The Broken Teaglass Read Online Free

include in one’s tattoo, however, is a highly personal one, and I think you should use whichever spelling pleases you….
    Dear Mr. Ferguson,
    Of course I am happy to put an end to this dispute between you and your wife. There is nothing wrong with your wife’s statement “These chicken legs are
moister
than the ones we had last week.” Although
moister
is not a commonly used word, it is a perfectly acceptable word, following the conventions of standard word construction….
    This was the reading material Dan left on my desk in the middle of my second week of training. Answering customer letters was soon going to be one of my duties, and these examples were supposed give me a feel for how it’s done.
    Dear Mr. Lawrence,
    Congratulations on your successful parole hearing and your early release. It is refreshing to know that you are continuing your linguistic studies outside of the state penitentiary. I am happy to answer your questions.
    Indeed,
cunt
is a surprisingly old and well-established word in the English language….
    These letters at least made livelier reading material than the usual mimeographed training packets with cryptic titles like “The Philosophy of Defining”
(The job of a lexicographer is to define words, not things….)
and “What Is Lexical?”
(Generic nouns belong in the dictionary proper; names of specific people, places, and historical events do not….)
Usually Dan and I would chat about the packets twice a day in his office. My favorite thus far was “Self-explanatory: A Primer”
(A two-word term is considered self-explanatory, and therefore nonlexical, if its definition can be surmised from the definitions of the two words from which it is formed….)
    Dear Brittany,
    Thank you for sharing your coinage,
Funday
, with us. Although
Funday
is a very nice word, I’m afraid we can’t put it in the dictionary at this time. It actually takes a long time for any word to make its way into the dictionary….
    The last letter on the pile was written by Dan himself:
    Dear Ms. Fine,
    We are flattered that you considered using our definition of
love
as a reading for your wedding. I’m sorry you were ultimately disappointed with our work.
    It’s important that I clarify one point, however. AtSamuelson, we do not aim to define the limits of emotional experiences such as
love, hate, faith, friendship
, etc. We aim only to define what these words mean in standard English discourse. That is, what is generally meant by a speaker or writer when he utters or writes these words. If our definition is, as you say, “unromantic,” it’s because lexicography is, by nature, an unromantic exercise. Precise, clear, and thorough definition is the main objective—and the only objective. A definition could not possibly capture the sensations, the depth, or the variations of something like love as it is experienced by everyone lucky enough to encounter it. And isn’t it best that even the most precise of words cannot capture such things?
    Best wishes for your upcoming wedding.
    Sincerely,
    Dan Wood
    Samuelson Editorial Department
    What a cheeseball
, I thought, coming to the end of it. But I liked Dan’s approach better than the thinly veiled condescension of some of the others. Dan popped his head into my cubicle just as I was putting the letters aside.
    “Ready to try your hand?” he asked.
    “I guess … I was just admiring this one about the wedding reading.”
    “Yes, that’s one of my recent favorites. I decided to give you a bit of a doozy for your first letter.”
    He handed me a ragged piece of lined paper with an envelope clipped to it.
    Dear Ms. Minot,
    Thank you for your response to my last inquiry. While I do not agree with your conclusions about the word
sobriquet
, it is interesting to hear what uses Samuelson has in its citation file, and I appreciate your taking the time to share those examples with me.
    Your response leads me to another question. I recently consulted the Samuelson