“Hm. How About ‘Tickle Rod’?”

Got a new dictionary today and immediately looked up the word “dildo.”

How’s that for the start of an entry? The lookup was unintentional, I swear. My place of work finally ordered the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for everyone in my department, and because I’m the kind of person who will even flip through a phonebook as long as it’s new, I started flipping through the dictionary.

The first page I landed on was page 350, and there it was in the second column, four words down, between “dilatory” and “dilemma.” Did you know “dildo” was coined in 1598? Its origins are unknown, though. Very disappointing.

So while Ben Jonson was being charged with killing Gabriel Spencer and the Seven Year War between Korea and Japan was winding down, someone somewhere said, “Hey, that thing needs a name.... What should we call it?” But we’ll never know who.

Not to revisit the whole movie quotation blitz or anything, but what made me smile about this little incident was that it reminded me of Otis’s line in Kicking and Screaming when Chet gives the boys a dictionary as a housewarming gift: “Cool! A dictionary! I’m gonna look up ‘blowjob.’ ” One of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. As well as one of the most authentic and wistful (relationships-wise).

(P.S. “Blowjob” was coined in 1942, just in case you wanted to know.)

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A Brief List of Books to Be Found in My Father’s Winter Library
(Or, “Wow, that dude Torrey sure could write a page-turner!”)

Balme and Lawall: Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek, Books I and II
J. T. Hooker: Linear B: An Introduction
Autenrieth: A Homeric Dictionary
Ventris & Chadwick: Documents in Mycenaean Greek: 300 Tablets from Knosos, Pylos & Mycenae
Herodotus (in ancient Greek)
Plato: Apology (in ancient Greek)
Plato: The Last Days of Socrates (in ancient Greek)
Lehmann: Historical Linguistics
Herbert J. Muller: The Loom of History
Georges Roux: Ancient Iraq
Turnbaugh, Jurmain, Nelson, and Kilgore: Understanding Physical Anthropology and Archaeology
Walton: Elementary Quantitative Analysis
Frankel: Gravitational Curvature
Goldstein, Lay, Schneider: Calculus and Its Applications
Goodwin Quimby Morgan: Physical Foundations of Radiology
DeGown: Bedside Diagnostic Examination
DiFiore: Atlas of Human Histology
Artwright: Disease and History
Torrey: Morphogenesis of the Vertebrates
Brock: Biology of Microorganisms
Bold: Morphology of Plants
Besey Dexter Dyer: A Field Guide to Bacteria
Coma: Preparing the Thoroughbred: A Trainer’s Guide
Lungwitz and Adams: The Complete Guide to Blacksmithing
Lasley: Genetic Principles in Horse Breeding, Revised
Adams: Lameness in Horses
Henry Bromze: Treasury of American Turf
James Gill: Bloodstock
The Duke of Beaufort: Fox Hunting

If one were so inclined, one could deduce from this list (a) my father’s occupation, (b) a current hobby of his, (c) a past hobby of his, and (d) a field of study he’d wanted to pursue before he settled on his course of action in college. Then there are a few that don’t fit comfortably in any of those four molds, but which lend further evidence that my father is more of a Renaissance man that I will ever be.