covers both scientology and qanon
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And wikipedia.
And printed encyclopedias.
When thesauruses are outlawed, forbidden, banned, barred, and disallowed...
only outlaws will have thesauruses.
thank you thank you, I’ll just show myself out now
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I remember dictionary I had as a kid defined a fart as “a small explosion between the legs.” I mean, who knows how much of that I confabulated over the years, but I mostly trust it. My friends and I laughed about that constantly. It was like my first in-joke.
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You Can Take My Dictionary
When You Pry It From My
Cold Dead Hands
Bastards…
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Time to pull out my Ladan dictionary. (A supliment to Suzette Haden Elgin’s Novel ‘Native Tongue’, that basically starts with the premis that English is already Newspeak when it comes to women’s experience of the world, and proposed a new grammar and vocabulary to reverse this gap of ‘what can be said’)
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The nice thing about writing within the smaller set of words is that it allows a writer to give away his right to use words that always mean the same thing, and in return, use the right to use as many words as he feels like in order to give away to the crowd the meaning that he wants. What’s more, one writer’s river of words will always be different than the words of another writer, in a way that states belonging, and making a piece by piece counting of writings between writers harder and less full of signs. Dream of a day when the part of the book with the words in order, with numbers added, so as to show where in the book the words are used become less full of use to the reader. This could be the beginning of a new stretch of years in which the writer of words and the reader of years get to enjoy a new kind of play-- the reader knows that his thinking will be bothered for hours and hours, while the writer knows that the full thinking of his reader will be set to the learning of what the writer shares with his readers. Instead of reaching for a word that is easy, people will think with more thought about how to add words in a new and different sorting, knowing that those who listen to them will be out of bed, and there in the world, hearing and thinking.
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This reads like something from The Onion. What’s next, educational videos replaced with Wonder Showzen?
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But but, how are the kids going to do their own research?
I remember the first day of grade school, can’t remember which grade but I was very young, and getting the list of books we needed.
Hard cover dictionary, oh no, dictionary? Had to carry it every day.
I still remember dictionary class and dictionary assignments. Look up words, alphabetise lists of words, etc…
It was fun being a kid and getting to grow up with things like dictionaries.
And then writing a paper with bibliographies.
Misty watercolor memories…
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Chat GPT…
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My favorite:
Dr Annandale’s Concise Dictionary was the one lexicographers recommended for use until the OED was completed.
My second favorite dictionary is the Oxford Pocket Dictionary (? it’s a hardcover!) which mom bought for me in St Anns Bay, Jamaica.
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“Hoot” by Carl Hiaasen?
The funny, eco-friendly kid’s book?
Is it the lack of sex or the lack of bad language that got this one on the naughty list?
I mean, the whole book-banning idea is disgraceful nonsense, but “Hoot”?
WTAF, Florida?
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Maybe it’s because of children protesting against and doing direct action against adults?
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Colour with a “u”? That’s downright un-American! I bet it also spells “gray” with an ‘e’ and adds an extra ‘i’ to “aluminum”! Ban that one before it gives kids ideas about adopting the metric system!
(Extremely obvious and even redundant /s. To paraphrase a line from Mark Twain, Mr. Webster is dead. It might be a fine thing if his dictionary were too.)
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An old friend used the word “spatchcock” to test dictionaries for their goodness; I use “numinous.” Amusingly enough, we each needed the other’s word defined 
Spatchcocking is a way to butcher poultry that flattens it and allows it to cook more evenly and quickly.
Numinous means having a strong religious, mystical, or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.
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I can’t decide whether it’s just been dropped from a dizzy height, or escaped from a Verhoeven film:
Full disclosure: After reading your post I searched for “Spatchcock Jesus”. Just be thankful I found no images, even with safesearch off.
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