Falling in Love with Words

This is an autobiographical essay that describes my earliest memories of the special importance of words to me. Just as Tiger Woods recalls hitting golf balls by age 3, and Willie Mays remembered rolling a ball back and forth to his dad at an early age, so I recall the way that I was fascinated with words as early as age nine. Here are some stories.

Lament

I was in the fourth grade in 1961-62 in Darien, CT, a prosperous suburb of New York City. Darien was home to a lot of foreign diplomats and was what you would call a "pro-United Nations" town. Thus, I recall the time in mid-September 1961, just after school had begun for the year, when my teacher, Mrs. Mesologites, announced with a catch in her voice that Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations, had just died in a plane crash. She said she "lamented" his death. I didn't know what that word meant, and so while the other students were doing their work, I wandered over to the stack of Thorndike Barnhart Student Dictionary(ies) in the classroom and took one back to my desk. I looked up "lament." It said, "to mourn." Not sure exactly what "mourn" meant, I decided to look up that word. It said that "mourn" meant "to grieve." Still in the dark, I decided to look up "grieve." The dictionary said, "to lament." For one fleeting moment I recall feeling that since dictionaries just defined words by other words that I didn't know that I might never understand words at all. Finally I decided that it must have something to do with being sad, since sadness could be observed in Mrs. Mesologites' face. I will never forget my dual feelings at that one moment--of hopeless confusion but, at the same time, of determination to make sure I knew not just what lament meant but what every word in the dictionary meant.

Going for the Unabridged

A little later that year, Mrs. Mesologites was sick for the day and Mrs. Haines, a long-time substitute, took over the class. We were studying something to do with coal mining in Pennsylvania for some reason (I think it was in a unit in Social Studies), and we ran into a reference to "sub-bituminous" coal." I didn't know what that meant, nor did she, and so I suggested we look it up in the dictionary. I hastily ran and got my favorite student dictionary and looked up under "sub." But there was no entry there for "sub-bituminous." The teacher had a larger dictionary, American Heritage, on her desk. I looked there, too, and there also was no entry for it in that dictionary. I excitedly told Mrs. Haines that there was no entry in the dictionary for "sub-bituminous," and that therefore I would have to go down to the school library to look it up in the Unabridged dictionary. I learned that word (i.e., "Unabridged") a few weeks previously, and I had been looking for an opportunity to go and open that huge volume downstairs. Though I had not yet glanced in the Unabridged dictionary, I treated it with the same kind of reverence that a madrasa student would regard the Holy Qur'an. But as I prepared to charge out the door, Mrs. Haines stopped me. "Bill," she said, "we should first look it up under bituminous to see if it is there, and then we will know what 'sub-bituminous' means." I hated her suggestion because I feared that she was probalby right, and that therefore I would be prohibited from going to the library. Sure enough, she turned to the entry on "bituminous" and showed me how it related to "bitumen," and then surmised, incorrectly, as it turned out, that "sub-bituminous" must mean that it was a layer under the bituminous mineral. I vowed to myself that some day that I would have my own Unabridged, so that I could look up words whenever I wanted.

A Final Story--Eighth Grade

I confess it--I was a disciplinary problem throughout elementary school. I tell that story in great detail in my 2004 autobiography (the linked excerpt only tells a little of my family history). In a word, I characterize myself as a somewhat precocious but somewhat greater pain-in-the-ass for my teachers. This behavior had largely changed by the time I entered junior high in 1964, but it had not fully left my system. I still harassed new teachers. And so, one day in my eighth-grade Spanish class I was thrown out of class and sent to the Vice-Principal's office. The teacher sent a note along with me to the Vice-Principal, telling my offense. Thus I was, as it were, carrying my own accusing instrument to the enforcer of discipline. Not having the foresight to throw the note in the garbage can and then slink back into class in a few minutes with some kind of explanation of what the V-P had done, I at least decided to read the note. The note just had two words on it: "chronic insubordination." I remember reading those words over and over again, not having a clue as to what they meant but inferring from the fact I had been thrown out of class that they couldn't be positive words. Indeed, when the V-P looked at the note, he seemed to know immediately what my problem was, and I was given a few demerits or some duty (like cleaning blackboards) that should have deterred me from acting this way in the future. I recall rushing home after school had ended and looking up both "chronic" and "insubordination" in the dictionary, feeling secretly empowered that my conduct as well as my curiosity was opening up new linguistic worlds to me.

Conclusion

Though I knew at age 13 that words would be my love in life, I didn't act on that love for years. Perhaps I was too shy in the face of this daunting and multi-talented beauty. In any case, I didn't really return to serious dictionary work until about 35 years later. But when I returned I found my first love kindled anew, and I cried for joy. I still haven't gotten over that first, or second, feeling.

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