Flashback:
I think these suggestions about how to read , and how not to misuse,a dictionary are easy to follow.But like all other rules they will be followed well only by the man who is rightly motivated in the first place . And in the last place,they will be wisely applied only by the man who remembers that we are both free and bound in all our dealing with language,whether as writers or readers.
A good dictionary will answer all your questions about words under these four heads. The art of reading a dictionary consists in knowing what questions to ask about words and how to find the answers.I have suggested the questions. The dictionary itself tells you how to find the answers. In this respect, it is a perfect self-book, because it tells you what to pay attention to and how to interpret the various abbreviations and symbols it uses in giving you the four varieties of imformation about words. Anyone who fails to consult the explanatory notes and the list of abbreviations at the beginning of a dictionary can blame only himself for not being able to read the dictionary well. Unfortunately, many people fail here, as in the case of other books, because they insist upon neglecting the prefactory matter––as if the author were just amusing himself by including it.
(Many books drive from their story and sentences and phrases are all drive from words as we all know, reading and writing are both important for us to improve our English levels and if we want to use more meaningful means ,we must know the usage and the only way we could find that is to find our dictionary and do a effective way,many of us never regard it but few people success because of it)
If we remenber that a dictionary is a book about words,we can derive from that fact all the rules for reading a dictionary intelligently. Words can be looked at in four ways.
(1)words are physical things
(2)words are parts of speech
(3)words are signs
(4)words are conventional.
In short,don't forget that the dictionary is a book about words, not about things. It can tell you how men have used words,but it does not define the nature of the things the words name.
ha! There is no more irritating fellow than the man who tries to settle an argument about comnunism,or justice, or liberty,by quoting from Webster.
Another negative rule is: Do not swallow the dictionary. Do not try to get word-rich quick, by memorizing a lot of fancy words whose meanings are unconnected with any actual experience.
