I received my encyclopedic dictionary as a present from my high school boyfriend for my 18th birthday. I am now 35. The binding screams "You are killing me!!!" from the moment the maroon cover varies in any direction. Loose and darkened, the pages are intact. The presidential section is in mint condition. I was unaware of it's academic inadequacy until my youngest son needed a dictionary to complete his spelling assignment. At first, the assignment flowed effortlessly. Then we came to the word railroad. No other forms were listed. Jason is a smart cookie and immediately rattled off other forms such as railroaded, railroading, etc... I decided to check dictionary.com to make sure they were acceptable words and not considered slang. Not that it matters really given the fact that all words originate somewhere. A dictionary is a tool used to teach us commonly used words and meanings. Sadly, even ain't is now in the dictionary. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. After all, what two words form the contraction ain't? The only acceptable way to list the word is aint without the apostrophe. I still do not like it, but at least it is grammatically correct. That is enough ranting I suppose, for now. We used both the old Webster dictionary and dictionary.com for the remaining words.
I will be visiting Barnes and Noble this weekend.
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