Quote:
Originally Posted by DMB
I note that in various discussions people refer to looking up words when reading. Me, I just read. I find in practice that I sometimes need a dictionary or thesaurus when writing, in order to find the mot juste. And then I am happy with my dt reference books. So I wonder why anyone needs to look up words so frequently as to interrupt their reading to do so and look words up in a dictionary in the reader. Of course, if you are reading in a language not your mother tongue, it's a different matter. There are always going to be words you're not sure of or have never even met. But if it's your own language and you are an adult, why the dictionary?
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I read a lot of non-fiction. Sometimes, there's a word I'm just not familiar with, and it's important to the concept I'm reading about. And I don't find the Kindle's dictionary lookup interface so cumbersome that I really need to think about it much (especially the tablet version).
But I don't think it's a matter of
need, necessarily. Your question, applied to cars, might sound something like, "Why does a car need a stereo?"