Monty by Jim Meddick for November 18, 2019

Think encyclopedists can’t be tough? Read ’Foundation

It takes a certain type of person to spend their life arranging thousands of words in alphabetical order.

I love reading my old encyclopedias… some older than me… and just comparing how times have changed…

Wikipedia, alternative facts, and hyperbole has all of them beat.

I can’t recall….did Thesaurus walk on two or four legs?

I own the world’s worst thesaurus. Not only is it awful, it’s awful.

I can find any information I want on the Internet. It may be true or false, fact or fiction, but you can be guaranteed it’s the information I want. Commenters on GoComics forums prove this daily. ; )

Wilson: [reading from an encyclopedia] “P O O K A – Pooka – from old Celtic mythology – a fairy spirit in animal form – always very large. The pooka appears here and there – now and then – to this one and that one – a benign but mischievous creature – very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?” “How are you, Mr. Wilson?” “Who in the encyclopedia wants to know?” – “Harvey” 1950

Do Millennials and Zoomers even know what an encyclopedia is?? Before web surfing and wikis, a kid could get just as lost in researching 4th Grade homework in the World Book. Looking at the pictures, getting distracted by other entries (even about cats!), even the smell of the ink on the pages. It was pretty much all there, except the pictures didn’t move or have sound and they were in black and white. And thankfully, there were no ads.

What’s another word for “Thesaurus”?…

From Diderot to Britannica to Wikipedia, and so it goes. In my bookish youth, I was especially fond of one calling itself The Volume Library: such a wonderful assortment of trivia (though the science of it all is now much dated)….

Sarcasm ill suits a fellow-book.

Printing an encyclopedia? Why would you want to do that? Soon there will be people who think that all the answers can be found in one book….