Get Smart

I'm reading a pretty interesting book right now. There's not much plot, and even though I know how it will turn out, it's still a real page-turner. It's called Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Despite having excelled in English all during school and then graduating from a respectable university, there are many words in my native language I can spell but still don't know, and even more I thought I knew but have come to find out I don't really. Take insidious, for example. It's one of the words I use from time to time to describe a bad situation, something akin to a cancer within, either a person or a place. But I couldn't come up with a proper definition if my life depended on it. Turns out it means "awaiting a chance to entrap." Now that is something I have just never done to anyone at any time, unless maybe we are talking about an insect that's freaking me out. The second meaning is "harmful but enticing." Who knew?

Risking pleonasm, I find that reading the dictionary can be so much more rewarding than many other popular pursuits. Try it.