The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-04-27
aoIMa ro FHN pIuTIoNARY.
You Meet With Many Other Good Words in Looking for the One
 You Want.


 Utica Observer.
 The New York Times sAems to have . particularly trouhlf some class of corre- spondents. Whenever q word not actual ly in daily use In newspaper columns ap- spondents are pretty sure te address the editor on the subject. A word that seems to be. particularly troublesome is ."alea- tory" As The Times says. while the is far from rare, and It's meaning Is at once apparent to any person having Q fair knowledge of Latin. Of course not everybody possesses even a fragmentary know sbsoluteiy nothing of this dead but ut unburied language is quite considerable. Rnt to nobody with ability to read news papers Is the privilege of consulting Q that considerabie number of The Times's readers do not avail themselves of this privilege for our esteemed con- temporary says:
 'Yet. whenever 'aleatory' appears in so. a most remarkable amount of excite ment is always created. Readers send In letters of indignant inquiry by the dozen. word a topic of grave disquisition in ob- o- vious confidence that they are conveying valuable information in large chunks and of a kind very hard to set We have be- Sant esT Sat e' the S 1ne dss uters of dictionary definitions still inter est us by the amusing kindliness with which they perform their not very diffi- cult task; There Is especial flavor in the by us. which appears in The Brooklyn Eagle-an out-of-town paper only in a way. It begins by calling the word g. law term.' which 1t Is only in the sense people find 1t occasionally convenient. and then our neighbor presents a curious illustration of the words meaning, If our our correspcnd.ent, ,r,, The 2 Eagle says, would support the candidate of the Dem ooratic party for President. In case the platform of that party called for free silver and indorsed hryanisn. the mere date would not determine the wager, un- less free silver and Bryanism were set forth in the platform, and the accept ance of the platform by the candidate phe Eagie's correspondent to a clearer comprehension of the word we are quite content, but we know that 1t wouldn't help us, if we needed helping. The the misguided folks who. Instead of be- ing grateful. take offense when anybody uses a word that sends them to the dic- tionary. That, when done for legitimate why so many people resent 1t is most mysterious"
 While not commenting on the luciditv or opacity of The Eagles definition of in reference to searching the dictionary for the meaning of an unfamiliar word. instead of turning to one's nearest neighbor with the query What does this word msan?' There are four--psrhaps a dictionary as compared with the lazier method of asking somebody else:
 The dictionary dennition is accurate and eomPiete-something that the other a hundred times, unless the giver be a philologist.
 In most dictionaries the definition will include the derivation of the word thus knowledge the possession of which would have made recourse to the dictionary un- necessary.
 Information acquired at the expsnse of some personal effort is much more likely to be retained than that which comes ct ton. N'''V' '' ' '"s '''-' '" uNe'
 The person of average intelligence who usually read the definitions of anywhere from teree to a dozen words before eios- ing the volume. thereby adding to his knowledge.
 While the too frequent use of unusual and but little-known words savers of the pedantic their use when they are con- Venient and express the exact shade or meaning desired is not to be conoemned: :: and if their use drives even a few read- CTS to the dictionary, these few at least are distinctly benefited.
 And In this connection 1t might be well for most if not all of us to consult the dictionary from time to time for the meaning of even some words In common usage whose real meaning has become distorted in the popular mind by common study Is worth the time. And meantime we shall not accuse The Times of in- tending to make it's meaning lurid if ft says "aleatory' as often as once . week