Loading…

The Magical Power of Dictionaries

According to Warburg, the book with which one was familiar was not, in most cases, the book one needed. In the electronic age, however, a virtual dictionary offers perhaps less chance for serendipity, or for the kind of happy distraction that filled Émile Littré with such pride: "Many times,&qu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Chronicle of Higher Education 2018-02, Vol.64 (24), p.B20
Main Author: Manguel, Alberto
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:According to Warburg, the book with which one was familiar was not, in most cases, the book one needed. In the electronic age, however, a virtual dictionary offers perhaps less chance for serendipity, or for the kind of happy distraction that filled Émile Littré with such pride: "Many times," he reported, "it happened that, looking up a certain word, I became so interested that I would continue reading the next definition and then the next, as if I were holding in my hands an ordinary book." According to Talmudic commentators, two thousand years before the creation of heaven and earth, God brought into being seven essential things, the first among them the Torah, written in black fire on white fire.
ISSN:0009-5982
1931-1362