While awake...

Sadly it seems paper dictionaries are becoming more and more obscure. This dictionary became my possession in 1986 and it was one of the best Christmas gifts I have ever received. I carried it in my school bag for years, and tirelessly looked up every word I didn't understand or knew the full meaning of. Then came Internet and I no longer reached for it. First it was Webcrawler and then Google. Nowadays I rarely look up a word (even if I probably need to.) Mostly I do it to check for correct spelling, and within 5 seconds I usually confirm or deny my choice. I vividly remember how my English teachers for some reason would make it their mission to make sure we students pronounced words correctly - especially words with the buzzing "z-sound" versus the "s-sound." I even took a class in phonetics and how the tongue is/should be placed when different sounds are made! Now when English has become my primary language I no longer appreciate what I once loved. I absolutely loved the sound of English as a child. At the age of four I used to make up songs in English not knowing but a single word in English. I had heard of an English word. Dollar.