Cumbersome -- Seven Mary Three

cumbersome- adjective; c. 1535:
1. dialect: burdensome, troublesome
2: unwieldy because of heaviness or bulk
3: slow moving: ponderous

My Advice To Youngsters:
Read the dictionary.

And not just for shits and giggles. Turns out it is a good thing to know the words , their spelling, and their meaning. It also helps on standardized tests like the SAT, the ACT, and the GRE.

When I had a mother she was my personal dictionary and encyclopedia rolled into one. She was many things, as well, but she was certainly an avid reader. Mom had an endless capacity for knowledge and a seemingly endless supply of advice--no matter what the subject. Anna-Lee asks me sometimes what a word means and I always tell her to look it up in the Merriam-Webster paperback that I gave her.

Some of the most precious memories I have of my mother are those times when, seated in the floor in front of the fireplace, our backs to the couch, crowding in to both hear the story and see the book. When we were all able to read we would take turns reading aloud, one chapter at a time. I remember most vividly the story of The Wizard of Oz. We would each read a chapter, showing the illustrations as we went along.

Our mother taught us to read with eloquence and emphasis, a trait that has served me well. It is difficult for me to listen to someone read aloud who mispronounces words, stumbles through the lines, and lacks the eloquence to tie sentences together to form a coherence within the paragraphs.

When we were old enough to read our own books, Dad saw fit to enact the after-dinner reading time in which we would listen to him read books like James Still's River of Earth and Leonard Robert's I Bought Me a Dog. There were times when we were in misery sitting at the table being read to by our father, impatiently waiting for the time when he would close the book and allow us to continue with our own evening plans. But now that we are all grown we read. We read together, especially those things that we find amusing or interesting. Dad gives us all magazine subscriptions to Smithsonian, Highlights (for the children) National Geographic, and Scientific American. We exchange books that we think the others might enjoy. We have become a family of readers. Is that rare? I certainly wish it weren't.

A great burden among American students today is learning to read being able to read aloud with others. I think a love for reading must be established within families and supportive groups, even if they can only spend a few minutes a day on one book, or one chapter per week.

I don't want to lecture; I believe that most people already know that reading is most important. But I've been thinking and I've decided that though we are in a new digital age, we should strive to provide each other, especially children, with the joys of having physical texts. And the most important of those texts to provide is a dictionary with which people can gain a greater understanding of the information they read.

That's why I will close with this bit of motherly advice, from my mother to me, and now to you:
Read the dictionary. It's totally worth it.