Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos... do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–-if any-–do you have in your library?I can't say exactly how many since I don't have all my books cataloged in LibraryThing yet.
Let's see... I have style guides, Struck & White and Chicago (yes, I bought the new edition as soon as it came out) as well as APA (required for grad school) and MLA.
I also have dictionaries, lots of them. Bilingual dictionaries: French/English, Spanish/English, German/English, Modern Greek/English (I think we also have a Latin/English dictionary kicking around the apartment). I have a "collegiate" English dictionary (I think) sitting on my desk at home. I know I have at least one other in storage as I distinctly remember raiding my grandpa's bookcases. I have a wonderful, monstrous German dictionary that I got when I was working on my translation project and a lovely children's German dictionary with illustrations. I also have at least one thesaurus.
I do have a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but I've never gotten around to reading it. And, I know I have at least one other book like it, though the title is escaping me right now.
As for reading them... the reference books I use for reference. I also like using the OED online and dictionary.com/thesaurus.com for quick checks. I'm more interesting in reading about the history of them, like Simon Winchester's books on the development of the OED (particularly The Meaning of Everything).
When I read your blog , at first I though, I don't have those books, but then i started thinking and looking around and I do have them.
ReplyDeleteI have a huge dictionary, Dutch-English, English-Dutch which I do use on occasions.
Then I have those little language books for when you go on vacation? I love those :)
Got them in Norwegian. I did learn some Norwegian thanks to it. A Spanish and a Turkish one.
Then upstairs I have a bunch of dictionaries. German, French, other English ones.
Those I never use cause it is so much easier to look up a word on the Internet nowadays.
Wow, I am so "undictionaried". I just have a few old ones and my electronic english one. Makes me feel like I need alot more going into my brain...lol. As you get older, you know that there is less room for stuff. I think I have almost reached maximum gigabytes.
ReplyDeleteIt makes a lot of dictionaries;o) But i have those too : french/german, /english, /italian, and a lot of vocabulary books from whan i was at university;o)
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