Words and dictionaries

Text 6

Express your opinion of the content and the expression-plane of the text.

Discuss the text in class.

Present a summary of the text.

Summarize each paragraph from the text in one or two sentences.

Use the vocabulary practiced in tasks 1 and 2 to make up short conversations.

Tasks

1. Find the Russian equivalents for the following words and word-combinations:

obsolete, archaic, disappearance of words, in the process of being lost, under certain special conditions, everyday vocabulary, to survive in common use in fixed expressions or related forms, similarly, to be hardly in general use nowadays, when it does occur, exotic or poetic overtones, rare in one place and still much used in another, distant in time and space, humdrum world, examples of obsolescence, a word of everyday occurrence, present-day speakers, courageous-sounding, to revive for special uses, fondness for the old words, to resurrect, revival, subject to the whims of fortune, to pass from the scene, great variety of processes, to involve, from birth through growth and changes to death, a long life-history, an individual word, from its origin through its changing forms and meanings to its present state, the chief source of information about words.

2. Make up sentences with the following words and word-combinations:

to be in the process of being lost, under certain special conditions, to survive in common use in fixed expressions or related forms, to be hardly in general use nowadays, distant in time and space, a word of everyday occurrence, from time to time, from birth through growth and changes to death, from its origin through its changing forms and meanings to its present state, the chief source of information, to involve.

3. Make your own list of key–units and topical vocabulary.

9. Choose any of the following topics to write a short essay:

1) Obsolete and archaic linguistic expressions.

2) How to use words.

3) Archaic words in dictionaries.

4) The etymology of a word is its life-history.

5) The disappearance of words is easy to observe.

Ambrose Bierce, a cynical humorist of the early twentieth century, wrote a book called The Devil's Dictionary, in which he defined dictionary as "a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic." It is doubtful that any lexicographers would agree with Bierce. They would more likely agree with Dr. Johnson, one of the most famous writers of dictionaries, that a lexicographer is a "harmless drudge." Still, people often use dictionaries in a way that justifies Bierce's definition.

Any conversation in which the word dictionary appears is likely to reflect some curious misconceptions about the nature and purpose of this most commonly used reference work. For example, we often talk about "the dic­tionary" as though there were some one great archetypal book of which all existing works are copies or abridgments. We may assume that all dictionaries give the same information, only in greater or lesser detail. We may also assume that every word in a dictionary is "good" and that any word not in the dictionary is either "bad" or nonexistent. We are sure that the dictionary knows whereof it speaks; it contains all and only truth, to guide us among the snares with which our linguistic path is set. On the contrary, any faith in the infallibility of a dictionary is ill placed and reflects a misunderstanding of its purpose.

Clear thinking about dictionaries will reveal the fact that there are a great many different ones, which differ among themselves in their purpose, their content, and their reliability. We will consider some of the variety of diction­aries in the following pages, but first we need to ask what it is that all dictionaries have in common. In the most general sense with which we need be concerned, a dictionary is a list of words with some information about each. A dictionary is commonly used as a reference work, consulted only on special occasions to find specific information, although there are some in­veterate word-watchers who would rather read a dictionary than the latest novel. The words in a dictionary are usually arranged alphabetically, al­though there are exceptions, such as the thesaurus (usually a dictionary of synonyms, which may be arranged by meaning). The information given for each word usually includes a definition, although some special dictionaries give only one kind of information, such as pronunciation or etymology.

We can add two other very important facts about dictionaries. One is that none of them are complete. We have already seen that no book can ever contain all the words in the English language. Because English speakers are constantly making up new words and using old words in new ways, even the largest and most up-to-date dictionary will be incomplete before it is ever published. Dictionary-makers must feel rather like Alice in Looking-Glass Land when she discovered, after she and the Red Queen had run as fast and as long as they were able, that they were in the same place they had started from:

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get someplace else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

No matter how long or how fast the lexicographer works, he cannot catch up with the speakers of English. Before he can finish his job and publish his dictionary, the word stock of English has changed, and he is still behind the times.

The other fact about dictionaries that we need to keep in mind is that they are more like newspapers than like legal codes. A dictionary reports facts about words as its editors have observed them. It does not lay down a series of laws telling you what you may or may not do. Some dictionaries may editorialize a bit, but a good dictionary will always indicate when it is just giving the facts and when it is expressing an opinion. In any case, modern dictionaries editorialize as little as possible. It is not really the lexicographer's fault if some people treat his work as an infallible set of rules "for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic." A good diction­ary reports the facts as clearly and accurately as it can. What the dictionary-user does with the facts is up to him.

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