"It was a dark and stormy night," I began to write, feeling like the cartoonist who's made that line so popular. I paused, then imagined how one of my high school teachers would have acted had I turned in such a beginning.

"Redundant." Miss Carry commented.

"What?" I was puzzled not wanting to admit I didn't know the meaning of the word.

"Redundant!" Miss Carry wiggled her head and creased her brow showing annoyance. "Tautological."

Now I was really confused. I thought about looking up the definition in a dictionary but realized that I'd have to know how to spell such in order to do so. Why were dictionaries so dumb? I was embarrassed one time when I couldn't spell mnemonic in a spelling bee. Well, I looked it up under 'new' and it wasn't there; then I remembered pneumonia began with a 'p' so I went to the 'p' section and couldn't find it; I tried 'kneemonic' but, of course, came up blank. I realized then that dictionaries were only for people who already and seriously knew about words.

Should I write "It was a redundant night" as that might be what she wants? Well, once a teacher wrote "try alliteration" on a line of one of my short stories, so I substituted one of the words with alliteration. Was I ever humiliated! The teacher said that alliteration wasn't a word, as such, but a sound, repetition of the same sound such as the 'f' in fancy and foolish. Why hadn't she just said that in plain English. When she suggested I try alliteration, I hadn't a clue that it just wasn't a better descriptive choice. Perhaps I'd better not do the same with redundant.

Maybe I can look it up... but is the 're' a prefix and I have to check the dictionary under dundant? Is dundant spelled 'donedint' or what? Forget the dictionary, as usual.

Ah. I felt impressed with myself as I asked, "Could you give me a bit more help with my opening sentence, Miss Carry? I certainly can use your input." Flattery. Would she fall for it? Probably not, but worth a try.

Hostile rather than pleasant, she replied, "nights ARE dark..."

I broke her off, and in one breath blurted out, "Some nights when the moon is full my bedroom looks like a street light is shining right inside."

Miss Carry sighed one of those endless things that my mother does when she's had enough of me, but the teacher had to teach and couldn't walk out of the room into the kitchen, as my mother did.

"Okay. Stormy," she enunciated the word stormy and it sounded like a ghoulish Halloween statement. "Stormy nights are dark. Clouds are black. The moon isn't shining in your bedroom window. The stars aren't visible. The planets are concealed above thick rain clouds. Rain has made visibility difficult."

"Oh." I pretended to understand her almost-tirade. Maybe she did want me to write “it was a redundant night” but I was afraid.

"How come the cartoonist writes that, Miss Carry?" I was careful to not sound sarcastic.

"You're not a cartoonist! Do you want to learn to write and pass this course? This is English not `toon. I don't care what the funny paper shows, I care about written words making sense, not being repetitive, being selected with respect for the exquisite detail a perfectly put-together phrase allows us with our communicating."

"Thanks." I held my head in a position that my flushed face wasn't in full view of the class.

They'd heard all of this, of course, and I knew it'd be some classmate's lunchroom humor. I put my pen in an upright position as if its point would send a signal to the beyond and it might write on its own...like the finger movement on a Ouija board. Nothing beamed down. My face was cooler now so I smoothed out a paper, that wasn't the least bit wrinkled, grasped the pen in its writing position, shook my head with self-approval, and wrote my entire opening: "Night."

For the rest of my school years, I was always Honors English, I taught both high school and college English, and am a professional writer and poet. I still find dictionaries “dumb.” The Apple computer company’s Siri, on the iPhone 2012, has artificial intelligence. I asked “her” to spell a word, and she got it correct from just the sound of my voice. However, the word mnemonic confused her; well, it’s impossible to look that up in a printed dictionary as the spelling is so awkward, but I’ve confidence that Siri will learn.

But, here it is, 2012, and the United States of America has still not declared English its official language. Did you know that! Wonder why the United States Senate is having such a hard time with this bill? We’ve an official bird, and flag, but, alas, no language.