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GQ, from Beijing, asks:
"Suppose I'm reading an article and in it I
find ten new words. What do I do? Do I look 'em up or do I ignore them? If
I look 'em up, do I look up one or two, or all ten of them?"
My comments:
Or do you worry?
Do whatever you want to. Look 'em up. Ignore them.
It won't matter one way or the other. But let me explain.
Ingrid (not her real name) rang to tell me the other day: "When I come
across a new word in an article or a book, I look it up, each and every
one of them."
"How does it work?" I asked.
"Works great," she quipped. "Only that I don't seem to ever finish
anything, either reading an article or a book."
"So what?" I persisted, trying to sound really mean and indifferent.
"Nothing," she says. "I just don't seem to make any progress, that's
all. And thank you very much for this. It really helps!" She hung up on
me, slamming the phone down (I'm making it up).
You, GQ, looks like one who's suffering at the other end of the
look-'em-up-the-dictionary spectrum. You did not say you don't look
anything up in the dictionary but that's what you wanted to do, if it
worked, if you knew. If I read your mind correctly, you wish you knew.
You face ten new words in an article and you're torn. If you look one
up, you feel you won't be making any progress. If you look all of them up,
you fear you'll be spending all your time looking words up so that you
won't be making any progress.
If you look none of them up, then you feel you're not doing your part.
You have a choice to make, and you're torn.
I won't tell you what to do. Anything I try to tell you might be wrong.
In fact I knew it would be wrong. If I tell you to look up every word,
you'll burn out in a day or two (which tends to be the way with people
today, especially among 20-somethings). If I tell you to ignore them,
you'll blame me for all the things you fail to learn (which tends also to
be the way with people today, especially 20-somethings).
So therefore, I suggest you take it easy. Don't make choices at all.
Let them words make choices for you. If a new word comes up, let it
impress you. Let it do all the work. Let it tempt you. Let it taunt you.
Let it haunt you even. Let it do all it can do. Then if you have no way
out but to look it up, look it up.
If it fails to summon enough energy for you to lift your lazy fingers
and brush through the fine pages of a dictionary, then it's its own fault.
Ignore it. It deserves what it gets.
In all fairness, this probably is what happens anyway.
So don't think too much. Don't judge. Don't look too far ahead of
yourself. Just keep reading. If you have the time, energy and interest
(which I suppose you do) to look one of them up, look one of them up. If
you have the time, energy and interest (which I doubt you do) to look more
of them up, look more of them up. If you have the time, energy and
interest (which I suspect you don't) to look all of them up, look all of
them up.
In the long run, you'll make your due progress. And you'll deserve what
you get.
So take it easy. Whatever you do, don't worry. Be happy.
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