09Sep September 9, 2006 – Vade Mecum

Vade Mecum \vay-dee-MEE-kuhm; vah-dee-MAY-\, noun:
1. A book for ready reference; a manual; a handbook.
2. A useful thing that one regularly carries about.

The reader who wants honestly to understand it, and not merely read into it his own ideas, needs some kind of vade mecum to provide the necessary background and explain unfamiliar words and allusions and strange turns of thought.
— Robert C. Dentan, “Including Uz and Buz”, New York Times, November 17, 1968

Roget’s Thesaurus, which had come into being as a linguistic example of the Platonic ideal, became instead a vade mecum for the crossword cheat.
— Simon Winchester, “Word Imperfect”, The Atlantic, May 2001

Vade mecum is from Latin, literally meaning “go with me.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for vade mecum

So, no hits on Youtube. How about Google Video? Nada.

Crap.

OK. Nothing on youtube for “A book for ready reference.” I searched for Reference Book instead – it seemed a fair substitute. I have to admit this project is causing more judgement calls than I expected. Got some hits there.

Oh. Thank non-existent God for this!