From the history of English lexicography

Text 7

Discuss different types of dictionaries in class.

Express your opinion of the content and 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 task 1 to make up situations of your own.

Tasks

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

cramping; malevolent; inelastic; doubtful; a "harmless drudge"; to reflect some curious misconceptions; most commonly used, some one great archetypal book; abridgment; to assume; in greater or lesser detail; to guide us among the snares with which our linguistic path is set; on the contrary; the faith in the infallibility of a dictionary; purpose; misunderstanding; to reveal the fact; which differ among themselves in their purpose, their content, and their reliability; on special occasions; to find specific information; some in­veterate word-watchers; the thesaurus; to contain; to compile; to use old words in new ways; no matter how long or how fast the lexicographer works; to catch up with; the word stock of English; still behind the times; to keep in mind; legal codes; telling you what you may or may not do, to express an opinion, in any case; as little as possible; to report the facts.

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

English dictionaries have a long history. The earliest ones, which were bilingual, were intended for medieval schoolboys studying Latin and consisted merely of a list of Latin words together with an English synonym for each. It was not until 1604 that the first all-English dictionary was published by Robert Cawdrey, with the complete title:

A Table Alphabeticall, contayning and teaching the true writing, and understand­ing of hard usuall English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French.

With the interpretation thereof by plaine English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other unskilfull persons.

Whereby they may the more easilie and better understand many hard English wordes, which they shall heare or read in Scriptures, Sermons, or elsewhere, and also be made to use the same aptly themselves.

Cawdrey's title, which is short enough as early book titles go, clearly indicates the nature of his work and the readership for whom it was intended. The 2500 "hard words" in the book include aberration, circumspect, horizon, in­corporate, mutation, and obnubilate 'to cloud.'

Presumably, any gentleman could be expected to understand such words because of his long education in Latin. His fair lady, who had a more limited schooling, however, needed some little crib book to help her keep up with the knowledge explosion of the seventeenth century and to supply her with elegant words to decorate her conversation. Each word in Cawdrey's diction­ary was given a short definition, often a literal translation of the Latin source. Thus aberration was defined as "a going a stray, or wandering." From such a limited beginning came the great English dictionary tradition.

In the hundred and fifty years after Cawdrey, lexicographers vied with and plagiarized from one another, making gradual improvements in their work until in 1755 Dr. Samuel Johnson published his great Dictionary of the English Language. By Johnson's time it had become usual for dictionaries to attempt a complete listing of English words with full definitions, to show what syllables were stressed, to indicate the part of speech, and to guess—often not very successfully—at the etymology of the word. Johnson did all of these things better than his precursors and added the practice of illustrating his definitions with short quotations from English writers, showing how the words were actually used.

In the century following Johnson the only significant advance in lexicog­raphy was that dictionary-makers began to indicate the pronunciation of words. The two most famous pronouncing dictionaries were those by Thomas Sheridan (1780) and John Walker (1791). These men were actors and elocu­tionists, or teachers of public speaking. Consequently, the pronunciations they recorded tended to be the artificially formal ones of the stage and the platform rather than the more natural pronunciations of conversation.

The most famous name in lexicography is certainly that of the American Noah Webster, although he is often confused with his younger contemporary Daniel Webster, the statesman. Webster's two-volume American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) was a highly successful work not only in the United States but in England as well. Indeed, it made Webster's name synonymous with dictionaries, so that "What does Webster say?" seldom means anything more than "What is in any dictionary?" Yet Webster's dictionary did not make any notable contributions to the art of lexicography. In fact, his method of indicating pronunciation is poorer than that of either Sheridan or Walker.

In 1884, exactly one hundred years after the death of Dr. Johnson, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, now usually known as The Oxford English Dictionary (see footnote 1, p. 3), began to be published. The OED was not the work of a single man but was produced by the combined efforts of many. Behind the more than 16,000 folio pages of the OED lies an immense amount of work on the part of men around the world. It is without doubt the finest dictionary in existence for any language.

As its complete title states, the OED is a historical dictionary. It attempts to list every word that has ever been used in English and to trace the history of each word from its first recorded appearance to the time of the dictionary's compilation, describing all changes in spelling, use, and meaning. The OED is not the kind of book you would want to keep on your desk to use in deciding whether you should spell traveler with one or two l's; but as a source for information about the earlier history of words in English, the OED is without peer.

Today there are many different kinds of dictionaries that serve special purposes. Most convenient for general use is a desk dictionary, like The American College Dictionary (1947) and its successor The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (1968), Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (1953), Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963), Funk & Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary (1963), or The American Heritage Dictionary (1969). Any of these dictionaries will serve the needs of the college student or the general user.

For more detailed reference there are several larger works. The best known, and a highly reliable book in most respects, is Webster's Third New International Dictionary. When the Webster's Third appeared in 1961 it stirred up a contro­versy that has not yet completely subsided. One group of reviewers greeted it with cries of "anarchy," "disastrous," "vulgarism," and even "bolshevik." Another group hailed it with "excellent," "tremendous scope," "distinguished, scholarly work," and "the new authority." The teapot tempest that surged around the dictionary has been chronicled by James Sledd and Wilma R. Ebbitt in Dictionaries and THAT Dictionary (Chicago, 1962).

In addition to the general dictionaries, there are more specialized ones, such as those devoted to slang, occupational jargons, abbreviations, or place names. There are dictionaries that restrict their attention to pronunciation, synonyms, or etymologies. There are dictionaries that treat older forms of English, such as the Middle English Dictionary (in progress), and regional forms, such as the Dictionary of American Regional English (in preparation). There are dictionaries of usage and, to come full circle, there are still bilingual diction­aries and dictionaries of hard words. Our English word-stock has been re­corded with loving care by generations of harmless drudges.

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