Reverse Logophobia
A couple of days ago we were sorting the books in the office library out when Geraldine found something tucked away behind a dirty photo frame. It was an old edition of the Collins English Dictionary!
I fell in love straightaway.
I mean, this is the kind of dictionary they don’t make anymore… A dusty blue cover boasting 100,000 references, each one complete with first use, linguistic origins and etymology. Pages and pages full of beautiful words that we hardly hear anymore or don’t use because they’re not suited for everyday conversation. Words describing types of birds, animals, insects, countries, geographical features, biblical terms, emotions, verbs, nouns, words of reference, words of measurement, words of description that I never even believed existed.
And just in case this didn’t sell you, the back pages are filled with coloured illustrations of the atlas, the family trees of the Royal family in England, the list of weights and measures for every conceivable medium under the sun, the Roman, Russian, Greek, Hebrew and German alphabet, the elements of the periodic tables and their valencies, and a list of group names in case you ever wondered what a group of apes is called (a shrewdness) or a bunch of peacocks (a muster).
It’s one of the most incredible dictionaries I’ve ever seen and I have to have it.
So, being one of the more moral human beings this side of the equator, I went to ask the officer in charge of the library if I could have it for keeps.
She squinted at me. “What, you mean to borrow?”
“I was kind of hoping I might keep it actually.”
She cocked an eyebrow.“Who does it belong to?”
“I don’t know. It was in the library but no one uses it anymore. I mean, they don’t even look at it at all.”
She took the book from me and studied it carefully before finding a stamp inside the front cover. “Oh! You can’t take this! It belongs to someone from Toa Payoh Girl’s Home.”
Erm, yeah, in 1971, lady.
“I don’t think they want it anymore,” I pressed.
“You can’t just take government property!” She frowned at me disapprovingly. “Besides, it’s a dictionary, why would you want it?”
“Let me buy it from the library,” I begged.
She glared at me as if I were trying to bribe her to do a pole dance for the Minister. “Excuse me, we are not at liberty to sell things.”
“But –”
“I’m sorry. You’d better put it back and try to get the rest of the office to use it.” And then she had the cheek to add, “Hmm, good thing you brought it up! I didn’t even know it was there!”
NnnnOOOooooOOO! NOOO! I didn’t know what to say to her, so I dumbly backed out of her office.
So this it is, all these years of honoring the Justice System have come to nought! M was right… it doesn’t pay to be moral! I should have just filched it silently while I had the chance! Hah! So much for knowing the difference between right and wrong.
The book is still on my desk though, and come fire and brimstone, I am going to own it! So, as of today, I will be formulating the Great Dictionary Stealing Plan© every free chance I get.
Till then, I was thinking maybe I could just bring it home and see how it looks on my shelf.
Damn you, Justice! Damn you!
I fell in love straightaway.
I mean, this is the kind of dictionary they don’t make anymore… A dusty blue cover boasting 100,000 references, each one complete with first use, linguistic origins and etymology. Pages and pages full of beautiful words that we hardly hear anymore or don’t use because they’re not suited for everyday conversation. Words describing types of birds, animals, insects, countries, geographical features, biblical terms, emotions, verbs, nouns, words of reference, words of measurement, words of description that I never even believed existed.
And just in case this didn’t sell you, the back pages are filled with coloured illustrations of the atlas, the family trees of the Royal family in England, the list of weights and measures for every conceivable medium under the sun, the Roman, Russian, Greek, Hebrew and German alphabet, the elements of the periodic tables and their valencies, and a list of group names in case you ever wondered what a group of apes is called (a shrewdness) or a bunch of peacocks (a muster).
It’s one of the most incredible dictionaries I’ve ever seen and I have to have it.
So, being one of the more moral human beings this side of the equator, I went to ask the officer in charge of the library if I could have it for keeps.
She squinted at me. “What, you mean to borrow?”
“I was kind of hoping I might keep it actually.”
She cocked an eyebrow.“Who does it belong to?”
“I don’t know. It was in the library but no one uses it anymore. I mean, they don’t even look at it at all.”
She took the book from me and studied it carefully before finding a stamp inside the front cover. “Oh! You can’t take this! It belongs to someone from Toa Payoh Girl’s Home.”
Erm, yeah, in 1971, lady.
“I don’t think they want it anymore,” I pressed.
“You can’t just take government property!” She frowned at me disapprovingly. “Besides, it’s a dictionary, why would you want it?”
“Let me buy it from the library,” I begged.
She glared at me as if I were trying to bribe her to do a pole dance for the Minister. “Excuse me, we are not at liberty to sell things.”
“But –”
“I’m sorry. You’d better put it back and try to get the rest of the office to use it.” And then she had the cheek to add, “Hmm, good thing you brought it up! I didn’t even know it was there!”
NnnnOOOooooOOO! NOOO! I didn’t know what to say to her, so I dumbly backed out of her office.
So this it is, all these years of honoring the Justice System have come to nought! M was right… it doesn’t pay to be moral! I should have just filched it silently while I had the chance! Hah! So much for knowing the difference between right and wrong.
The book is still on my desk though, and come fire and brimstone, I am going to own it! So, as of today, I will be formulating the Great Dictionary Stealing Plan© every free chance I get.
Till then, I was thinking maybe I could just bring it home and see how it looks on my shelf.
Damn you, Justice! Damn you!
She said, she said at 7:31 am
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