, steered me. I started to see dictionaries, inexact as they are, as field guides to the life of language.

Looking up words encountered in the wild felt less like a failing than an admission that there are lots of things I don't know and an opportunity to discover just how many.