I finally read Seven Pillars of Wisdom for the first time in my life. A task I promised to do since I actually was given the book as an assignment back in college but I ceheated by looking up cliff notes and other people’s essays and copying bits off them with my own spin since I never actually opened the book up to read it. Even though my dad spent $40 bucks for my copy lol.
But reading through the book, I often had a big headache because I had to highlight a bunch of words so that kindle could show the definition since so much of them were words I never heard of before or vocabulary I have long forgotten the exact definition of since I graduated college. It really ruined the flow of reading Lawrence’s writing!
But it does make me wonder. I remember in college I often had to have a big large red dictionary with me because of the colossal amount of big fancy words I never heard of before often being used in required readings the night before the classroom discussions I’d do in my dorm. As well as a lot of homeworks asking questions with these fancy mubo jumbo nobody outside academia ever heard of before. It was a gigantic pain having to flip across the book and carrying it around when I’d do assignment outside of my dorm.
But now I wonder is large vocabulary a big barrier for people getting into literature particularly those who never went to college? Especially in the days before ebook apps and software like Kindle came with an in-software dictionary that activates when you highlight specific words? I shrudder to think of how some people would have to carry a dictionary around and search up every other page because they come up with new words back in the days when print was the only option for reading!
by CamelIllustrations
20 Comments
I left school just before my 15th birthday. I had a nice little OED and an encouraging local librarian. This is in South London. Despite being a fairly early adopter of computers (a deal via my husband’s work in the 1990s) I’ve always read real physical books and still have that same dictionary.
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I had a pocket dictionary that I always carried around with me and if I couldn’t find the word in there I’d look it up in one of the bigger dictionaries at home and if it wasn’t there I’d write it down and ask people who I thought were smarter than me. I thought it was fun like a little detective or something
They made small paper-back book size dictionary. They had the most common definitions and some antonyms/ synonyms. They didn’t have word origins, complex definitions etc.
I always liked reading books with words I didn’t know; sometimes I had to look them up, but a lot of times I could work the meaning out through the context.
A majority of people would have used context clues to try and decipher the meaning. A few would look up the words in the Big Red dictionary. I would think e-readers would function almost the same.
I usually just used context clues, unless it was something that seemed important and I was lost. You hit your flow easier that way. In turn, it meant I read much higher than my grade level, and my friends often didn’t know the words I used. My mom read a ton, and we talked a lot. I seemed to just absorb the meaning from the context around it.
No, I don’t think it was a big barrier. You can figure out most words from context.
If you read a lot, you eventually build up your vocabulary to the point where you rarely need to look up words unless you are reading a complex technical manual or something really obscure.
I never look up words I don’t know when reading. Never did. I use context clues to make sense of what’s happening and move along. I don’t think this has had any impact whatsoever on my enjoyment of books.
No and before smartphones/devices you usually had a household dictionary to refer to if you really wanted to know the word. Most of the time you can infer meaning through context but I do remember in grade school keeping a notepad of new words I came across to look them up later. I would actually say people read more back then because there wasn’t a free time killing dopamine distribution machine in your pocket.
I usually just guessed based on context. Which is why i still don’t believe how chemise is pronounced. But it’s a good habit for my love of sci fi fantasy ; i don’t have any problem underst made-up alien words.
Pre-cell phones we had “spellers” which were like pocket sized computers that you could use to look up the definition or spelling of words. Before that there were paper dictionaries I guess.
Not at all! I started reading chapter books at a very young age, and that red dictionary was always close at hand! I loved it- sometimes I’d abandon the book I was reading and just flip around the dictionary.
Context clues tended to be enough. Sometimes I’d look it up in a dictionary if there were a lot of words that I wasn’t understanding that I felt was going to negatively affect my reading experience to not know them. It helped me to write the word down on an index card (and the page number as I’d highlight/underline the word in the book) and looked it up after I finished the chapter.
I would just pick up the meaning from repeated use across different contexts, sometimes with cantankerous outcomes.
No wasn’t a barrier. Some words you can figure from context, some words you could look up in a dictionary. Both added to your net vocabulary so the next book you already know them. As you matured you read more and more complex books and broadened your vocabulary as you went so that no book was particularly hard. Maybe that doesn’t happen anymore?
Mostly you could use context clues, but sometimes either you were left clueless or, if you got the wrong idea from context, hilariously confused. I read a lot of old books pre-ereader and our household dictionary and the nearest encyclopedia sets often wouldn’t even have the word I needed. Still an issue with ereaders but at least now the internet broadens access.
I sat with a dictionairy next to me aa i read Snow Crash as a 14 year old. If you want to read and learn youll do it even if it breaks the flow.
I think even with embedded dictionaries complex language can still be a big barrier.
My grandpa learned foreign languages by reading books and having translation dictionaries at hand. Searched up all the words he didn’t know when he encountered them. If you read books this way you’ll start to learn languages pretty fast.