Noah good place to eat?

Back when I was in school teacher often said, "If you don't know what a word means look it up!" The other students would roll their eyes and yawn enthusiastically. I thought it was good advice but didn't follow it until later in life when I started reading a wider variety of material. Stuff that wasn't in the curriculum. Psychology, physics, non-sense poetry, case studies in deviant sexual behavior, the usual subjects of keen interest to anti-social loners like myself. Anti-social loner" has acquired some unattractive connotations of late, I prefer "intellectual isolationist". Some of the stuff I read had unfamiliar terms on every line. Milton used words I've seen nowhere else except maybe the Harvard Lampoon. And when you're reading non-sense you're never sure if a word is a word. But I really wanted to understand what I was reading so I began to look things up. I haven't looked back.

The "net" has made the process so much easier, particularly considering the limited depth of your average home dictionary. I had to write down a list of unknowns and look them of in the "big dick" at the library. Very time consuming. Now I just type terms into Google, Wikipedia or onelook.com and out comes a wealth of information. IC.

My son has adopted many of the traits of his fraternal generative unit. Don't talk much. Like most parents I've tried to teach my son various lessons on biological processes, the totality of physical existence and whatever else there may be out there. Because of his uncommunicativeness sometimes it is hard to tell what, if anything, he is learning. I put stuff in one aural opening and nothing comes out. Anywhere. I found Stephen Hawking's essays illuminating in respect to raising teenagers.

DW often reads over my shoulder and sometimes asks, "what's that mean?" Even if I know the answer I tend to do a search, hopping that he will learn to do so as well. Most recently I was doing some research on the Constitution and DW asked, "What are Letters of Marque?" I thought I knew the answer but it seemed a strange privilege for the Founding Fathers to grant to Congress. So I onelooked. I was right. DW pointed out that it was the 18th century.

A few days ago I sat down here (at the keyboard) and found that one of the open windows was a Google search of the word "tithe". I had used the word in one of my posts. Misses B. knows what the word means. That leaves DW. I felt the pride of parenthood.

OWL

August 15, 2007