Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Breaking a Mental Sweat

Like a good nerd, I kinda like reading the dictionary (and sometimes the encyclopedia). One nice thing about working at a publisher is that I have one on the shelf of my cubicle, and I pull it out when I'm not sure whether I'm spelling or using a word correctly, or I feel culturally ignorant and want to know who on earth, say, Typhoid Mary was. (Answer: She had "unsanitary habits," and you'd want to take a pass on the spaghetti if she'd been the one hand-rolling the meatballs.)

I'm a little excited because I just learned that I'm not crazy for using politics with singular verbs.

I like the thesaurus, too, though I'm often disappointed that it doesn't contain more. I remember watching the movie How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, in which Matthew McConnaughey and his cohorts are using a thesaurus to come up with the right word for an advertising campaign, and I wanted a job where I could use a thesaurus like that. Still do.

Or maybe a job where I can pretend to be a meathead gym owner who pretends to read the dictionary. Fun either way, I say.

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