16 National Dictionary Day

October the 16th is National Dictionary Day. It falls on this day because that is the birthday of America’s most famous dictionary maker, Noah Webster, who was born in 1758. It is a day for us all to get out our dictionaries and start using them more often. We all need dictionaries. Many people have paper dictionaries and others use online ones on their computers or mobile phones. Some people have dictionaries in many languages. We also have dictionaries for specific areas. There are pronunciation dictionaries, medical dictionaries and even a Harry Potter dictionary. Most of the celebrations for this day take place in schools. It is a good day for teachers to improve the dictionary-using skills of their students.

My dictionary says a dictionary is “a book that lists the words of a language in alphabetical order and gives their meaning, or that gives the meaning in a different language”. It also says a dictionary is “a reference book on any subject, the items of which are arranged in alphabetical order”. An example of this is a dictionary of quotations. We start using dictionaries when we are very young. There are special versions for children and there are even picture dictionaries. Some people might say you have swallowed a dictionary. This means you use lots of long and difficult words when you speak. Another interesting expression is to say someone is a walking dictionary. This means a person knows the definition of every word.