Today's "Word of the Day" over at Dictionary.com is "amaranthine."

1. Unfading; everlasting. 2. Of or like the amaranth flower. 3. Of purplish-red color.

I'm a big fan of "word of the day" type sites, and bounce between Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster.com to get my fix (M-W's word today is "diluvial"). Not that I ever remember these words again after I read them, but it's fun for the moment.

Anyway...

I bring this all up because "amaranthine" is a word I actually know in the context of "everlasting."

As in, I have dyslexia, which is amaranthine in nature.

When I was very young... 1st or 2nd grade in school... I was tested for dyslexia because I exhibited some of the symptoms. After a couple weeks evaluation it was determined that I did indeed have dyslexia, albeit a fairly mild form of it. This meant that I had to attend special classes with Mrs. Patton to teach me how to compensate for my problem. After a couple months they decided that the classes weren't doing me any good, and I was doing a better job of teaching my brain how to handle it by myself.

And eventually I got a handle on it.

I "read" more by the shapes of words and their context rather than the letters they contain.

I "type" more by memorizing patterns of keystrokes instead of punching the alphabet.

I "write" using visual clues that help me to keep the letters going the right way.

It works automatically after all these years and I don't even have to think about it. Which is not to say that I don't still run into trouble from time to time. Usually I start mixing things up when I am tired or the the words are printed on something really distracting. Single words out of context can be problematic if they're written in a typeface that doesn't maintain common letterforms. Numbers sometimes have to be looked at two and three times before I'm confident enough to act upon them. And so on.

I can go weeks... even months... at a time before I "remember" that I have dyslexia. Something will happen to draw my attention to it, and then I'll spend a couple days not being able to forget it, which is always fun.

And this morning I was "reminded" of my dyslexia again. But in a good way.

A company in the Netherlands has developed a typeface called "Dyslexie" which is specially designed to help dyslexics...

Sweet!

Unfortunately, it's not priced for public consumption (yet), nor does it seem to be available in the USA (yet), but it's still pretty exciting news. Being able to install it on my Mac for web browsing and email reading might make my day a little less mentally tiring.

And every little bit helps.

Because life isn't amaranthine at all.