The World's Most Obsolete Book: The Dictionary
Self-flagellating. Or rather just flagellating. That's the word I wanted to look up. Even though my director had defined it for everyone, a part of me just couldn't believe that it meant to hit oneself. I guess it sort of sounds like flogging, which is punishment by way of having things thrown at you, but flagellating just didn't sound like it meant to hit oneself. So, when I returned to my room after rehearsal, I decided to look up the word myself. Just as I reached for my phone, I glanced at my bookshelf. The bookshelf in which half of one shelf is taken up by two large, hardcover Merriam-Webster books: a red dictionary and a yellow thesaurus. I bought both prior to my freshman year at Wagner because I knew I'd no longer have my family's decades old dictionary to reference when I was at school. The sad truth: I think I've used both books, collectively, 3 or 4 times in the last four years... As kids, when my sister or I asked about the definition of a word,...