Wednesday, October 21, 2009
From the New York Times’ “On Language” column, Ammon Shea on old dictionaries:
As people increasingly rely on Internet dictionaries and other online reference works, it seems that passing down an ancestral book will become more and more of a rarity and that keeping older versions of these books will become exclusively the province of the professional and the persnickety. Although who knows? Perhaps one day a child shown a dictionary will be told, “This is the very same HTML that your grandfather read when he was your age.”
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
There are some things just so wonderful and beautiful and life-giving beyond compare that it’s quite difficult to contain it within, to give a passing approval, and not summon more adjectives and smile and radiate. But there’s a sense that saying too much might spoil the joy of discovery, like giving away the end of a story before the book is read or the film is seen. Yet, a list could go on about how the story doesn’t actually ever end, and in truth there’s been nothing said about a hundred-fold more of the mystery. But, of course, that is simply more spoiler.
Setting expectations low leaves little room for disappointment, and therefore could be said the best way to go; setting high expectations might ruin the whole occasion. And so this is our dilemma. My only conclusions are humility and patience. There are other times when expectations are set ambiguously, thus misunderstood, and I have the same conclusions about that, too.
