Dictionaries, today and in the past (Guest:Lorriane)

Question

What are the main differences between the ways in which dictionaries were written tarditionally and the way they are written today

Tam · Accepted Answer

Modern dictionaries can be quite detailed and usually include the orgin of the word, its different forms ( ie: noun verb adjective, adverb) and give everyday examples of its use.

Traditional dictionary put more emphasis on the meaning of the word. It was in 1755 when Dr Samual Johnson published this dictionary, that the addition of examples of the use of the word was first seen. However the dictionary has evolved quite far since that copy.

Below is a short biography of Johnson and an example of his dictionary and you can see how things have changed!!

taken from http://www.varsity.cam.ac.uk/802567B80049EF7D/Pages/232000_DictionaryJohnson.html

Dr Samuel Johnson: 18th century wit and man of letters extraordinaire. Few men, with the possible exception of Winston Churchill, have been so adept at using language to reduce both close acquaintances and total strangers to quivering blobs of intellectual jelly. The prowess of his verbal jousting made him the Sir Lancelot of the coffee house circuit, even though his considerable girth made it difficult to mount a doorstep, let alone a horse.

At the same time as terrorising and exhilarating the London literati the Doctor single-handedly undertook the most comprehensive and illuminating survey of the vernacular tongue that England had ever seen. It is this incredible achievement that he is best remembered for. Almost ten years in the making, his Dictionary was published on 15th April 1755. Its two massive volumes were transported through the London streets on wagons to get them from the printers to Johnson's garret in Gough Square.

His was not the first dictionary, nor did it contain the most words (around 40,000), but its appeal lay in the fact that Johnson supplemented his definitions with illustrative examples from the "golden age" of English literature. Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Dryden, and Milton are all plundered. The young Robert Browning, having decided to become a poet, is siad to have read the dictionary from cover to cover to acquaint himself with the full extent of England's poetic armoury.

With the influx of foreign terminology, there were attempts throughout the 18th Century to fix the language, in order to prevent its dilution or corruption. Writing of the time was particularly sensitive to the semantic volatility of words – fashionable neologisms or continental additions ("cant terms" in Johnsonian parlance) were viewed with suspicion. Britain was undergoing a period of rapid expansionism, and therefore the Dictionary had a social and political function by strengthening the national identity of the tongue.

The Dictionary however is most entertaining when failing to do its job. One effort involved listing 65 different definitions of the verb "to fall" – the last of which merely defines the difficulty of defining the word. In spite of the demand for objectivity, Johnson's strong personality makes its way onto the pages of the Dictionary. Here are fifteen of the most amusing definitions:

BOY.n.s. 1. A male child; not a girl.
DROSS.n.s. The recrement or dispumation of metals.
DULL.adj. 8. Not exhilarating; not delightful: as, to make dictionaries is dull work.
ETCH.n.s. A country word of which I know not the meaning.
EXCI'SE.n.s. A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges or property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
HUSBAND.n.s. The correlative to wife; a man married to a woman.
IGNORAMUS.n.s. 2. A foolish fellow; a vain uninstructed pretender. A low word.
IRONY.n.s. A mode of speech in which the meaning is contrary to the words: as, Bolingbroke was a holy man.
LEXICOGRAPHER.n.s. A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.
NETWORK.n.s. Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.
OATS.n.s. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
PARSNEP.n.s. A plant.
PATRON.n.s. 1. One who countenances, supports, or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
RUSE.n.s. Cunning; artifice; little stratagem; trick; wile; fraud; deceit. A French word neither elegant nor necessary.
SKEPTICK.n.s. One who doubts, or pretends to doubt, of every thing.

Johnson was realistic enough to know that no dictionary could ever fix meaning but could merely slow down the rate of change. He comments in his preface: "While our language is yet living, and variable by the caprice of every one that speaks it, these words are hourly shifting their relations, and can no more be ascertained in a dictionary, than a grove, in the agitation of a storm, can be accurately delineated from its picture in the water." The joy of the Dictionary lies in the fact that Johnson the lexicographer could never escape Johnson the wit: he couldn't help playing with language even as he went about capturing it.
James Knight

Dictionaries, today and in the past (Guest:Lorriane)

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