Collegiate Dictionary (12th Edition) (Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2025)

    The iconic image associated with Cameron Crowe’s 1989 film Say Anything… is that of John Cusack’s Lloyd Dobler. He’s holding up a boombox, a portable stereo, playing a cassette of PETER GABRIEL’s “In Your Eyes” so that Ione Skye’s Diane Court, his ex-girlfriend, can hear it through her open bedroom window. The song played during one of their intimate moments earlier in the movie, and Lloyd apparently thinks that the sounds of the “really good song” will be enough to change Diane’s mind about breaking up with him.

    As someone who first learned of the movie in high school and then modeled my personality after Lloyd Dobler’s, I can relate to this scene. I mean, I’ve never done something so demonstrative or possessive—and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a The CLASH shirt—but the way this scene feels is resonant with teenage me. (Teenage me is still a big part of me.)

    There’s a smaller moment earlier in the film that ended up being much more of a life-imitates-art inspiration for me. When Diane’s getting ready for a date, Lloyd peruses the effects in her room. One of which is “a mother dictionary.” It appears to be Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, first published in 1961. Diane tells Lloyd that she “used to have a thing of marking the words she looked up.” Lloyd then flips through pages annotated with an excess of x’s. I have done a similar thing with the dictionaries I’ve owned over the years, including one of my two copies of the Third.

    Maybe it’s unsurprising then that I was eager to get my hands on the latest edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. I’ve already got a copy of the 10th edition at work, among many other dictionaries from various publishers and years. I’ve also got the company’s app on my phone, where I pay an annual premium for ad-free access to the same words. This same information is also available for “free” online. So, why acquire a hard-copy of a dictionary in 2026? The main reason is guide words.

    Let me explain.

    A couple of jobs ago, I had a copy of the 11th edition of the Collegiate Dictionary in my cubicle. During slow times when I was waiting for pages to edit, I would flip through it to check definitions of certain words. This was company property, so I wasn’t about to mark it up. But, I did learn quite a bit about syllabication, pronunciation, and etymology in the process. One of the most memorable elements of the book was the set of guide words on page 304. Atop the page were the words cue, as in an actor’s signal, and cumber, as in to get in someone’s way or make their life harder. Do you get it? It says cue•cumber. Yes, cucumber. The vegetable! That’s hilarious! Even better, the final word in bold is cumbering, an inflected form of cumber in the headword’s definition. In my mind, this pair of guide words was an intentional error. Instead of having the header read cue•cumbering, some editor had ensured it would read cue•cumber. This was purposeful. I was sure of it! I wrote a letter explaining my thought process and complimenting the editor who had put that funny joke into the guide words. 

    I sent my letter on December 27, 2006; I received a reply on January 5, 2007.

    In the reply, Susan L. Brady explained to me that I had misinterpreted the guide word rules and that I could find more information about them in my dictionary’s front matter. Basically, using cumbering as the second guide word on page 304 would make the use of cumber as the first guide word on 305 a mistake. So, for consistency’s sake, the guide words across the top of the spread need to be in alphabetical order themselves. There went my case. The banality of style guides and alphabetical order had made my supposed discovery nothing more than a little coincidence. Still, I was excited to have received a reply, especially because it came quickly (and during a week that contained New Year’s Eve, no less!).

    You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by this point.

    A few months later, I noticed that on page 1239 of the 11th edition of the Collegiate Dictionary appeared another humorous guide word pairing. This time, it was strut•stuff. I knew immediately who needed to know this information: Susan L. Brady. Knowing that my original letter featured a naïve misunderstanding of how editors chose guide words, I decided to change things up. I reprinted my original letter and treated it as a first pass of a page I was editing. So, I changed 304 to 1239, cue to cumber, strut to stuff. I deleted the whole paragraph about the guide words being some kind of intentional joke and inserted text that explained what I had learned about guide word selection from the previous letter. Not wanting to have this letter be a mere copy of the original, I thought of the importance of the idiom “strut your stuff.” I figured why not ask for a chance to “strut my stuff” in a job interview for an editorial position? Remember, this is not a new letter. It is a marked up copy of my original message. The number of changes I made to it had turned it into a palimpsestic mess. I was sure I’d be put on some kind of DO NOT CONTACT list or maybe sent a cease and desist. This feeling only grew as the days passed. What had I done?

    Three weeks later, Susan L. Brady replied once again. I could tell the letter was different this time. It still bore the Merriam-Webster heading, complete with the slogan “From the Inkwell to the Internet.” The letter was shorter. Whereas the first letter’s body text had filled the middle third of the folded letter, this reply’s heading, body text, closing, and signature all fit within that middle third with room to spare. My heart sank to my stomach. I took a breath and read the letter.

    “Thank you for your recent letter and for sharing your latest guide word discovery. The dictionary can be so much fun, don’t you think?”

    That’s it. That’s all it was. That’s all I needed.

    There was no need to write another letter, even if I ever found a fun guide word pairing. Forget the idea of working for a major publisher as a dictionary editor. I learned an important lesson and had a deeply fulfilling experience. Someone else out there knew, just as I did, and as you may, that the dictionary can be so much fun. It still is.

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THESE REVIEWS:

High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape by Marc Masters

More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner

The Landscape Model of Reading Comprehension by van den Broek, Young, Tzeng, & Linderholm

100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life (Dick Van Dyke, Grand Central, 2025)

    Look, I’m as surprised as you that a guy with the nickname “The Human Waterfall” has lived to be 100 years old. If you’re known for falling down, even gracefully, longevity does not seem like it would be part of your destiny. Maybe the everflowing stream that is Dick Van Dyke’s life isn’t one of those harrowing, acrophobia-inducing falls like Niagara. Maybe it’s more like a purling brook in a secluded wood with a few stair-step drops marking the water’s descent. Risky to cross, but not fatal if you slip. Van Dyke knows the importance of falling, though. The fourth chapter in the book is “Learn to fall,” and he uses it to relate the story of how he sought out Buster Keaton to learn how to tuck and roll safely. Keaton told him he’d broken most of the bones in his body, including his neck, over the years. Van Dyke doesn’t share the number of bones he’s broken, so it’s likely that Keaton’s advice proved helpful.

    So I mentioned that the fourth chapter, or rule, in the book is “learn to fall,” but I only know that because it shows up early in the text and I could count to it without losing track. You’d think a book like this one would have numbered chapters or at least a Table of Contents that would make it easy for a reader to find a particular rule. Not so fast. Chapter two is “Make your own rules.” He takes his own advice and tells us that if we are to count all of the rules in the book, we will come up short of 100. See, he’s making his own rules, even if they violate the promise made by the book’s title. For the record, there are 75 rules in the book. You will not feel shortchanged in the least.

    You also won’t be subject to relentless positive affirmations, despite the book’s subtitle. I was a little worried that “an optimist’s guide to a happy life” would be dull and trite. Like, of course a celebrity is an optimist. (I know that’s an oversimplification.) My misgivings have more to do with the fact that self-help or self-improvement books are not my cup of tea. What could I possibly learn from a beloved actor that I couldn’t learn from someone in my day-to-day life? Plenty, it seems. The advice, rules, and suggestions in the book are not for everyone, but there were more than a few times that I felt myself thinking “Wow, that’s actually interesting / helpful / clarifying.” Plus, it’s not like Van Dyke was born into fame. He tells of shoveling coal into the furnace in the basement of his house in Danville, Illinois, as a child so his baby brother and his mom could enjoy the heat. Not too many TV or movie stars had to grow up with that kind of grunt work as part of their daily routine, which means that there are many lessons Van Dyke has learned that are not dependent upon his role as a household name.

    Beyond its genuinely helpful moments, there are also many funny stories to be found in these pages. Prior to taking on the role of Rob Petrie, Van Dyke was traveling with his wife and two children in the car for a vacation. He explains how they would change their children’s diapers while in the car. Imagine the scene. Van Dyke is driving, holding up the legs of one of his kids while his wife changes the diaper. The risk alone makes this story wild. He makes it sound like this was a common occurrence. That’s not the point of the story, though. One time, while in the desert, the diaper’s stench was too much for those in the car to bear. So, thinking of the quickest possible solution, Van Dyke chucks the offending receptacle out his window. Much to his surprise, there was another car on the road even though they were in the middle of the desert. Yes, the car was trying to pass them on the left. Yes, the full diaper hit the windshield dead center at a high velocity. Yes, the other car screeched to a halt. No, Van Dyke did not. “I froze for a second and thought: Should I stop? Instead, I floorboarded it and just kept going” (p. 50). Diabolical. There’s someone out there who was on the receiving end of a soiled diaper that a pre-fame Dick Van Dyke threw out of a car window in the middle of the desert and they never knew he was the culprit. The rule here? “Don’t litter: Tips for safety and hygiene on family road trips in the 1950s.”

    Fast forward a couple decades and Van Dyke tells us of how his current wife, Arlene, helps him organize his days. He says she got him an iPad but he never uses it. She helps to coordinate his daily life, along with his assistant Jimmy. Careful readers will notice before Van Dyke points it out that Jimmy uses they/them pronouns. When Van Dyke directly addresses this aspect of Jimmy’s identity, he admits that it took a little bit of getting used to, and that “these kids keep us on their toes, don’t they?” (p. 211). That’s all. No big deal. If someone born in 1925 can understand queerness and transness that easily, then there’s no excuse for the bigotry behind getting upset over someone’s pronouns or identity. In addition to the wisdom he’s accrued with age, Van Dyke also prides himself on not using his iPad to “text or shop or browse for hours on end. Think of all the dopamine I’ve stored up!” (p. 12) So maybe there is something to be said for unplugging from devices to help keep our minds sharp and our hearts open as we age.

    There are sweet moments, too. I learned from the dust jacket that Van Dyke is an Oscar short of EGOT status, so I puzzled over the “Win an Oscar” chapter. He explains that the cast of Mary Poppins created a scrap metal award statuette for his contributions to the film. It’s not much to look at, but it means a lot coming from the cast and crew of that show. It’s dear enough to him that it is given first priority when he has to evacuate his Malibu home due to wildfires. And, as special as it is that Julie Andrews won one for her role in that film, “eighty-six actors and seventy-nine actresses have that exact same one. Mine is one of a kind” (p. 90).

    Other parts that made me laugh included the chapter where he tells the story of his appearance on The Masked Singer. The story itself is fine, but it’s in his relating of Arlene trying to convince him to do the show that I burst out laughing. She runs down the outfits that Gladys Knight and three of the Brady boys wore. And, “according to Arlene, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols (don’t ask me who that is) wore a horned, tartan ‘jester’ outfit that could have spawned a horror franchise” (p. 259). I’m sorry but that aside is the funniest part of this book. Imagine that you are 97 years old, it is 2023 and your wife is telling you about The SEX PISTOLS in an offhand way like you should know who Johnny Rotten is. How aware was Van Dyke of punk when the first wave hit in the ‘70s? He would have already been in his late fifties. There’s no reason to think he would have been interested in contemporary music, given that he loves show tunes and jazz. The idea of him being unaware for over 40 years of a band with the name of The SEX PISTOLS and then having to process that information in the context of his wife selling him on appearing on a show where celebrities dress up in elaborate costumes to sing to a panel of judges… it’s incredible.

    The advice I’ll take to heart is to “Write it down” (189). In this chapter, Van Dyke explains how Marge Mullen, the script supervisor of The Dick Van Dyke Show, kept a notebook titled “SOS,” which stood for “some other show.” Ideas the writers had that couldn’t quite work or needed more polish or might have been too small for a full episode were stashed in this notebook for later. Their time wasn’t right, but they weren’t worth discarding either. Most people don’t write scripts for successful sitcoms, but we can still learn better habits of keeping our fleeting thoughts from escaping forever. Being better at more consistently recording those thoughts is reason enough for me to feel optimistic at this point in the year.

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THESE REVIEWS:

After All by Mary Tyler Moore

Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day by Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett

Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

Jim: A Rubino’s Pizza Short Documentary (Noah Abrams, A-Team Films, 2025)

    Man, Rubino’s Pizza totally rules. It’s likely you’ve never had pizza with a crust so thin. Imagine a saltine, cut in half horizontally and dusted with cornmeal on the bottom. Physics dictates that there can’t be much added to a slice so slight, so the sweet sauce and small blobs of mozzarella don’t add much weight to the pizza. You know it’s gonna be crispy given its low profile. When you order it to-go, it comes in a bag. A bag. It’s a crime that I’m not eating some right now…

    I promise that will be it with my attempts to describe the quality of the pizza because this documentary on Jim Marchese, the current proprietor of Rubino’s Pizza in Bexley, Ohio, doesn’t focus as much on the pizza as it does the institution, the man, the spot. A pizza place that can survive 70 years of changes around it must be doing something right with its food and its vibe. It has never expanded, never franchised, never relocated. Jim recalls a moment when a woman opened the door and inhaled deeply, then left. She “just wanted to smell Rubino’s.” To me, that sounds like torture, but it says something about the quality of the place that a single sense memory can be so powerful. 

    Early in the film, we learn that the original concept of Rubino’s came from founder Ruben Cohen who thought maybe his name might not give an indication of authentic Italian food. Thus, Ruben became Rubino’s for the sake of marketing and there’s never been a reason to doubt the quality of the product. Jim’s father bought the business when the original owner retired and Jim helped his dad run it and has been the man in charge ever since.

    The film is a tribute to him as he grows closer to aging out of the ability to run the shop. He’s got stage four kidney cancer, which has returned after being in remission 15 years ago. His daughter, Julie, is ready to step up when the time comes. Working in a family business is often a way for managers to easily manipulate and exploit those closest to them. That doesn’t seem to be the situation at Rubino’s. There’s a moment when Julie has to take a breath and step outside because things are getting a little hectic behind the counter. It’s not like that is a situation unique to family-run foodservice. Julie’s candor in her responses and her work ethic both indicate that she will do an excellent job of running the show when its her turn at the reins. 

    That attitude, surliness, or “jive,” is part of the appeal of going to Rubino’s in the first place. Yeah, the food is excellent, but Jim’s demeanor is an attraction in itself. The film does an excellent job of expressing this trait of his. It’s subtle, but there’s a shot where he answers the phone (there is only one phone at Rubino’s) by pounding the receiver with the fat of his fist so it flips into his hand. It’s so slick. Stay at Rubino’s long enough on a night when they’re slammed and you can be treated to the sight of Jim hitting the counter itself hard enough to launch the receiver into his hand. The coordination required to pull that off is remarkable.

    Despite the gruff way he comes off in the film and in real life, Jim is a sweetheart. Julie explains how he has quietly helped customers’ families with college payments or medical bills over the years. That kind of support to people who have patronized this business for decades is why people get misty-eyed when thinking of local small-business owners. Jim represents the apotheosis of that type of dude running that kind of shop, and as Abrams reveals in Jim, the secret recipe is “40% pizza, 60% bullshit.” So, the pizza gets you in the door but the bullshit keeps you coming back over and over again.

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THESE REVIEWS:

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

BILLY STEWART "Sitting in the Park" b/w "Once Again"

Blacktop series by LJ Alonge

Stranger Things, Season 5, Episode 8: The Rightside Up (The Duffer Brothers, Netflix, 2025)

    They stuck the landing. They really did it! I’ve talked with friends who have watched the finale and who have seen different things online than I have about the final season’s reception. Although there are plenty of haters out there, the response seems to be positive enough for now. Maybe it’s just the honeymoon period and reality will set in after a few weeks or months. I’m more than OK with how the show ended. Any of the various threads left untied are just frayed ends, not ropey cords. In the words of Mr. Clarke, it was “pretty goddamn swell.”

    In my previous review, I had thought the show was heading for a triple climax, even if all the main crew were together at the end of episode seven. That didn’t quite happen, but the crew didn’t completely stay together the whole time either. Making predictions isn’t the most interesting part of writing about narratives, even if it is fun when they end up correct. It would have been boring and silly for Jane, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Jonathan, Joyce, Nancy, Steve, Jim, Vickie, Murray, Kali and Robyn to stay together for the entire episode. Instead, we get Max and Vickie holding down the fort at WSQK; Jim, Murray, Jane, and Kali infiltrating the lab, and the rest of the crew trying to make it into the abyss from the upside down. Jane later joins them when things seem to have gone so very wrong. Even with the main party split into thirds, it’s not quite a triple climax because they are all aiming for the same goal—Vecna’s destruction.

    The action sequences are not the reason I enjoy the show, so I was glad that this section was fairly short. Yes, it’s the final confrontation with the nemesis of all the characters, but that doesn’t mean it needs to involve belabored combat. It was just long enough. The key element for me is the interaction between Will and Henry Creel when Will is entering Creel's mind.

    As I discussed a few weeks ago, the hive mind that possesses Will throughout the series can be considered to be heteronormative society. He is able to wield his powers and become a sorcerer because he knows who he is, who his friends are, and who he’d like to partner with romantically. It’s not just that he comes to terms publicly with the fact that he’s “not into girls.” Accepting your gender identity and sexuality (even if merely heterosexual & cisgender) makes you a sorcerer. Creel chose to give in to the power of the hive mind instead of trying to figure out who he was. That gave him unimaginable power but Will and Jane were able to stop him because they knew who they were by developing friendships and relationships and learning to be true to themselves no matter the cost. Creel had a stunted adolescence and never went through that coming-of-age identity integration / formation developmental process, so his powers were ultimately limited. Who is his family? His friends? His romantic partner? He has none of those people in his life, and has had none of them, so he is a full-grown, maladjusted adolescent.

    Unfortunately, we do not learn the origin of the fragmented rock from the briefcase that made young Henry Creel give in to the power of the hive mind. All we know from the show is that it was a U.S. government secret and someone was trying to obtain it. Young Henry panicked when the agent with the briefcase tried to use a gun to prevent him from opening the case. When Young Henry prevails, he opens the case and the rock fragment is inside. Where it’s from and what powers it has are under explained. It slips under his skin and causes him to mutilate the corpse of the government agent. He’s horrified by this power. He cannot resist it. He would rather wield the power of the hive mind (i.e., fall in to line with the mores of heteronormative society) than explore who he is and what he loves.

    Creel’s choices become Vecna’s when Will tries to get him to abandon his hateful ways. Will implores him, “You were just a kid, a kid like me. And it used you. It used you to bring it here. You’re just like me, Henry. A vessel. But you can resist it. Help us fight it. Don’t let it win, Henry, please. Don’t let it win.” For a moment, we think Will’s argument might sway Vecna. Maybe there is a heart there after all. That would be too easy a conclusion, too simple an out. 

    Creel replies, “No. It showed me the truth… It has never controlled me. And I never controlled it… Don’t you see, William? I could have resisted it. But I chose to join it.” In this scene, Creel doubles down on the hate and the power it brings. He’d rather stay maladjusted and powerful than figure out who he is as a member of society. It is a little frustrating that the origin and nature of the rock fragment isn’t explained in this episode, even if it’s clear that it is what allowed Creel to tap into the hive mind and wield the power of heteronormativity in the first place.

    The only other quibble I had with the finale was the use of two PRINCE songs in the escape scene. A wiser friend has since pointed out to me that “When Doves Cry” and “Purple Rain” are the first and last tracks on the second side of Purple Rain. I figured it was just a gratuitous use of two PRINCE songs, simply as a flex. It makes more sense now, but it still threw me for a loop because none of the characters in the show have mentioned PRINCE before.

    In comparison, Dustin flipping the bird to the principal while grabbing his diploma and jumping off the stage is exactly what his late hero Eddie said he’d do at graduation. So it only makes sense that we’d hear IRON MAIDEN with “The Trooper” in the background. (Remember, Eddie maintained that “this is real music!” while holding a copy of Piece of Mind on cassette in a pivotal scene in season four.) It doesn’t make much sense that Dustin would be so angry with his principal, though. These guys are all nerds. Don’t they at least begrudgingly accept their administration’s decisions and policies? Probably would have been too deep of a cut to pull out “Administrative Decisions” by SACRED REICH here. Oh, and the use of “Here Comes Your Man” by The PIXIES as “a new favorite” on WSQK as graduation nears makes sense in the world of the show, too.

    So yeah, the Duffer Bros. hit the right notes, stuck the landing, and tied up most of the loose ends. Even if the finale doesn’t hold up on repeated viewings, I will still cherish the experience of watching it for the first time. My family went to see it on New Year’s Eve at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus, Ohio. This theater is affiliated with The Ohio State University, and is located just south of its campus. We were there to watch this episode in a movie theater at roughly the same time that the Buckeyes were playing in ESPN’s College Football Playoff. They lost. I’m glad I passed on the chance to watch that game on television so I could experience the once-in-a-lifetime thrill of seeing the conclusion of Stranger Things’ ten-year-run in a public setting with my fellow nerds. The theater wasn’t full but the reactions to key scenes got enough of a pop from the crowd that it made the whole experience more special than any high-stakes game could have. And now, at home, at least I can watch it with subtitles.

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THESE REVIEWS:

Stranger Things, Season 5, Episodes 1-4 (The Duffer Brothers, Netflix, 2025)

Stranger Things, Season 5, Episodes 5-7 (The Duffer Brothers, Netflix, 2025)

Roll for Love by M.K. England