Dictionaries and the Thumb Index

[Fermata]

We are all used to the speed of Google for looking up words to check their meaning or spelling, I cannot remember the last time that I reached for a dictionary so this article in the New York Times had some appeal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/m...mendation.html


The writer reminds the reader of the Thumb Index, and illustrates one perfectly, the magic of holding your thumb in place as your left hand lifted a great wad of paper through an arc for you to read on. Hopeless for a left hander.

This brought back the memory of the Sunday hour. Around 6pm each sunday we had an hour where the TV and radio were silent and the whole family read, a novel, an improving magazine or any reference book. I reached for the Funk and Wagnalls encyclopaedia and surfed - not that this was an appropriate word at the time - subject to subject. This was a two volume set and weighed as much as I did, how I would have welcomed a thumb index at the time.

eta. Perhaps someone can enlighten me on why the NYT chop the tails off lower case letters, for example within the article the writer has tried to use the word conveyed but this appears as conveved, which had me reaching for a dictionary.