He sits there on my desk, quietly giving meaning to the world. He tells me what things are and I rarely question him. His influence is so great that even the US Supreme Court acquiesce to his voice as in the case of Attorney General John D. Ashcroft v. The Free Speech Coalition, where he gave the definition of “pornography.” His opinion is the one that counts; all others’ are servile.

Let’s see… servile…S-E-R-V-I-L-E…Ah, here it is. From the Latin serilis < serus, a slave. Like or having the characteristics of a slave, humbly yielding or submissive.

As I was playing Scrabble with my friends, I spelled out D-O-M-I-N-I-E and took the triple word score.

“That’s not a word,” my friends objected.

“Look it up,” I calmly replied, appealing to my ruler who had become my teacher as well.

“'dä-mə-nē,” he said, “in Scotland, a schoolmaster.”

“Alright fine,” my friends agreed and loudly thumped my teacher’s jacket.

On 15 April 1755, Samuel Johnson published A Dictionary of the English Language. Of his own worth and work, Johnson wrote, “Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words.” Not bad for someone whose dictionary was considered authoritative for over a hundred and fifty years.

“You’re so stupid,” the middle school bully jeered, “There’s no way a dork like you could know anything.”

I strained my neck to look up at him. My own spindly arms and legs seemed to shrink in comparison to the definition of his biceps and broad shoulders. He had his gang with him, all similar in build; one false word could mean an extended conversation in pain. I stood there alone, except for my teacher, my friend.

He gave me words to say.

“You zinjanthropus with a cerebral capacity of a protozoa.”

The gang blinked and grunted a “huh?” that would have made an australopithecine proud. Not knowing how to respond, they wandered dazedly off to figure out what just happened, without pummeling me to a pulp.

The Oxford English Dictionary contains over 615,000 words, over a million if you count scientific words.

My friend Joel was showing off his used 1990 Dodge pickup, which he had just purchased.

“Check out this s***,” he said, describing the 115-inch wheelbase with a 6.5-foot cargo bed, “I can haul a lot of s*** with this s***.”

His pickup was one of the 150-series, which could carry about half a ton. The 250-series could haul three-quarters of a ton, and the 350-series, a full ton.

“Okay, so maybe not that much s***. But check out this s***…” he said lifting up the hood revealing a 3.9-liter V6 engine. It was the bare minimum for these kinds of trucks, but I nodded my approval anyway.

“Hope it’ll get you where you need to go,” I said.

“Yeah,” Joel said, “It’s a pretty good piece of s***.”

The average adult with a college degree has a vocabulary of about five to six thousand words, university professors about fifteen thousand words. William Shakespeare boasted an immense vocabulary of over forty-five thousand words, more then three times that of a university professor and nine times that of the average adult. Noah Webster knew the importance of having a strong command of language, to himself, his society, and future generations. He included 70,000 entries in his first dictionary published in 1828.

I look over at my teacher, ruler, and friend, lying there on the desk. I pick him up and crack him open. Hmmm…This looks interesting.

Lexiphanic, adj. From the Greek lexifa`nis, a phrase monger.

By Todd Schlaudraff