Dear Webster,

I'd like to have a word with you.

Sometimes on social media a person will ask, If you were stranded on a deserted island, what one book would you want as a companion?

While I eschew such posts, Webster, know that if I were compelled to reply, my answer would be—without hesitation—your Third New International Dictionary, which clocks in at 2,662 pages and about 13 lbs.

The author’s copy of your Third New International Dictionary alongside some friends.

Amid all your iterations, this one is clearly the Grand Daddy. Mine is copyright 1986. I also own the slim Addenda Section 1993, with pages numbered 55a – 120a. While inscrutable at first blush, it apparently replaces the “Addenda Section” of the main volume (pages 55a through 110a). And Webster, you do not want to know how long it took me to figure that out, but this is what it’s like being me all day every day.

Full disclosure: when another perennial question arises, If your house was on fire, what items would you grab?, my answer would not include you. How could a person justify lugging a 13-pound dictionary from a burning house?

I have no idea what items I would grab (does anyone?), but if that eventuality ever came to pass, I would mourn your loss deep in my heart for the rest of my days.

Cleveland Public Library, Main Branch, February, 2014.

You entered my life 30 years ago. Back then, the word bot referred to the larvae of the botfly (esp. of the species infecting the horse) and browser was slang for someone who hung around the bookstore all day and never bought anything. I do not know the exact date of your entrance into my life because I didn’t retain the note that accompanied you, but you were packaged along with two pounds of roasted beans from Graffeo Coffee. It arrived sometime in March 1994.

Maybe, Erin, you shoved that note into a drawer somewhere or between a stack of papers. Maybe one day you will come upon it. And on that day (that will likely never arrive), you will hold that single piece of paper to your chest as if it is the most valuable thing in the world because it will be the most valuable thing in the world.

You were a gift from my brother John, sent just weeks before he took his own life on April 10, 1994. A struggling writer, he was working at Graffeo roasting beans at the now-defunct Beverly Hills location. I knew when I opened the box and found you, the moment held significant gravity. You are not something one ships through the mail on a whim, particularly a writer.

I called John after you arrived. He told me how he loved roasting coffee. He told me the roasted beans had a long shelf life until they were ground. And while I can remember the sound of his voice, I cannot recall what he said about you.

Why can’t you remember what your brother said about the one book you care more about than any other, Erin? Why? WHY?

Hence for the last three decades, John has been gone and you have been here. How strange that you’re both inanimate and dynamic parts of my life.

A world from which nine and twelve have been removed, but is moving forward nonetheless.

Just stick with me on this next part.

My father-in-law, who we lost in 2017, used to say of the traditional Greek Orthodox Church services, “You knew you’d been to CHURCH,” noting the extended length of the proceedings (nearly two and a half hours), copious use of incense, and delivery of the Lord’s word in Greek.

Similarly, Webster, when I read an entry in your pages, I know I’ve read the DEFINITION (to use my father-in-law’s vernacular), which is a far cry from, say, what a person pulls up from their handy phone app or free online dictionary. Suffice it to say, when I turn to you for reference, the act always feels like I’m conjuring a great authority, probably because I am.

Conjure.

Would you just look at that word? It surely deserves to be in the Word Hall of Fame.

My crappy desktop dictionary app defines conjure thusly:

1 he conjured another cigarette out of the air. make something appear, produce, materialize, magic, summon, generate; whip up. 2 the picture that his words conjured up left her breathless. bring to mind, call to mind, put one in mind of, call up, evoke, summon up, recall, recreate; echo, allude to, suggest; rouse (up), stir (up), raise up, awaken.

But you? Baby, you commit nearly two column inches to this beauty. That text includes, but is not limited to:

… to call on or charge in a solemn manner (as by invoking a sacred name) … to summon or constrain (as a spirit or a devil) to appear or to obey one by invoking a spell or a sacred name … to affect or effect by or as if by magic …

Spirits and devils and spells? Yes, please! And that’s just one word; you have some 470,000 more.

Regardless of where I am in time, or what the status of my tragic and beautiful species may be, you accurately and exhaustively document our collective humanity. I believe the answer to most every question lies within your pages.

In short, you are totally the two-and-a-half-hour-long-Greek-Orthodox-Church-Sunday-Service of dictionaries, dude.

Image that may be appropriate, inappropriate, or both, from March 2019.

There are words, Webster, I will not use. I avoid the word “hate” at all cost. Why? I need only to reference your extensive definition, which describes “hate” in part as, “an habitual emotional attitude in which distaste is coupled with sustained ill will.”

And there you have it.

No matter how angry I get or how much I dislike someone or something, lurking amid whatever “ill will” I harbor, I refuse to accept it as “sustained.” There’s always this gently glowing hope, this eternal belief that there is something else in there. However deeply it may be buried, there is something worthy of …

Love.

Did I just conjure a little magic? Dunno, Webster, but I certainly don’t have to quote your definition of that word to express exactly what I mean.

Aside: This thing about love hiding in the least likely places? I learned it despite never having attended much of the CHURCH stuff my father-in-law was talking about. I’ll bet you have a word for that too, but for the life of me I don’t know what it is.

I could write a lot about you, my verbose friend, but you have so many words already. As you know some words bear repeating, so I will use my regular closing even though it includes a word I have already used in this letter, and one I know without question is inside of you.

Love, Erin

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ps: I know Merriam was the surname of the guys who acquired the rights to your Great Grandpappy’s Dictionaries, but I’d like to imagine a different Merriam, one with beautiful flowing locks. I’d like to imagine her frolicking beneath the branches of a shady oak on a fair summer day.

pps: Sometimes I’ll end a correspondence with the phrase LOVE YOUR GUTS. This originates within a group of friends of mine (and namely, Patty C.). We use that phrase as a way to combat another phrase that’s in you: “hate one’s guts.” I know our phrase probably doesn’t come close to chinning the bar for getting into the next Addenda Section, but I thought I’d let you in on it just the same.

ppps: My favorite thing about you is how definitions of the most common words contain little surprises. Since I’m conjuring things in this letter, look who I found in the definition of that thrilling word.

pppps: Because I cannot leave you just yet, behold some of the things I notice about you: The first word in your main body is a, "the first letter of the English alphabet," which certainly sounds like a good start to me. Your last word is zyzzogeton, which is a genus of large South American leaf-hoppers. Erin is not listed, but john is, as are several terms that include john.

Life is on page 1306. Breathe is on page 273. Death is on page 581.

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