Books

Why is that that vocabularies seemed so much better way back when?  When could be a hundred years, two hundred, a thousand, it doesn't matter.  Yesterday I finished reading a biography of William Tecumseh Sherman, who, like many of his day, corresponded regularly with letters to a large number of people.  It's because of those letters, and a memoir he wrote, we can see his broad and impressive variety of words.

I have no such vocabulary, nor do most people I know, but some certainly use big words with more regularity.  Of course, there are a lot of words that I use today that didn't exist back then (Sherman was a general of the Civil War), although I still feel somewhat inferior.  Maybe it's because we don't write as much.  Maybe it's because of TV or a greater selection of books, most of which are familiar and not written by Shakespeare or a Greek philosopher.  I don't know.

One of the things I love about the Kindle is the ability not only to look up words but also that it records those words I looked up.  Later, when there's a great word that I know will fit perfectly, but I just can't remember what it was, I can go back and find it.  I can't help but a feel an irony with technology like that.