30 April 2008

Dirt is wonderful stuff.

Without dirt, we could not survive on this damp ball we call home.

That’s what I’ve always thought

My Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, tenth edition, shows numerous definitions, none of which are even close to what I have always considered to be “dirt”, as in the stuff where plants grow. Most of the dictionary definitions for “dirt” have to do with really disgusting, nasty stuff. Not a word about plowing, planting, or plants.

Not, exactly, what I had in mind. OK, I can adjust.

So, how about “soil”?

After digging through all the verbs; “to stain or defile morally”, “to make unclean”, “to blacken or besmirch”, etc., we get to the noun(s) with definitions such as “moral defilement”, “something that spoils or pollutes” “sewage”, “excrement”, “corruption”, “dung”, and . . .

. . . (finally!!) “firm land”, “the upper layer of earth that may be dug or plowed and in which plants grow”.

I would have thought this last definition would have been at or near the top of the list for “soil”.

It seems the editors of this dictionary had their heads in the dirt.