Mysteries of vernacular

Words have always had a fascination to me. I think the origin lies in my father having a large OED sitting in the kitchen adjacent the table; and so as we conversed at meal time he would and could drop a Bon mot whose meaning escaped me at which point he would refuse to define it but would insist that I dive into the dictionary and extract the true and contextual meaning from its depths.

My most remembered experience of this came on the morning of my taking the ACT. I was preparing eggs on the stove top and father corrected my use of tines in the process insisting that they be parallel to the bottom of the pan for optimal results. I foolishly asked what a tine was, I say foolishly for by this time his habit of sending me to the dictionary was well entrenched, and he sent me to the dictionary once again insisting that to do so would allow me to master and own the word - I did. Imagine my surprise when a few hours later, literally the first word in the vocabulary section of the ACT was to define tine. I knew that I would own that section of the test.

The interest in words continued in college where my senior year lunch group, would sit around the table and play stump the chump. We'd compete with each other to know a word that no one in the group could define. If you won the others bought your lunch. I won many a Monday lunch that way.
It was a great game. This game led to many another game of Boggle, Scrabble, Quiddler, and Words with Friends.

I enjoy reading about words, their etymology, usage or a well turned expressio. The Atlantic, long a source of engaging word articles recently review The Mysteries of vernacular. "Using paper cutouts and stop-motion animation, the delightful and informative Mysteries of Vernacular series brings the pages of antique books to life to tell the stories of everyday words." The article (click) is well worth the read.; but if you don't have time at least watch this video clip: