expand my vocabulary

I remember being in 3rd grade and spelling bee’s being THE COOLEST THING and winning especially cooler…”encyclopedia” was the winning word for me that year. I studied the dictionary, thesaurus, concordances, encyclopedias- every book, magazine and any thing printed so that I would be able to win that contest in my grade.
So my son asks me this morning, Ma- do you think a car going a hundred miles an hour can beat a cheetah? I told him no, of course not and when he gets to his Meme’s house he should look up cheetah’s and tell me later after work how fast they run.
So the discussion turned into the internet vs. encylopedias and vocabulary and reading in general.
My son (8 years old) thinks Google is an encyclopedia.
How sad. I have got to change that.
On another note- I have to confess that as I was walking out the door of my mother’s house I mentioned to her that she needs to visit Freerice.com and that she and Alex maybe would have fun trying it out.
Did you know, too, that http://www.merriam-webster.com has daily words to learn?
By the way…I really love the word persnickety…