I was up early and needed to write. Given a pen and paper where would I start? I saw a dictionary on the bookshelf and opened it to see how my choice of words for this A to Z challenge was holding up. Memories came flooding back of mum and I pouring over it finding all the 13 letter words so she could teach me to spell them. The dictionary was given to Dad in 1948, the year the english edition was published. I still love it but it doesn’t get opened often enough.
That’s when it came to me. I could use 13 letter words. That would be my theme for the blogging from A to Z April challenge 2012. If I took them from Dads dictionary it would be a memory to Dad and Mum so it would be filled with love and hope and everything they imparted to me to make me me now sat here writing to you (still with me?). When I went to z and Q and x I realised I would struggle so I lowered the bar. Sorry mum, I know you’ll understand. I may be 11 years older than you were when you died but I didn’t start writing early enough and it’s been a long time since I poured over the book looking for 13 letter words as often as you did.
Do you have a family dictionary that you live in?
Dic tion ar y,
‘Book containing a selection of the words of a language or of some special subject, with explanations of their meaning and other information about them.’
lynnelives 
I remember my dad’s heavily underlined dictionary with notes on the sides—your post brough back memories.
Look forward to your challenge run…
–Damyanti, Co-host A to Z Challenge April 2012
Twitter: @AprilA2Z
#atozchallenge
Thanks Damyanti. A lot of the A to Z posts evoke all kinds of memories when I read them. Glad mine are too.
My mom still have dusty old dictionaries at home for her crossword puzzle solving. She even has a Scrabble dictionary for when we used to play together while I was growing up–she always whooped my behind!
J.C. Martin
A to Z Blogger
Mums and their dictionaries… Scrabble gets everyone whooped by someone! I still love it, even though I’m not very good.
Sadly my dictionaries are gathering dust on the bookshelf these days. It’s so much easier to use an online one I’m afraid to say.
A to Z of Nostalgia
What hadn’t occured to me Rosalind, but is rather obvious, was that dictionaries change with time. My old book has words you never hear of and lot of words we use aren’t in there. The explanation of pronunciation’s fascinating!
Perfect blog…you worried about D for nothing. 😉
Thanks Donna. Perfect eh? Fantastic! See, I still have enthusiasm!