ABSTRACT
I have loved dictionaries since I was a child. I fondly remember one from school with the aardvark illustrated on the first page, and one at home that had a table of mysterious alphabets on the inside back endpaper that I consulted to create codes for the neighborhood club of secret agents. Throughout school, I used dictionaries as you probably do-to consult for spelling, meaning, or pronunciation-though I also loved to browse through them for their maps, illustrations, usage notes, and etymologies. Once I received my training in linguistics, I came to appreciate them even more as a description of language. Now, I suffer from the expensive habit of collecting dictionaries, revelling in comparing their infinite nuanced differences, constantly changing over time.
