The Den

----------------

Dano declared that Webster's Unabridged English Dictionary and all the assortments of English dictionaries are not "companionable" but "referential." The owners of the dictionaries should refer to them with care, doubt, and disbelief, Dano stressed. The Korean teachers and students have tended to depend on the dictionaries too much.

Text:

They would not be watching his bedroom, and Luigi said he was relieved by that. If Marco managed to find a woman willing to visit him, they could catch her coming and going with the camera in the den, and that was certainly enough for Luigi. If he got really bored, he could hit a switch and listen for fun. (The Broker, John Grisham, p.152)

Dano's comment:

The huge number of English words are not established in their meanings. In other words, many English words do not have fixed meanings. "They are only listed there in the dictionaries for a frame of reference. That's been hard of the Korean speakers of English to realize. Really hard. why? Because their eyes have been glued to the dictionary pages. In short, the words in dictionaries have been used as the absolute guides for them."

It's been so disappointing to see that most of the Korean translators or something to convey the meaning of the bold typed noun the den as a private study or library or something. I wish I could show the Korean versions which have been appearing in the translated novels. The noun the den does not have its own fixed meaning. It only represents his bedroom, that is, it is a substitution for “his room.” *Note that the substitution should have the definite article the as a modifying determiner.