At the end of the post, I’ll provide some links to a few dictionaries we have recommended. There are too many to address in one post, but hopefully this brief exploration will inspire you to investigate your own dictionary a bit more thoroughly. With that thought in mind, let’s take a look at just a few of the fascinating features found in dictionaries. I hope you’ll bear with me anyway because dictionaries are pretty nifty resources.
Most well known dictionary full#
But for the rest of us out there who love to page through a thesaurus, pore over a concordance, or invest in a shelf full of specialty dictionaries, I dedicate this post to you.Īlthough I tried to keep this post light and entertaining, I did dive a little deeply into some of the more esoteric components. If you are one of those people, I understand. I’ll be getting fairly technical in this blog post, but I know that not everyone gets as excited as I do about reference materials. While it is true that asking Siri, Alexa, or Google to define the word penumbra or spell the word criterion is pretty much commonplace these days, printed dictionaries offer delights beyond simply looking up a spelling or meaning. The publishing of Johnson’s dictionary is often said to be the most important cultural moment of the 18th century.When was the last time you pulled a dictionary off the shelf to look up a word? For many of us, I suspect the answer would be, “I don’t remember.” That’s unfortunate. However, it was definitely the most comprehensive and well-known variant, only knocked off the top spot with the arrival of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1884. Johnson’s dictionary wasn’t the first English dictionary – that title goes to Richard Mulcaster's list of English words that was published in the 16th century, or to Robert Cawdrey’s Table Alphabeticall published in 1604. To which are prefixed, a history of the language, and an English grammar', Johnson’s dictionary took the lexicographer only 9 years, while it took a team of 40 people a total of 55 years to complete the French equivalent of the era. With the tongue-twisting full title of 'A dictionary of the English Language: in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. Johnson’s humorous and surprising spirit seeped into his dictionary.
In many ways, Johnson was a man of his times, but some aspects of his life are more surprising, including his friendship with his valet, the freed slave Francis Barber, who would become Johnson’s great friend and heir.
Johnson was an interesting character – feeding his cat Hodge with fresh oysters, penning poems to dead ducklings, and convulsing and contorting his face with an unknown condition, which meant that he sometimes chose to lock himself up with chains and a padlock. This story shows the wry wit and humour of the legendary Dr Samuel Johnson. Embarrassed, the ladies immediately dropped the subject. Johnson responded, “What! my dears! then you have been looking for them?”.
On one of these visits, the two ladies were paying Johnson many compliments about his recently published dictionary, particularly commending him for not including any ‘ghastly’ rude words. Samuel Johnson, creator of the Dictionary of Modern English, would often visit two sisters in 18th-century London – Mrs Digby and Mrs Brooke.
0 kommentar(er)
