You would really think I should have something better to do with my time, and I do, but this is really bugging me.
Wandering through a bookshop in Taipei on Saturday I remembered that I want a thesaurus. I found one, eventually, and by way of experiment looked up ‘assinine’.
This is a word I’ve been aware of for a long time, and thought was real, but it wasn’t in the book. It wasn’t in the Oxford, Websters, Cambridge, Collins or any other dictionaries either.
Is this something I dreamt up? And if so, why do my (native speaking) colleagues all think it’s a real word too? What’s going on?
If you too are screwing around to avoid doing anything useful today, then why not distract yourself for a few moments by checking your reference books, or telling me what I’m doing wrong?
Whenever I look for English/Chinese dictionaries, I always check for the words ironic and sarcastic. Most dictionaries post almost identical explanations. Does anybody else have any regular test words in assessing a good Chinese-English/ English-Chinese dictionary?
I think the above posters have exercised considerable restraint over the ‘asinine’ misspeller, given the meaning of the word an’ all! I guess the ‘joke’ is just too obvious - made me smile though. Thx for that:)
For what it’s worth I would have spelled it with the extra ‘s’ had I not read this thread.
You didn’t spell it wrong . You merely gave a different spelling. In fact the dictionaries that they use in Taiwan probably use American spelling most of the time. It is also common that dictionaries do not include many scientific words. Therefore you shouldn’t feel so stupid. Personally I think a-s-i-n-i-n-e- looks assinine compared to a-s-s-i-n-i-n-e. Much clearer.
