Do you look up words you do not know?

[FreshTressa]

I have to...I have to read a lot of professional journals for school and there are usually 2-3 terms per paper that I don't know. Looking them up helps me understand the paper.

Also, it helps me study for the GRE which is coming up.

 

[HERSEY]

I have www.thefreedictionary.com bookmarked on all my computers works better than "spellcheck" you don't have to spell it correctly to get a match.
I blame my spelling issues with being tired. I must be tired all the time

 

[Mermaid02]

yes, mostly at work. I work in a hospital and come across diagnoses all the time that I don't know the meaning of.

 

[Tigger_Magic]

dictionary.com is my best friend on the Internet!

 

[GoofyDad869]

Yep. Most of the time I can figure it a word's meaning by context. Sometimes not, though. What has really helped me has been some knowledge of other languages. I've taken Latin (which helps me most of all), Spanish, and a little bit of Russian.

I had a couple of years of Latin in high school (which I still remember a little bit). Some of the Mass at the Catholic Church I attended as a boy through my teenage years was still in Latin (I'm talking late 70s & on through the 80s), so I got a smattering of spoken Latin too. Most English words are based in some form on Latin roots (same with 'Romance' languages like Spanish & Italian), so that knowledge really helps a lot when noodling out a new (to me) word. I can't remember noun/adjective declentions or verb tenses to save my life nowadays... I've forgotten WAY more than I remember.

 

[Stitchfans]

yes quite often. I often but not always will look up words I can't spell if there is no spell check like here on the Dis even though I didn't just a few posts ago.

 

[Lynn CC]

Since the internet I use dictionary.com, so there's really no excuse!

I love the section in Readers Digest that has the words with word meaning choices, I read this first every month! Most of the time I'm familiar with the words, but I've learned a lot over the years from reading their vocabulary lists.

 

[luvflorida]

I think my biggest problem is that I have a learning disability that affects spelling. I can not spell at all and it was tourture to look up things that I had no clue how to spell (except the 1st letter of course.)

My younger brother has always had a hard time with spelling. I'll never forget the day when he was about ten years old and he asked our mother how to spell a certain word. She told him to look it up in the dictionary, and he just looked at her totally exasperated and exclaimed, "Well, how can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it!?!"

He had a point!

 

[CapeCodTenor]

All the time...provided I can spell it.

 

[MAKmom]

I look words up when I'm reading in an old Collegiate Disctionary I gave my dh our first Valentines Day togather 15 years ago. I signed it with this,
" I wish I could find the words to express why I love you...so I'm giving you them all"

 

[ImarriedGrumpy]

I think my biggest problem is that I have a learning disability that affects spelling. I can not spell at all and it was tourture to look up things that I had no clue how to spell (except the 1st letter of course.)

My dad has a learning disability, too, and all of us kids had problems with spelling. My English major mom found a "mis-spellers dictionary" for all of us - it had all kinds of commonly mis-spelled words in addition to the usual "big words you need to look up" - but everything has multiple listings. There's the correct spelling listing, and then all kinds of mis-spelled listings. So we just tried to get the phonetic spelling and look up the word, and then we could find the correct spelling and look up the definition. Pretty handy! Wish I had one now...I don't know what I'd do without spell check.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

Here is some unsolicitated advice: Some words should NEVER be googled. I tell some of my friends this, they never listend and oh my the things they have come across.

 

[Mari annie]

I a very curious person and whatever I am not sure of off to the computer to find out!!!!!!




Where's Kermit???

 

[Kitty 34]

I'm always looking up words in the dictionary or here online. I used to read the dictionary for the fun of it when I was younger. Now I read maps!!