I have a problem. There. Are you happy? I admitted it. Hello, my name is Laura and I am addicted to reference materials. Don’t think I want to change, though. In fact, the idea that this admission might be the first step toward recovery is making my chest tighten with panic and my palms sweat profusely.
You see, even when writing that last sentence, I used a dictionary (Merriam Webster Online) and a thesaurus (Thesaurus.com). What was the right word to describe what my hands were doing to the sweat covering them? The dictionary told me that extrude wasn’t right and that exude was almost what I meant, but what was the right word? I had to turn to the thesaurus in the blind hope that it would list a synonym for exude that was exactly what I meant but couldn’t think of. Discharge? No, that made my sweat seem too much like a symptom of gonorrhea. Excrete? Maybe. Disembogue? Well, according to the dictionary, that means “to flow or come forth from or as if from a channel,” so probably not. Ejaculate? Definitely not.
Isn’t it apparent why this is a problem now? A tiny bit of confusion regarding one little word resulted in a five-minute search, which ended only when I remembered that sweat is also a verb.
The English language is full of subtleties. Words that mean essentially the same thing carry entirely different connotations. Still worse is the fact that words can mean many different things in different contexts. The idea that I’m supposed to remember all the permutations of all the words scares me. I don’t trust myself with that task.
Take, for example, the following words: financial, fiscal and fiduciary. If you’re like most people, all you know is that they all relate to money somehow. You don’t know the differences and that fact doesn’t bother you in the slightest.
For me, not knowing is intolerable. As soon as I recognize that there are words with similar meanings, I become consumed with the task of knowing and understanding the subtleties of their meanings. I have yet to come across two words that mean exactly the same thing.
My obsession doesn’t end with dictionaries and thesauruses, though. By the way, thesauri is a second plural form of thesaurus. I looked it up in the dictionary.
As I was saying, dictionaries and thesauruses only begin the descent into reference material hell because they deal only with individual words. When dealing with entire sentences, there is an even wider world of reference books to refer to.
Sentence structure is even trickier than choosing the correct word and, for me at least, it’s even more difficult to remember what is correct. William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style Illustrated is my favorite reference book, if only because it is so delightfully snooty. It’s not the best choice for looking things up when in a hurry, but when I have nothing to do and feel like leisurely flipping through something to pass the time, nothing could be better than rereading its section on active voice. Seriously.
When I actually need to learn something, I turn to my well-loved and tattered copy of “When Words Collide: A Media Writer’s Guide to Grammar and Style.” Most people only come into contact with this fabulous resource by taking Grammar for the Journalist, after which they sell it back to the UO Bookstore and never touch it again.
Whenever I see people ridding themselves of that omniscient textbook, I want to run screaming to stop them. How people fail to see how necessary it is to write properly constructed sentences boggles my mind.
I’m sure this column contains countless errors, and I can’t claim to know or understand everything the book contains, but having it increases the likelihood that I will someday be able to write flawless prose. It’s this hope that keeps “When Words Collide” close to me at all times. I feel naked when I accidentally leave it at home. It comes in handy at the strangest times. I never know when I’ll need to explain to someone how to properly use “comprise.” If you don’t know, Page 187 explains it beautifully.
The cruelest mistress that possesses my heart is The Associated Press Stylebook. For those of you who aren’t lucky enough to be enchanted by its wiles, the Stylebook is what tells me to spell out numbers one through nine and use figures for 10 and up. It tells me that it’s daylight saving – not savings – time and that well-wishers takes a hyphen. If something can be written in more than one way, The Stylebook knows when each should be used. Its wisdom is seemingly infinite.
Aside from its awesome knowledge and power, the best thing about The Stylebook is that it saves me from having to do any real thinking. The way something should be referred to becomes irrelevant if The Stylebook has ruled on the issue. It doesn’t matter that most people write “internet” and “website” because The Stylebook decrees that “Internet” and “Web site” are correct. If The Stylebook says something, it goes. Why? Because it says so. Giving up rational thought in favor of predefined rules has never felt so good.
It would be safe to assume that my constant use of reference materials should give me a sense of certainty, but in practice it does exactly the opposite. I usually can’t choose a word or write a sentence without looking something up. I may think it should be one way, but what if my books tell me something different and I don’t remember? The uncertainty is killing me.
My overreliance on reference materials (The Stylebook refers me to the dictionary, which tells me to not use a hyphen.) has caused me to devalue my own knowledge in favor of whatever the books say.
Perhaps the only way I will be able to save myself is to someday make my own uberstylebook that comprises grammar, spelling, synonyms and style.
Until then, I’ll just have to look it up.

My favorite reference materials

– Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Not only does this dictionary have entries that are easy to understand, it also explains when prefixes should be hyphenated and when most things should be capitalized. I usually have at least two windows of it open when typing so I can look up words and compare meanings.
– Dictionary.com
This online dictionary is my second choice. It compiles entries from many different dictionaries so it has more words, but its exhaustiveness overwhelms me. It accomplishes the difficult task of having too many definitions. No one needs 33 entries for “house.”
– Thesaurus.com
The biggest advantage this Web site offers is that it allows users to click on words in the results, so they can find synonyms of synonyms. This is a great reference to use when the words you can think of are close to what you mean but aren’t quite right.
– The Elements of Style Illustrated
By William Strunk Jr., E.B. White, with illustrations by
Maira Kalman
This is a little outdated, but it still makes for a good read when looking for grandfatherly advice on how to improve
one’s writing.
– The Associated Press Stylebook
The mother of all reference materials. One small, spiral-bound, 400-page book can tell us how to correctly refer to divisions of the government and how to write dimensions. Sound exciting? It does to me.