‘More than a dictionary’
Do you know what the longest word in the English language is? Third-graders across Greene County and the nation do, thanks to a grass roots service project started by Annie Plummer, who recognized the importance of books and education by investing $50 to purchase 30 pocket dictionaries she handed out to children in Savannah, Ga., in 1992.
Plummer’s initiative grew into an international effort with organizations such as Rotary International adopting it as a service project.
This year, 400 dictionaries were given to third-graders in Greene County. According to the Dictionary Project website, “Educators describe third grade as the time when a student transitions from learning to read to reading to learn.”
“It is a neat thing that doesn’t cost Rotary a ton of money,” said Dave Jones, who heads the project for Waynesburg Rotary Club. Jones said each book costs less than $3.
Locally, members of the Waynesburg and Masontown Rotary clubs distributed dictionaries to Greene County third-graders for years. The Masontown Rotary Club takes care of Carmichaels and Southeastern Greene school districts and the Waynesburg chapter takes care of Central Greene, West Greene, Jefferson-Morgan and private schools.
It may seem surprising in a day and age when electronic gadgets are the go-to resource for young people, that a dictionary would elicit excitement. That, however, is the case each fall when members of local Rotary Club chapters present them as gifts.
“With all of the electronics and the Internet, you wouldn’t think it would be a really big thing to them, but they do get very excited,” said Jay Hammers, Waynesburg Rotary Club member. “You have kids saying, ‘I remember my brother got one of these last year.’ It shows that this is something they have been looking forward to. They get to put their name in it and it is theirs to keep.”
The “Student’s Dictionary,” published by the Dictionary Project, Inc., not only helps students to learn definitions of words, it also exposes them to alphabetization and new words to build their vocabulary.
These skills become more relevant when looking at literacy statistics.
Worldwide, nearly 800 million adults lack the literacy skills needed to complete a job application, understand a child’s report card or read a prescription.
It is estimated 32 million of those adults reside in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy.
Hammers said volunteers give a brief presentation on Rotary when they hand out books explaining to students that Rotary is a club that tries to do good locally and around the world.
The dictionaries are distributed Oct. 16 in commemoration of National Dictionary Day, the birthday of Noah Webster, who published the first American dictionary.
Since 2002, when Rotary took on the project, nearly 9.5 million books were donated, and, so far in 2014-2015, Rotary International donated 1,012,510 books to students in more than 11,787 schools with 1,798 Rotary clubs participating.
As for the longest word, according to this dictionary, it is an enzyme with 1,909 letters in its name but don’t use it as an answer if you land on Jeopardy.
There is much debate over the actual longest word, especially when scientific words can stretch into six digits.
It is, however, one addition to the 150 supplemental pages in the “Student’s Dictionary,” along with short presidential biographies, maps of the world, the sign language alphabet, braille and a breakdown of the United States Constitution.
“It’s so much more than a dictionary,” said Jones.