I’ve always wondered what other people do when they come across a word/phrase that they’ve never heard before. I mean, do they jot it down on paper so they can look it up later, or do they stop reading to look it up on the dictionary/google it or do they just continue reading and forget about the word?

Maybe it’s just because I’ve racked up a lot of reading miles on the treadmills of reading and writing – I mean, I wrote a poem stating that I wanted to be an author when I was about seven – but it’s been a long time since I’ve come across a phrase that wasn’t fairly obvious just from context.

In fact, one thing that drives me crazy is when I see other adults who don’t know how to infer meaning, don’t understand how helpful context is. Did they have bad teachers? Are their brains just not wired the same way mine is? Who can say?

On the rare occasion that I do have a word or phrase that remains a mystery, my choice of reference depends on where I am. If I’m comfortably settled in the bath, I’m not going to race to my laptop and hit Dictionary.com or the Urban Dictionary, or use Google, but I’ll let the phrase sit in the back of my head until I have time for such a thing.

If I’m reading online – as I do a lot – then yes, I will fire up another tab in FireFox and see where it leads me. Doing so can often lead to wonderful adventures, and new turns of phrase.

Prompt provided by Booking Through Thursday.