Opus 2026-226: How Do You Spell “Useless”?

I am sure there are many ways.  My current nomination is “Encyclopedia”.

In my desire to understand Islam I have begun trying to read through the Hadith.  In one of my introspective moments I wondered what the encyclopedia could tell me.  When I used to try to get my middle school students to do research for term papers I limited their use of encyclopedias but tried to get across they were useful for getting a short overview of a topic.  That was all I hoped for.  I was to be sadly disappointed.

There was no article on the Hadith.  It is possible I could have consulted the index that comes with the set and find a page it was mentioned under another topic but I wanted a quick result not a drawn out adventure.

I have an encyclopedia on my shelf that I picked up free.  It has a well known name.  I guess it was another example of getting what you pay for.

homo unius libri

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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.