, 1889-06-19
4 DICTIONARY.


Ways In Which Its Pages May Be a
Source of Much Pleasure.
A bieabook is the dictionary. The
young people who during the pastfew
weeks have been hunting out the words
for the prize contest have had agood
chance to find out that it is also an in
teresting one. How many of our
young people are there who have stop
ped to give a thought to the simplicity
yet vastness of scope of our language
as exhibited in the dictionary's pagesi
Open your unabridged and let us for a
moment look at this. Between the
pages of this one book, many leaved
though it be, is found the complete
realm of thought. Every idea that
has possessed the mind Of man is here
a~bstractly represented by the printed
word or sign, and from Just these
words, strung over and over agar
into simple and stirring sentences, the
master minds of the world have form
ed the great mass of writings. There
are upward of 120, 900 words in the
dictionary, and yet all these words are
but varied combinations of twenty-six
letters.
Have you aver tried this game2 Not
Well, suppose then you get out your
dictionary and commence. The game
is well adapted for two persons, al
though a larger number may as read
lily play it. One of you open promis-
cuously at n page and commence read
ing off the words. 1t is the object of
your opponent to spell correctly rs
many words IS possible, and also to
define or give his idea as to the mean
ing of the words. Keep on to the end
of the page, and when finished let an
nfhar nanrn hn CnlaCtn1 o,1 tha fouf
applied to you in the same manner.
Whoever gets the greatest number
right is, of course, the victor. The
only way to realize the sport of this
game is to try it. You will be sur
prised at the number of words you
don't know. You will be astonished
Mt the number you do know. You will
meet with, probably on every page,
words that you never heard of. This
is a fascinating game, and one that
will increase your stock of knowledge.
Try It'll
Did you ever go searching for the
longest word in the language7 Set
your friends to work at this and let
them bring to you the result. Some
one has said in answer TO this question
that the longest word in the language
is 'smiles, ~ because there is q mile be-
tween the first and last letters. This
is witty, but just not to the purpose.
The longest word the 8 o'clock man
has been able to find is "disproportion-
~ableness." This contains twenty-one
letters.
Another interesting thing of this
kind is to find the largest words whose
letters will admit of a complete trans
positieD~into another word. For in
stance, the letters comprising the
word ''peripatetic" are identical with
those of '~'precipitate," while the letters
of enumeration, " are readily trans
posed into ''mountaineer." Can you
find any similar eleven letter words7
Despite h many patented poetic APP
pliances of the present day, and in
spite of all that is heard of the men
who manufacture rhymes for poets,
there are a number of words in our
language to get n good rhyme for
which a writer is often hard pushed.
There r some words to which there
seem to be no rhyming words. AS an
illustration see. if our readers can find
q word to rhyme with the compare
lively easy one silver" 1t has long
been supposed that there is no rhyme
to month" A good authority
says there is a rhyme to it-not
"onety onth," or any lisping YER
sions of such words as ~''once,"
ounce" etc, but Legitimate word in
every day use. Let us see who can
guess it. The word ''orange" is also
mentioned as going begging for
rhymes, while the dabbler in amatory
verse has ever felt the necessity for
nor words rhyming with '.love."
The genial author of the popular
'Pinafore, who has been apt1y men
toned as the master of verbal con
tortion," has felt the restriction of
these limitations, and furnishes some
facts from his own experience. RE
yenge" and ''avenge" have no rhyme
but "Penge" and "Stonehenge;"
''coif" has no rhyme at all. 'Starve"
has no rhyme except ''carve," "Scarf"
has no rhyme, as laugh" and ''half'
! and calf" certainly are not admiss-
ible. Scalp" has no rhyme but 'alp."
False" has no rhyme; ''valse" is near
it, but the French accent d~isqualifies
it; waltz" is near it, but the ct"
spoils it. babe" has no rhyme but
''astrolabe," certain proper names ex-
copied. ''Gamboge" has no rhyme
but rogue. " Tube" would be rhyme
less save for cube" and ".jujube."
"Fugue" has no rhyme at all. Gulf"
rhymes with no English word. We
have to fall back on Cardinal Pan
dulph" and "Ulf," the minstrel. "Azi-
muth" has only doth" "Culm''
and ''cusp" have no English rhymes.
New York World.