Two Christmases ago, my oldest two children bought me the most coveted gift of Christmas . . .the new Fourth Edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. We as a family had been waiting for it for quite sometime. Dreams of triple triple z's danced in our heads. When the dictionary actually appeared on our playing table a couple of nights later, however, something unexpected happened. No one played za or qi. As a matter of fact our children rotated through two weeks of custody changes before anyone played za or qi. Now that we'd invited za and qi to the party, no one wanted to talk to them. When our daughter finally did play the first za, I looked over at my husband and we did the parental internal rolling of the eyes. It was clear that neither he nor I were ever going to play these two little guys. So, we went forward getting our pants beat time and time again because we refused to put pretend words on our Scrabble board. Then one day we were playing and with just a few letters left, my only option was to play the qi or give him my ten points and allow him to beat me. Those of you who know me from other places know how this ends. I couldn't actually allow him to beat me no matter how much I hated those guys. Perhaps now you can see how I've come to social media. I love you (Facebook) I hate you (Twitter) I love you (LinkedIn) I hate you(Blogger). Actually that sounds like most of my relationships. I see now that those little words were just the beginning of leaving my comfot zone. So while I think a little qi would encourage Facebook and the guys to run out for za and never come back, I feel at the top of my game for grabbing them by the horns and playing with them.
Yet . . .
If you look closely at yesterday's entry, you'll see that my sources for defining w00tmom were urbandictionary and unword for the w00t and webster's new world dictionary for the mom. Yes, I actually stood up and walked over to the bookshelf so I could give you the "real" definition of mom . . .the safe standard definition that could only come from Webster for a word as old and upright as mom. Of course, in between giving you the definition for w00t and the definition for mom, I thought I might just get you a definition off of the internet merriam webster dictionary. However, as soon as the page appeared on my screen I noticed that the fourth or fifth definition was actually mother#*%$!^. WHAT? Dictionaries known as unword and urbandictionary (sounded very suspicioius to me) did not in fact throw this explicative out as a definition of mother. Goodbye faith in all that is tried and true . . .mother#*%$!^ Merriam-Webster how dare you put that word in your online dictionary.
Thus, trust is gained in dictionaries that I've never held in my hand . . .I'm guessing that it's not even possible to hold unword in my hand or to take the walk up to the podium at the library that holds the urbandictionary and stare in wonder at the vast expanse of page after page containing so many tiny words that as a child you wonder if people who know all these words are born with better vision than the rest of us such that they could have easily read this thing from standing distance. No, urbandictionary, you probably can't be held and much like wikipedia you are probably an unending conversation between many and not really the authority we short bussed GATE kids wanted.
Thus I venture into this social media world dancing with strangers not really minding that I didn't take the 20 minute lesson first. We all get to grow up eventually, right?
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