I’m quite selective in giving businesses and organizations the ability to reach out to me digitally, whether it be by phone number or email. (This isn’t an easy task, and one’s guard must be up at all times. For example, it’s hard to go to any larger retail store without being asked at the checkout counter if I want my receipt emailed to me or if I want to get a twenty-dollar discount by joining their rewards program for “free.”)
These requests aren’t just a veiled attempt at gathering more data about me (that’s a given, and that boat has left the dock long ago); it’s also an attempt to capture my most valuable asset: my future attention, my future time. Therefore, my default answer on all requests for supplying phone numbers and emails is no unless there is a very good reason not to do so.
And what would be one of these very good reasons? Well, let’s talk about one of my exceptions: The Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED’s) Word Of The Day email list. (See my prior post Twitter And The Oxford English Dictionary for more about my love of the OED.)
Every morning, seven days a week, there it sits, an email from “oedwotd@oup.com” with the word of the day prominently displayed.
It’s usually a word I think I am familiar with, but also just odd enough to where I ask myself “do I really know what it means.”
Invariably this leads to me opening the email, and after a quick glance, I confirm that, indeed, I didn’t have a firm grasp of the word. I soon quickly scroll down to the word usage section organized by dates (my favorite section of the OED), and its here I start to recognize the full richness of the word.
Now, granted, reviewing my Word Of The Day every morning can result in me falling into a rabbit hole—but not all rabbit holes are bad places. For example, the other day I ran across the word “panoplied” (‘Clad completely in armour. Also figurative’), in which I noted the following usage:
1901 Ld. Milner Speech 26 May
Panoplied hatred, insensate, ambitious, invincible ignorance.
This led me to a quick Gmail search about Lord Milner, and in what context he used this beautiful phrasing: the much less beautiful involvement of Britain in South African politics at the beginning of the 20th century—an excellent reminder both of the power and deceptive nature of language.
So, with the potential for falling into these digital rabbit holes each morning (usually for 1-2 minutes, but occasional for 30 minutes) is the OED Word Of The Day worth it?
Well, for me, yes, because—apart from learning something about language every morning—it also reminds me every morning that I am a writer, a communicator of ideas, and that daily reminder is worth the occasional extra few minutes in a digital rabbit hole.