Howdy--I'm Katie, thet newest member of the Cambridge EchoDitto team. And yeah, I say howdy. It's a fantastic word--wait just a second while I go look up the etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary--and although not everyone says it in my recently departed home of Washington State, no one would smirk at a casual "howdy" thrown their way. Here's what the OED had to say about it: Howdy originates from the colloquial slurring of "How do you do"--or, more specifically, "There, how d'ye do now?" first found in Vanbrugh, circa 1697. I'm curious what other people think of howdy-ing. I personally have a soft spot for it; my father, an Idaho mountain man, greets everyone that way. He even tips the bill of his baseball cap. But, I can see that if you don't have that cowboy-mystique worked into your impression of howdy-ing it might sound like a holler from the stands of a greased pig catching contest, or something equally as unappealing. Disclaimer: I've never been to a greased pig catching contest, I'm only assuming it would be unpleasant.

There is something really fantastic about having the Oxford English Dictionary online at your fingertips. I just popped open a tab in mozilla and in seconds found more history of a single word than I could've scraped together in a day from books (excluding, of course, the print OED). It gives you a complete etymological history of a word--starting with the first recorded instance of it in print, with author and excerpt, and then traces its usage all the way to modern day. American English is blessed and cursed by its liquidity--our vocabulary is so fluid that the nuances of a word get forgotten too quickly. In speech that's fine, it's fun, but in writing . . . not so much. When a fiction writer calls his female character a lunatic, it's useful to know the rich history of the word (ie a person heavily influenced by the moon). The informed reader would not be surprised then when said woman transforms into a werewolf and goes on a grotesque hunting spree in the asylum that tried to hospitalize her five years earlier. That's not the greatest example, but you get the idea. Word play is only possible with a depth of knowledge. And there's too much knowledge to hold in our heads, so we've got to have accessible resources. All of this is somehow meandering to me telling you why I'm here at EchoDitto.

I'm not a technology person; I've even been accused of being a Luddite . . .but no worries I'm not that far lost. No, I just prefer sticky notes to emails, books to the Kindle. PS--I didn't tell Joshua that during the interview, so that's on the down-low. Is there any way to block certain paragraphs from certain readers? If so, please snailmail me a letter with detailed instructions.

Even I'll admit that some things are just better online, like the Oxford English Dictionary. It's highly unlikely that I would have run down to the library to look up "howdy" in the bound-version OED; especially since I haven't stumbled upon a public library yet in my week as a Cambridge resident. Plus, well, I'd be embarrassed if someone peeked over my shoulder and saw that "howdy" furrowed my brow. The feel I'm getting from EchoDitto is that they're just a bunch of folks helping conscientious organizations figure out the best way to use the internet. We separate the OEDonlines from the Myspaces. Then we help make the OEDs prettier. I am glad to be working here, figuring out how to use technology in a way that benefits everyone, even people like me.